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DRM

NaturalNews Calls for Boycott on Kindle, iPhone and Other Big Brother DRM Technologies

Saturday, August 08, 2009
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...)
Tags: DRM, health news, Natural News


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(NaturalNews) Two weeks ago when Amazon.com remotely deleted copies of books that customers had purchased for their Kindle devices, it was a wake-up call for many consumer. "Huh? They can delete stuff I already bought?" Welcome to the world of DRM technology.

DRM is a "Big Brother" technology that allows content controllers like Amazon.com or Apple to control (or even delete) content you've already paid for. Books, movies, music files and even software applications can be deleted or deactivated at the flick of a (digital) switch. Such technologies also limit your ability to move content from one device to another. You can't read Kindle books on your Sony E-Reader, for example. Nor can you loan a Kindle book to a friend in the way that you might loan a physical book to a friend (or check one out from the library).

NaturalNews joins the librarians of the world in taking a stand against DRM technology and restoring the freedom to read books (or other content) without being tethered to a digital leash from an overbearing corporate content provider.

As such, we hereby advise the following to NaturalNews readers:

• Avoid all DRM purchases, period! Stop buying DRM-locked content from Apple, Amazon.com or other "Big Brother" content publishers.

• Stop renting DRM-protected movies through services such as Amazon's "Video on Demand" service. These movies are restricted in the way you are allowed to view them, and on some services, they expire if you don't watch them quickly enough.

• Don't buy DRM-protected music. Stick with DRM-free "clean" MP3 files that you can keep for life.

• Avoid MP3 music subscription services that require your MP3 player to sync with the server from time to time (such as Napster To Go, etc.).

• Don't buy DRM-protected audio books from sellers like Audible.com, whose strict DRM technology complicates your book listening experience and makes it impossible for you to move files from one device to another without re-syncing with their servers.

Above all, do not financially reward "Big Brother" companies that try to control you with DRM technology! Learn more about the problems with DRM technology at www.DefectiveByDesign.org

Why NaturalNews embraces peer-to-peer file sharing technology

NaturalNews has always released its content without DRM protections of any kind. Our music files (Health Ranger hip hop songs) have been offered as free, open downloads in clean MP3 formats (https://www.naturalnews.com/Index-Music.html). Our articles, cartoons, videos and podcasts have all been 100% DRM-free and will continue to stay that way.

We believe knowledge wants to be free, and if we could find a way to give away all our Truth Publishing books for free and still pay the bills around here, we would do that, too. But even though we sell some books as a way to cover our operating costs, we still don't use any sort of DRM limitations on those books.

Now, in response to Amazon.com's Kindle deletion scheme (and Apple's ongoing Big Brother philosophy on content control), NaturalNews is embracing peer-to-peer content distribution technology (torrents) to distribute our content in a 100% DRM-free format.

We have joined Mininova (www.Mininova.org) as a Premium Content Provider and begun uploading our DRM-free hip hop songs for global distribution. See the NaturalNews content page here: http://www.mininova.org/user/naturalnews

(You'll need a bittorrent client like Vuze to download these NaturalNews files. You can find that at www.Vuze.com )

The way this peer-to-peer technology works is that our uploaded files are "seeded" by Mininova.org, where users can search for and download the files to their own computers. Users who download the files ("leechers") then become "seeders" who start seeding (sharing) the file with other users. The result is a highly-efficient, community-oriented file sharing technology that allows content publishers like NaturalNews to share quality content with potentially millions of users without having to carry the burden of a central download server being hammered with the combined bandwidth load. With peer-to-peer file sharing technology, the bandwidth load is distributed among those who are downloading and sharing the files. It's a decentralized, Democratic technology that serves the People, not the oppressive corporate content controllers.

Not surprisingly, the big corporate content controllers are adamantly against peer-to-peer file sharing websites and technologies. Rather than embracing the way consumers want to get content, they spend millions of dollars trying to shut down these sites. Admittedly, there's quite a bit of file sharing of copyrighted movies and other content that goes on with these sites: You can download the complete (unauthorized) musical discographies of almost any popular music artist, for example, and just about every movie that's out on DVD is also available through (unauthorized) peer-to-peer file sharing networks. But at the same time, many of these networks carry a huge and valuable collection of public domain content and publisher-authorized content such as the songs, videos and podcasts that NaturalNews will be publishing through Mininova.

Sites like LegalTorrents.com (www.LegalTorrents.com) also offer a wealth of peer-to-peer downloadable content that's both legal and free.

The fact that you can download public domain books (similar to Project Gutenberg at www.gutenberg.org ) through peer-to-peer torrents makes this technology extremely valuable. It is a decentralized, free and people-powered knowledge-sharing platform that cannot be controlled by any particular government, corporation or institution. And that's precisely why governments, corporations and institutions fight this technology: They can't stand the fact that consumers might have freedom over the way they get content.

Peer-to-peer technology is the ultimate threat to centralized power and control over the content people consume.

What's next from NaturalNews

In the near future, we'll be posting more audio, videos and even an upcoming hip hop song on the Mininova.org torrent site. Feel free to download and share these content items under the Creative Commons license (www.CreativeCommons.org).

Best resources for peer-to-peer file sharing technology

If you need bittorrent software, here are the most popular ones available today:

• Vuze (www.Vuze.com)
• uTorrent (www.uTorrent.com)
• BitTorrent (www.BitTorrent.com)

Responsible practices for peer-to-peer file sharing

• Don't share copyrighted content (like movies, music or other content) unless you have explicit permission from the content owner.

• DO share open-source content, public domain content and the NaturalNews items we post for public sharing.

• Don't be a leech. If you download content, stay connected and upload at least as many gigabytes as you download. Your share ratio should always be greater than 1.0

Enjoy!

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About the author:Mike Adams (aka the "Health Ranger") is a best selling author (#1 best selling science book on Amazon.com) and a globally recognized scientific researcher in clean foods. He serves as the founding editor of NaturalNews.com and the lab science director of an internationally accredited (ISO 17025) analytical laboratory known as CWC Labs. There, he was awarded a Certificate of Excellence for achieving extremely high accuracy in the analysis of toxic elements in unknown water samples using ICP-MS instrumentation. Adams is also highly proficient in running liquid chromatography, ion chromatography and mass spectrometry time-of-flight analytical instrumentation.

Adams is a person of color whose ancestors include Africans and Native American Indians. He's also of Native American heritage, which he credits as inspiring his "Health Ranger" passion for protecting life and nature against the destruction caused by chemicals, heavy metals and other forms of pollution.

Adams is the founder and publisher of the open source science journal Natural Science Journal, the author of numerous peer-reviewed science papers published by the journal, and the author of the world's first book that published ICP-MS heavy metals analysis results for foods, dietary supplements, pet food, spices and fast food. The book is entitled Food Forensics and is published by BenBella Books.

In his laboratory research, Adams has made numerous food safety breakthroughs such as revealing rice protein products imported from Asia to be contaminated with toxic heavy metals like lead, cadmium and tungsten. Adams was the first food science researcher to document high levels of tungsten in superfoods. He also discovered over 11 ppm lead in imported mangosteen powder, and led an industry-wide voluntary agreement to limit heavy metals in rice protein products.

In addition to his lab work, Adams is also the (non-paid) executive director of the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center (CWC), an organization that redirects 100% of its donations receipts to grant programs that teach children and women how to grow their own food or vastly improve their nutrition. Through the non-profit CWC, Adams also launched Nutrition Rescue, a program that donates essential vitamins to people in need. Click here to see some of the CWC success stories.

With a background in science and software technology, Adams is the original founder of the email newsletter technology company known as Arial Software. Using his technical experience combined with his love for natural health, Adams developed and deployed the content management system currently driving NaturalNews.com. He also engineered the high-level statistical algorithms that power SCIENCE.naturalnews.com, a massive research resource featuring over 10 million scientific studies.

Adams is well known for his incredibly popular consumer activism video blowing the lid on fake blueberries used throughout the food supply. He has also exposed "strange fibers" found in Chicken McNuggets, fake academic credentials of so-called health "gurus," dangerous "detox" products imported as battery acid and sold for oral consumption, fake acai berry scams, the California raw milk raids, the vaccine research fraud revealed by industry whistleblowers and many other topics.

Adams has also helped defend the rights of home gardeners and protect the medical freedom rights of parents. Adams is widely recognized to have made a remarkable global impact on issues like GMOs, vaccines, nutrition therapies, human consciousness.

In addition to his activism, Adams is an accomplished musician who has released over a dozen popular songs covering a variety of activism topics.

Click here to read a more detailed bio on Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, at HealthRanger.com.

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