Apple’s DRM Makes Small Children Cry
Ben Griffiths posted on the Open Rights Group list this little story about why DRM is evil:
“I want to share a DRM story.
I was in Curry’s in Plymouth a couple of weeks ago. A man was arguing loudly with one of the staff, his ten-year old daughter in tears at his side. From what I could gather, she had saved up her pocket money to buy an iTunes gift card - the songs she’d spent her money on, of course, didn’t work on her mp3 player. The man wanted a refund for what seemed to him a defective product; the staff member said that if the card had been used they couldn’t give a refund. The young girl cried and cried and cried.
The altercation went on for at least 15 minutes - the store manager eventually having to call some security chaps to remove him, but not before phoning the police.
So, whose fault was this? Currys for selling a card without making it clear that some songs downloaded from iTunes wouldn’t work on some (!) mp3 players? The girl for not understanding the complicated world of DRM? iTunes for selling DRM music? The record company for not selling DRM-free music? The government for not requiring labelling of DRM-crippled products?
Who knows - I’m pretty sure the only person clearly free of blame was the little girl.
But, perhaps that’s the wrong question - the end result was a stand-up shouting match, someone manhandled out of a store, a staff-member threatened and frightened, and a little girl in tears having spent her pocket money on something that didn’t work.
I thought it was worth sharing this since sometimes we can get bound up thinking about piracy and digital distribution and so on, but these small stories are often missed.”
The Apple’s DRM Makes Small Children Cry by David Crossland, except the quotations and unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
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