Wanting to pay for digital content, but in dispair

When I tell people that I believe in the goals of the Free Software Foundation, they might assume that means I love to download pirated media.  Actually, that is incorrect.  As best I understand it, believing in protecting freedom means avoiding content that was intended to restrict our rights.

So the most strict way to follow that is to boycott all music, tv and movies with restrictive licensing (that's pretty much everything ever produced).  That means that even if I can obtain the content in a way that violates the copyright, such as torrenting, it makes no difference as the license doesn't change when downloaded that way.  It is still restricted by its license even if I have it on my computer and can watch it.

As you can imagine, avoiding all entertainment with a restrictive license gets close to living under a rock.  So sometimes I do want to enjoy a film or song, and that means I have to begrudgingly accept that the license is objectionable.  I also love the idea of supporting artists and creators, who often didn't have a choice over how their publisher licensed their work.

But as a user of a mostly free OS (Linux with drivers), I find that it is EXTREMELY difficult to actually pay for copyrighted works.  Not because of the license, but because of the locked-down software that vendors use to prevent piracy at all costs, known as DRM.  It is the most widespread and most dangerous threat to software freedom today.  As such, I totally refuse to use it.

A few months ago I listened to a song on Youtube that I really liked, and I wanted to send a little 'Thank You' to the artist by buying the song as a digital file, probably an mp3.  I could not.  I only found it available on Amazon US, and Apple iTunes store.  Living in Canada, the Amazon offering was not even available for purchase to me, let alone the issue of whether DRM would be involved.  Apple is a lost cause for somebody like me.  You would think in 2018 that I could just make a payment to a vendor of music and get the song file.  Nope.  I ran in circles on the iTunes website, ended up calling Apple and a representative, who was a little bewildered that I don't own an Apple device, said that I simply cannot purchase the song unless I run the iTunes DRM software.  Well I tracked down an email to ask the artist directly if I can pay them for the song.  No reply.  Maybe one day I'll hear back.

Today, I found a really funny movie from a decade ago that I really want to watch again.  I decided to look into my options for making a payment to watch it, however once again, I hit the DRM brick wall.  I can't watch it on Amazon Prime, that would require a restricted streaming player such as Microsoft Silverlight or a Chrome, a DRM-encumbered web browser.  I don't even know if an old movie like this one would be available on a service like Netflix, but that also refuses to work without DRM so it doesn't even matter.  I found with a sigh that it is on Apple iTunes also.  The "Microsoft Store" has it, but I can't see that working without SilverLight installed.

Firefox is trying to be 'popular' with DRM offerings, but I'm sorry, I won't use that because I care about my freedom.

So I have emailed the company who licenses this particular movie, and maybe they will allow me to watch the film without DRM.  I also mentioned to them that DRM backfires for all the people who care about their digital freedom, and instead of protecting profits causes losses.

I will now have to think about whether to choose to live with my values and just miss out on the movie, or to access it the only way I can without the threat of DRM - to download via bittorrent.

Perhaps I will get a positive response from the company about making a payment for the film to watch it without DRM.  I'm not holding my breath, but let's wait and see.