Defective by design

Campaign logo

Campaign poster 2006

Defective by Design (in German about 'defective due to the design', translated: 'intentional construction error') is a campaign by the Free Software Foundation against Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). The Free Software Foundation understands the official term Digital Rights Management ( Engl. For, Digital rights management ') as misleading because it suggests the content - provider would safeguard rights although this only means restrictions for consumers. Therefore, the FSF proposes Digital Restrictions Management (Engl. For Digital Restriction Management ) in front of DRM.

DRM limits the consumer's ability to use freely purchased films, music, books, and software. The aim of Defective by Design is to remove these restrictions and to allow the user as much freedom as possible. The campaign warns of a "destruction of the digital future" by DRM, which it would like to prevent through educational campaigns among the population. The target of the campaigns are often large media companies (especially the music industry ) and distributors of DRM products. Defective by Design claims to have 12,000 registered members (as of 2006).

history

Defective by Design was founded in May 2006 with a protest march against the WinHEC . During the protests, members of the Free Software Foundation in yellow protective clothing distributed leaflets describing Microsoft products as “defective by design” because they contained DRM.

Since then there have been many actions of controversial success. The attempt to arrange a meeting with Bono , a prominent member of the band U2 and proponent of the DRM-controlled iTunes, failed .

The 3. October 2006 was declared the "Day Against DRM".

Mid- 2007 there was a campaign against the iPlayer of the BBC , which on Windows Media based DRM. Furthermore, an action against Microsoft's Windows Vista , supported by environmental organizations, was initiated, which opposed its high hardware requirements and the accelerated scrapping of old computers as a result.