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It’s A Binary World 2.0

Eric’s insights on politics, technology, free software, photography and everything else

Another Reason Why People Illicitly Download TV Shows

Eric Mesa | January 11, 2009

My father-in-law is over today and he’s been dying to watch the Bizarre Foods Paris episode.  I’m opposed to buying video media off of iTunes because of the digital restrictions management (DRM).  But, he’s been wanting to watch that episode forever and we no longer have cable so I can’t record it onto MythTV.  We [...]

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Microsoft DRM Metldown Redux

Eric Mesa | May 15, 2008

As I mentioned here, Micro$oft has provided yet another example of why digital restrictions management does nothing but hurt legitimate consumers.  To remind you, this is when Microsoft turned off the servers for its ironically named “playsforsure” DRM system.  These songs, which consumers would told, would play for sure on any digital media player containing [...]

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Another example of DRM being hurtful

Eric Mesa | April 27, 2008

The Free Software Foundation’s Defective by Design is reporting that MSN Music is shutting down, leaving anyone who bought music legally left with music they can no longer listen to.  This will have two outcomes and neither of which is what the music labels really want.  Some people will decide they got left holding the [...]

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iPod Shuffle

Eric Mesa | January 10, 2008

For years I had been saying that I would not buy an iPod product.  After all, they sell music in the iTunes music store with DRM on it.  All of my music on my Linux computer is in the OGG format and it can’t be played with iPods.  However, when it came time to buy [...]

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Charitable Donations for 2008

Eric Mesa | January 1, 2008

This year I decided to mainly support technological causes.  I donated to the Free Software Foundation and the Electronic Frontier Foundation.  I think that rms and the rest over at the FSF are really doing a lot of great work to preserve our freedoms.  I especially like the Defective by Design campaign they’ve been running.  [...]

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Another example of the perils of DRM

Eric Mesa | November 8, 2007

Time and again I’ve warned my readers of the perils of DRM.  (Specifically here and here).  That’s why I don’t buy music on iTunes and have given all of my digital music patronage to Amazon.com.  Even my wife, who’s not as into FOSS and all that as I am, has become disgusted as she’s understood [...]

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HEY RIAA, all you needed to do was offer DRM-free music!

Eric Mesa | September 26, 2007

I’ve already spent around $11 on Amazon.com’s MP3 download store. Why? Because they are selling MP3s of my favorite artists without any digital restrictions management (DRM). This is what has been keeping both my wife and I away from iTunes. Oh yeah, and the songs are cheaper than iTunes! It [...]

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Why the TV and Movie Companies have it so wrong

Eric Mesa | September 15, 2007

Let’s pretend I’m Joe College-Grad Consumer and I’m trying to evaluate how I should obtain my video content. I’m interested in watching shows as they come out – not later when they’re on box sets. Let’s see, I could buy my content on iTunes, Amazon Unbox, or some other such service. If [...]

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That was fast!

Eric Mesa | August 17, 2007

Ars Technica is reporting that Netflix is promising that they will be working very hard to get Macintoshes supported. Looks like they read my letter and now they have my brother covered. Now they need to work on Linux support. And drop the DRM because I guess they ignored my paragraph on [...]

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An Open Letter to Netflix

Eric Mesa | August 16, 2007

I am not an unreasonable man and I full understand your need to focus on making your “watch now” feature debut available exclusively to Windows users. After all, they do make up about 90% of computer users. However, I do have some problems with this as a long time plan.
First of [...]

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09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0

Eric Mesa | May 2, 2007

What a beautiful hex number!
Check this page out to see what it may mean.
The Free Speech Flag…..just check out the hex that represents these colours.

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Why buy digital music??

Eric Mesa | April 21, 2007

While thinking about digital music recently, and how great it was the BMI decided to sell some of its music on iTunes without Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). However, these tracks will cost $2 while the DRM’d tracks will cost $1. First of all, this seems to be a scheme to prove that the [...]

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We won the first battle!

Eric Mesa | April 2, 2007

The first battle in our war against those who would wield DRM to prevent us from having fair use over our movies and music has been won. EMI, a Bristih Music label with bands like The Rolling Stones, has agreed to release songs on iTunes without DRM. Please, try and support them and [...]

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How the RIAA is always wrong

Eric Mesa | February 15, 2007

I’m pretty sure that in previous posts I’ve mentioned that the RIAA has always been wrong about what technological disruptions do to their business. They wanted to kill LPs because they thought no one would go see live performances. They wanted to quash AM radio for fear no one would by LPs. [...]

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Movies pirated by the Movie Industry itself!

Eric Mesa | February 11, 2007

Despite what the MPAA claims, it’s not us consumers who need to be restrained by DRM, but their own people. This website demonstrates how movies are pirated by the movie companies and members of the Oscar committee.
Here are some key quotes:

For the last few years, the movie industry’s battles with Internet pirates offered an [...]

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