Attention!

I spend quite a bit of time reading about the importance and problems of things like DRM, software patents, open standards. These are issues that will effect a lot of people and the future of IT, which is why I consider it important to stay informed about them. I actively look for information about them by reading blogs, websites and so on that deal with this stuff. Sadly, I believe I'm one of the relatively few that do this. By far most people live in happy ignorance. Many can be excused because they are "just" plain users and these issues can be very difficult to understand if you don't have at least some understanding of IT other than basic use of a computer. However, many IT professionals ignore these issues in the same way or at least, that is my experience. There are many causes for this, people in general live a busy life with work, family and such which leaves little time for issues which they probably aren't even aware of exists. I could imagine that many consider these issues to be boring as well.

One of the big issues today is DRM and how it will make us slaves of the big media companies. People won't notice this problem before it is too late, unless they are somehow made aware of it and that's the main problem. How do you get the attention of the general public? Even the recent scandal with the Sony rootkit, which was widely reported and showed some of the problems with DRM has only reached relatively few people. In the end, people will not care the slightest about DRM before it hits them right in the face when they want to copy their music to the new expensive portable player they just bought, just to find out that it isn't compatible with their nice music library.

David Berlind has recently written about this and are currently trying to find a better term for DRM that might be able to better grab the attention of the general public. His current favorite is "CRAP" (Content Restriction, Annulment, and Protection). I quite like that term, but I don't think it will change much, sadly.

UPDATE: Here a few after posting this I read this blog post.