Human Rights Resource

While the Pirate Bay case we wrote about is still in process let’s take a look at some ways of protecting digital rights. The two main examples here will be the actions of Sony Corporation, but at first some general things about Digital Rights Management. The various types of the digital rights management defense failed. Not because they were weak, but because it was very limiting for the owner of the protected files. You can move the files to another computer, but without a short online confirmation of license you can’t play it. You also can’t listen to the DRM protected music on your mp3 player. Compared to a license CD, this type of copyright protection makes the product basically unusable.

Sony BMG made a really desperate and aggressive attempt to protect its products and that triggered multiple lawsuits and a large scandal in 2005. In 2000 Sony switched to a new aggressive strategy of Digital Rights Protection, the actual effects of this strategy were discovered in only five years after. On October 31, 2005 Mark Russinovich, a famous software engineer posted a message on his blog. He discovered a spyware program that was installed when you launched a Sony BMG license CD, the software was used to monitor the activity of your PC. These spyware programs were installed without any warning or any warning label on the box. It was not only a violation of privacy and human rights; the software also made numerous holes in the security of a computer and led to system crashes. Russinovich is one of the biggest Windows gurus in the world, so he was able to find the spyware in the system processes and determine where it came from and how it was installed. For a normal PC user it would be impossible. Sony recalled the spyware products and presented cleaning software on its websites. Still there multiple lawsuits were filled in the U.S. but this wasn’t the worst consequence of this case. The worst thing was that thousands of customers lost their trust to the Corporation. When you buy a licensed product you don’t expect to become a target of digital rights protection software or have your PC monitored by the label. Such things actually show how far the corporations would go in a desperate attempt to protect their incomes.

A more recent example of copyright protection can be found on the largest Russian torrent server – torrents.ru. The copyright laws in Russia are very weak so major companies like Sony have found another solution. A representative of the company is registered on the forum and monitors the activity. As soon as someone starts sharing some new video game or movie the representative contacts the administrators of the site and they remove it. In this case Sony is mainly protecting things like games for various Sony Play Station consoles. Old files remain untouched, so in this case it is some kind of a democratic solution.

In a March 18 broadcast, Aung San Suu Kyi discusses the Jasmine revolutions, the circumstances of Burmese migrant workers in Thailand, and why “democracy icon” is a limiting label. Q: During the September 2007 crisis [the Saffron Revolution], the military government tied Buddhist monks to street lamp posts and beat, kicked, and verbally abused them. Do those actions not amount to being abusive and disrespectful to our religion, and thereby demeaning it? If so, I would like to know what kind of action can be taken against such atrocities. Every person who believes in a religion has the duty to protect his beliefs. A: It is not in accordance with the law to tie even an ordinary person, let alone a Buddhist monk, to a street lamp post and beat him. If someone commits a crime, no matter how great that crime might be, action can be taken against him only according to law. If you look at this from a basic human rights point of view, everyone has the right to fully protect his own religion. That is why we aspire to a governmental system where the law prevails and where human rights are fully guaranteed. Of course, this does not end just with aspirations—the National League for Democracy [NLD], on principle, is also working to bring about law and order and human rights in our country. Q: In the past, you and the NLD formed the Committee Representing the People’s Parliament [CRPP], which included the various ethnic nationalities and the NLD. We, the people, were very elated when …

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