Thanks to someone who pointed out the member list of the creativwirtschaft.at I have been able to check out where the rather uncritical view of Digital Restriction Measures (DRM) came from.
As you can see for yourself, most of the members are small or medium sized companies, or groups of companies, that have nothing to do with DRM. Then I found a rather familiar name that explained it all: IFPI.
The IFPI represents the interests of the rights-holding industry and is closely affiliated with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) — the very same organisation that is so eager to sue children in the United States.
The board of IFPI consists of representatives of EMI, Universal, Warner and drumroll Sony BMG. Yes, the very same company that has infected the computers of its customers with a self-installing, hidden rootkit that threatened the security and data-integrity of the machines it was installed on. Fortunately the EFF — along with several others — is now taking them to court.
Did I mention that this rootkit contained source code that was taken illegally from Free Software programs under the GNU General Public License (GPL)? So in order to preserve their distribution monopoly on music they’ve show themselves quite willing to ignore the copyright of software authors.
These are the very same people that Courtney Love described as the true pirates in her speech that you can find transcribed on salon.com.
It all makes more and more sense.
