Digital Home Thoughts: eHomeUpgrade Interviews Peter Brown of Defective By Design

"Have you been curious about that odd, but strangely interesting group called Defective By Design? Great. We were too. That's why we booked an appointment with Peter Brown to get the inside scoop on what the DBD was all about. As a bonus, since Peter Brown is the Executive Director at The Free Software Foundation, we chatted about the goals of the organization and how DRM negatively impacts the Free Software Movement and society in general (by the way, that's Free as in Freedom). Below is the recording of the conversation."

DRM is evil. DRM is unacceptable to our society and should be unacceptable to any society that holds concepts like personal freedom dear. This is the doctrine that Defective By Design was created under. Defective By Design is a campaign being run by the Free Software Foundation to eradicate Digital Rights Management (or Digital Restrictions Management as he calls it) schemes implemented in software or hardware. And we're not just talking iTunes here folks. From the DVD you just bought to the HD LCD set you've been looking at, DRM schemes have worked themselves into every aspect of digital media. And invariably these schemes are there to benefit the manufacturer, not the consumer. They are literally taking our freedom to choose what to do with our own, rightfully-bought content. In drastic cases, control of a device is taken away from you (e.g. Sony's rootkit). Defective By Design wants us to stand up for our personal rights and send a message to the industries that this sort of Orwellian conduct is entirely unacceptable and inexcusable. Anyway, you can listen to the interview here. It's about 40 minutes, but I urge you to listen and decide for yourself if you think DRM has a place in the world you'd like to live in.