DC is a town of advocates, and it comes as no surprise when I see a car plastered in bumper stickers advocating everything from green cars to immigration reform to abortion messages (both pro-choice and pro-life), to embracing Jesus. Virginia, Maryland and DC all have very affordable vanity plates, and of course this means that cars won’t just have messages on their bumperstickers anymore, but also on their license plates.
Our friend here has decided that he’s against Digital Rights Management schemes which record companies and other digital content providers use to prevent rampant copying of their material without authorization. Many people, including the governments of several european countries, have stood up against the DRM groups.
Me, I fall somewhere in the middle. I love buying (and paying for!) digital music. No bulky CD to carry around, I can play iTunes purchases on all my computers, and I can move them around to my iPods. Yes, I realize they won’t play without iTunes. Yes, I realize that if you don’t have an iPod you’re pretty well and truly fucked, but I don’t care, to be honest. It works exactly how I want it to: I don’t have to take extra steps to make sure it will all play nice together, and it generally restricts me from giving it away to other folks.
There’s got to be a happy medium out there, where copyright holders get their due, and fans can have their flexibility, but I think in the wake of Napsteresque services at the end of the TwenCen and into the early Twentyfirst, I think we’re stuck with DRM. The trick is making sure it’s good, and it’s fair.
But, nice to see that LA’s not the only town where DRM isn’t popular, eh Boing Boing? As we wended our way through traffic today and caught this plate, we managed to miss the VA tag “FSMISM” which I’m sure would’ve ended up on their front page. Sorry Cory, we’ll work harder on that next time.
This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs
I live and work in the District of Columbia. I write at We Love DC, a blog I helped start, I work at Technolutionary, a company I helped start, and I’m happy doing both. I enjoy watching baseball, cooking, and gardening. I grow a mean pepper, keep a clean scorebook, and wash the dishes when I’m done. Read Why I Love DC.
