DRM Protest at Tower Records on Saturday Feb 25th at noon
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TUESDAY, 21 FEBRUARY 2006
CONTACT:
Nelson Pavlosky | Free Culture Swarthmore
mobile: (973) 580-7510
nelson@freeculture.org
http://swarthmore.freeculture.org
FREE CULTURE SWARTHMORE STRIKES BACK AT DAMAGING RECORD COMPANY DRM
Following successful demonstrations by Free Culture NYU, Swarthmore Students will stand up for the rights of music consumers in a protest on February 25th at the Tower Records store on South Street.
Music consumers are suffering from restrictive “copy protection” or “Digital Rights Management” (DRM) software, digital locks placed on music CDs by record companies that are more interested in controlling what customers can do with their legally purchased music than providing an enjoyable product. Music locked down with DRM frequently cannot be copied to portable audio players or sampled for use in new creative works, and recent Sony DRM schemes have exposed their customers to computer crashes and virus attacks. Many other “copy-protected” CDs remain on the market. None effectively prevent copyright infringement, and all of them violate Compact Disc specifications and render users unable to exercise their fair use rights under US copyright law.
Free Culture co-founder and President Nelson Pavlosky said, “these sneaky DRM schemes endanger users and stop you from doing perfectly legal things like putting your music onto your iPod. It’s ridiculous; consumers don’t even know that they’re buying a broken record.”
The protest will take place Saturday, February 25th at noon at the Tower Records Store on South Street. It will continue into early afternoon. Free Culture wants to inform consumers of their fair use rights and warn them about the DRM threat.
“We need to get the word out about fair use rights,” said co-founder Luke Smith. “No one wants to buy a broken record; if you’re not allowed to put it on your iPod, what exactly are you paying for? We want record companies to replace crippled CDs and pay for the damage they cause to their customers machines. We also want to drive the message home: you can’t do this anymore, because we’re watching you.”
ABOUT – Free Culture Swarthmore is a student group at Swarthmore College, dedicated to building a world of active cultural participation and defending your digital rights. It received national media attention when its co-founders sued Diebold Election Systems for abuse of copyright law, and won a precedent-setting victory for freedom of speech and fair use. FCS became the first campus chapter of the international student organization FreeCulture.org in 2004, and is now one of over 30 chapters worldwide.
February 22nd, 2006 at 6:07 am
[…] http://freeculture.sccs.swarthmore.edu/?p=31 […]
February 22nd, 2006 at 10:58 am
I’m not a Swat student, but I’d like to join you in your protest. I’m wondering if that’s ok with you all, and if so if there’s any literature I should print out to bring along with me?
February 22nd, 2006 at 11:55 am
Noah: Please feel free to join us in our protest, it is open to all! Some of the flyers we will be handing out can be found <a href=”http://wiki.freeculturenyu.org/wiki/index.php?title=DRM_Protest#October_27th_2005″ rel=”nofollow”>here</a> and <a href=”http://flickr.com/photos/fcb/86970533/in/set-72057594048528507/” rel=”nofollow”>here</a>, please print some out and bring them along!
February 22nd, 2006 at 12:45 pm
You guys so rock. Thanks for standing up and making a diffrence.
February 22nd, 2006 at 2:27 pm
[…] Following successful demonstrations by Free Culture NYU, Swarthmore Students will stand up for the rights of music consumers in a protest on February 25th at the Tower Records store on South Street: DRM Protest at Tower Records on Saturday Feb 25th at noon […]
February 22nd, 2006 at 3:40 pm
[…] From a press release I just stumbled across. […]
February 23rd, 2006 at 1:40 pm
Fantastic! I’m very excited to attend the protest, and will be bringing along a couple dozen printouts of the flyers you provided a link to. The printer I have access to sucks, so the quality won’t be great. Still, I’m happy to come along and support a good cause… or rather, to protest bad policy.
February 24th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
Hi Everyone,
I applaud you guys for protesting, but wouldn’t it be better to protest at the music labels’ headquarters or wherever the labels do business.?
I think these labels that release music with drm wouldn’t mind/care so much if the protests are at the retail store level. They may say to themselves,” We’re sure glad those protestors are causing so much trouble for the stores and not us (labels).” So if possible, seek out the label’s headquarters and raise some hell !!!
Considering my location (Canada) and the fact that I’m aware of what you guys are doing tomorrow, means that your message has reached the masses, and I’m sure the rest of the world support you guys.
GOOD LUCK
February 24th, 2006 at 2:48 pm
Great Idea Guys.
I’m a musician from England and believe these ‘companies’ are using under-hand tactics to completely control music and software.
No-one should be allowed to install any form of software onto ‘our’ PC’s without our permission.
And then this software controls how we use the products we have purchased.
Get a list out of all ‘companies’ who are using this method, and ALL consumers ‘Black-list’ them. Don’t buy any products from them.
Keep up the good work, never give up, we will win this if we stick together.
Nick Kovacs
www.laszlosdiary.co.uk
February 24th, 2006 at 4:35 pm
Givem Hell: The problem with record label headquarters is that neutral consumers do not usually visit them, only people who are involved in the record label somehow. A record store is full of ordinary consumers who may be about to get screwed by a DRM-ed CD, and deserve to be informed. I think the goal of the protest is more to inform people about the problems with DRM than to specifically apply pressure to any record label in particular (although Sony does suck that little bit extra).
February 24th, 2006 at 8:50 pm
Re: Feb. 25th noon. I hope you guys “Kick Ass”. You have my backup 100%. I’ve been a Recording Engineer for over 30 yrs. & most bands/artists I talk to would rather have their music listened to by all instead of being restricted by so called “Big Corporations”. DRM is a definite No No according to most artists/bands. Remember that in the end, people power wins, not big corporations. Eastern Canada wishes you all the best. Regards: dejc
March 20th, 2006 at 3:05 am
hi i am a boy fo 20 years old,and i am looking for a cd free……..plz………..?