Flash to get DRMed (thanks Adobe)

The EFF point out the likely effects of Adobe introducing DRM to Flash (via Stephen Downes). Oh great. It threatens to criminalise a vast chunk of the entire video mashup culture, and, of course:

DRM doesn’t move additional product. DRM is grief for honest end-users. And there’s no reason to imagine that new DRM systems will stop copyright infringement any more effectively than previous systems.

I’m not happy. Tony Hirst and I had a discussion in the comments to his ‘No More PDF Reader Hell?‘ post about iPaper just the other day, where the annoyingness and intrusiveness of PDF (and in particular, PDF browser plugins) was a given. And just this morning Flash was intruding about wanting to upgrade itself on my work desktop.

I rather fear that since buying up Macromedia, Adobe has been determined to change the Flash experience to be more like the PDF one. So it might be less PDF Reader Hell, but it’ll be More Flash Hell.

Author: dougclow

Data scientist, tutxor, project leader, researcher, analyst, teacher, developer, educational technologist, online learning expert, and manager. I particularly enjoy rapidly appraising new-to-me contexts, and mediating between highly technical specialisms and others, from ordinary users to senior management. After 20 years at the OU as an academic, I am now a self-employed consultant, building on my skills and experience in working with people, technology, data science, and artificial intelligence, in a wide range of contexts and industries. View all posts by dougclow