the New York Times is piloting their paywall system in Canada. I thought I’d click around the website until it got triggered. Eventually, I got a warning pop-in, saying I had only one article left. Click. You must subscribe to see more.

I don’t actually have a problem with their paywall model. It’s their newspaper. It’s their content. It’s their website. They can do what they want. But, it was a ridiculously trivial process to thwart the paywall and regain full access to the NYTimes without subscribing. A couple of CSS overrides, and a javascript toggle.

I have no intention of leaving my blockerblocker in place. It works fine, but I don’t really have much use for full access to the NYTimes website. As others pointed out, it’s also trivially possible to bypass the paywall by enabling “private browsing” mode in a browser. Not an impressive way to design the “drm” to base the fortunes of a multimillion dollar news enterprise on.

Best $50 I’ve spent in a long, long time. My music library is not pretty much DRM-free. What was that about the evil Apple lockin again?

Update: doh. looks like the process has a glitch or two. I’m sure that’ll get worked out really quickly though. This is what I get when I click the “Buy” button shown above:

Update 2: GAH! I tried to post a question on the Apple Support site to see wtf, but can’t seem to find the button to do that. No email link. No support available. My only option is to wait a day or so and try again. Fail.

Update 3: thanks to a friend who kindly pointed out that I had missed the Contact Us link on the iTunes support page, I’ve submitted a support message with Apple. Hopefully I can spend that $50 in the next day or so…

But that’s not what this post is about. This DVD, that I made, containing no DRM and no copyright, triggers the evil DRM software that’s baked into the operating system that I use. I had the DVD program running in the background, and went to take a screenshot of something else – and was rewarded with a warning dialog:

“Screen grabs are unavailable during DVD playback. Please quit DVD Player first.”

Great. I wasn’t trying to take a screengrab of a DVD. Of MY DVD. It was paused, behind a bunch of windows. I was trying to grab a portion of a browser window. But, irony of ironies, I was able to capture this:

That’s me in the DVD. But because the MPAA makes software companies bend over to protect their content by baking DRM into the apps that ship with my computer, I’m prevented from doing legitimate things with my own content. Thankfully, there are ways around it (Jing was more than happy to capture a screenshot – I’m sure the MPAA attack dogs will be closing that hole ASAP).

DRM is nothing but a pain in the ass. It doesn’t stop anyone from copying anything if they really want to, but it does get in the way of legitimate use of content. I’m not pissed at Apple for putting this screengrab block in the OS – I’m quite sure they did it to prevent having endless series of lawsuits by the MPAA legal beagles, and/or to abide by some licensing terms.

The MPAA can bite me, though. They have no right to compel anyone to cripple the programs I use to interact with the content I create.

In the very logical, concise statement, Steve lays his cards on the table. He's all in. DRM is lame, and is nothing more than a tool for struggling monopolies to attempt to maintain the status quo in a changing marketplace (my words, not his. I'm paraphrasing).

If he wins this hand, DRM as we know it is over. We can stop bending over and grabbing our ankles for the Big Labels. And we can continue legally buying music (and other media) online without having to worry (or even think about) the number of our own computers which have been authorized to play the files we bought.

If he loses this hand, we sink into a dark age, where the cartel is able to call the shots and we have no rights over the media we buy. Actually, we won't be able to actually buy media anymore. We'll be limited to leasing temporary licenses granting revokable permission to temporarily play a piece of media, subject to limitations and sanctions. Things like the Analog Hole will be plugged. We'll be locked out of our own media, from network, through the computer, and into our ears. Everything will be controlled by The Big Labels. DRM Rootkits will multiply, legally. We will hand control over our computers and media players to the cartel.

I know which player I'm rooting for. The stakes for this game are much higher than a simple game of Texas Holdem.

This is one of the coolest things from the world of musicians with respect to IP and copyright. Some of the biggest names in Canadian music just put their feet down to tell the Big Labels not to be evil.

They have a handy website up, with their three principles:

1. Suing Our Fans is Destructive and Hypocritical
2. Digital Locks are Risky and Counterproductive
3. Cultural Policy Should Support Actual Canadian Artists

So, the artists that have the most to gain from protecting the status quo are being very vocal about not wanting to be involved with it.

The odds of me spending cash on buying Canadian music just went way up. Some Broken Social Scene tracks are in my immediate future…