Software Freedom Podcast SFP#1 on Day Against DRM with Cory Doctorow
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Oct 11, 2019 
Cory Doctorow, British-Canadian writer and digital rights activist who publishes under Creative Commons, joins to discuss DRM and its consequences. He contrasts DRM-locked ebooks with traditional books. He warns about DRM servers going dark and lost purchases. He explores how DRM affects security, competition, and the Internet of Things.
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Dishwashers As An iPhone Satire Sparked Unauthorized Bread
- Doctorow wrote a satire 'If Dishwashers Were iPhones' to expose normalizing of walled‑garden appliances.
- He used dishwashers and toasters as analogies to show how everyday items could be locked by vendor rules, inspiring Unauthorized Bread.
How DRM Changes What A Book Is
- Adding DRM transforms a book from a cultural object into a legally constrained service.
- Cory Doctorow explains DRM replaces centuries‑old book practices like lending, gifting, and annotating with layers of license text and technical locks.
DRM Works By Leveraging The Law Not Tech
- DRM's legal protection matters more than its technical efficacy.
- Doctorow says DRM is valuable to vendors because it creates unlawful acts (bypassing DRM) even when the copy itself is lawful, enabling firms to sue competitors and control markets.
