Years ago, in the long-ago before-time when I traveled to San Diego several times a month I was a subscriber to audible.com. On one hand, it was great - my plan gave me the ability to purchase two audio books per month that I could then put on my iPod to give me something to do as I was trapped for hours on end in a steel cylinder at 30,000+ feet. On the other hand, the Audible Digital Rights Management (DRM) protection on the media files made it a complete pain in the ass every time I changed computers or media players. Not sure about today, but at the time you only were able to authorize up to 3 devices to play your content back…which doesn’t seem like it’s a big deal. Until you change hardware (something I did frequently) and forgot to unauthorize your old hardware (something I also did frequently).

Because of the stupidity of the Audible DRM, I canclled my monthly subscription years ago. When Amazon bought Audible back at the beginning of 2008 I was exicited because I felt that there was a good chance - in fact a good business reason - to remove the DRM from the files. You know, so I could have fair use of the material I was paying for? Without having to rely on a third party (Audible) to stay in business and keep their servers and licensing applications up and running? Because without the ability to authorize a computer or media player for Audible content those files are just so much worthless data.

Well, it’s been a half year since the acquisition and still no movement on the DRM. To be honest, I had forgotten about the Amazon promise to look into removing the DRM until I read this article on Boing-Boing. The site mentioned - callanaudible.org - provides links to respond back to Amazon regarding the Auidble DRM and collects virtual signatures for a petition to send to Amazon. I joined the petition and used the Amazon.com contact form to send a message to Amazon outlining what I’ve just explained above. Since Beth, Alex, and I all listen to audiobooks on our iPods I thought it may be a nice family gift to get a book plan with Audible; provided that I’m not stuck with the DRM issue that I still deal with on the 20 or so books I already own.

As I feared, the response (reproduced below) was complete bullshit; the type of corporate non-answer you would expect from the marketing department of a big company.

Hello from Amazon.com.

Audible is DRM agnostic — our primary goal is to offer a great
customer experience. Audiobooks purchased on Audible.com can be played
on over 600 AudibleReady devices, including Kindles, iPods and most
other MP3 players, Tom Toms and other GPS devices, Sonos and other
in-home systems, and all PCs and Macs. Unlike DRM-free MP3 music files
designed for songs, audiobook files must deliver a unique multi-hour
listening experience. Customers have recognized and appreciated
Audible’s unique listening experience since the company’s inception in
1997. Audible is committed to maintaining and improving the features
that drive this experience.

Audible recently announced that it is working to provide the option of
DRM-free spoken word audio titles on Audible.com for content owners
who prefer this method and are committed to working with Audible to
maintain a great customer experience.

Thanks for your interest in Amazon.com and Audible.

Sincerely,

Customer Service
Amazon.com
http://www.amazon.com/

Wow, that’s great Amazon. First off you state that you’re agnostic on DRM. So does that mean that you’re not sure that DRM exists? Or is it that you (astonishingly) don’t have a corporate position on it? Or is it that you’re just trying to weasel out of answering the question? My money is on #3 here.

Second, you go on to try and draw some false dichotomy between “mp3 files designed for songs” and files that are used for a “unique multi-hour listening experience”. Maybe you want to explain this one to me? I have a great number of Audibooks that are in mp3 format….and the multi-hour listening experience is just fine with these, thank you. And it seems like you saying that DRM is required for an audio book? Which is funny, because it seems that some really stupid decisions would have had to be made to produce an Audible file (the .aa format) that is incapable of working without the DRM.

Would it have been that tough to answer the questions asked? Would it have been that tough to show that whoever is writing these responses has a tiny clue about the technology used in these audio books? And I’m still amazed by the use of “agnostic” in the response. Someone had to have been really proud of themselves for coming up with that!

<sigh>

I was talking to Beth about the whole issue the other day and my bottom line was that if I buy something I should have the ability to do with it what I want. If I buy a book, I can give it to a friend to borrow. If I buy an audio book I should be able to do the same thing. Sure, I could abuse the situation and make copies of the audiobook and distribute it; but that possiblity is always going to be there. No matter what DRM or other roadblocks are put in place there is always going to be someone who figures out how to circumvent the protection.

You would think a company as big as Amazon would wake up to the realization that treating their customers like criminals is going to do nothing but hurt their sales. I for one won’t buy these crippled books; and from the various forums I read it seems like I’m part of a rather large minority.

So our President is making a personal apology to the Iraqi Prime Minister over some holes in a book. I will be the first to state that using a book for target practice is stupid - but I would say that about any book, not just a book that a certain group of people believe to be “holy”. With all the problems in the region, I would argue that this is pretty far down the list of things that the President should be personally involved in.

It gets better (or worse, depending on your point of view) - Bush then went on to assure the Iraqi Prime Minister that the soldier involved has been sent home and will face trial (not sure for what - that should be interesting). Am I wrong in finding this whole situation patently ridiculous?

We have a soldier who is going to trial for shooting a book. Simmering tensions in Iraq because someone shot a book. A President who has to issue an apology because of a book.

Could we please get some perspective here? This story appears in a list of stories with the following headlines: “Bombing at Iraq Funeral Kills 20″, “Baghdad Clashes ‘Kill 17 Gunmen’”, “Iraq set for Baghdad Exodus”, and “Iraq al-Qaeda Chief Not Captured”. Compared to this putting a few holes in a bunch of paper seems trivial to me, “holy” book or not. There are serious issues with anyone who values the sanctity of a book over that of human life. If, as is claimed, there are eternal truths in these “holy books” (The Koran, The Bible, The Talmud, The Veda, etc) shouldn’t they transcend the mere physical representation of these truths?

Bruce’s commentary from yesterday puts it in a nutshell:

“We’ll blow you up if you get in the way of a Blackwater hum-vee, but we apologize profusely for shredding yer book.”

Five years of war and 4,000 US dead as of this month. Iraqi dead in the tens of thousands. Iraqi cities regularly rocked by bombs. Power, water, and sanitation concerns throughout Iraq. US credibility and standing on the world stage greatly diminished if not outright destroyed. Still we hear about how we are succeeding - about how at some yet-unknown date all of this sacrifice will somehow be vindicated.

The major problem is that there doesn’t seem to be any clear cut measurement as to what success is at this point. Spare me the empty platitudes about the march of democracy in the middle east; about the need to fight terror abroad; or of the need to free the Iraqi people from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein. What I want to hear is what our exit criteria should be. When do we know that we are done?

Unfortunately, I increasingly am forced to the conclusion that we’re going to be stuck in Iraq well into the next decade. The current President has adroitly shifted the burden of “what to do” onto the shoulders of his successor (shades of James Buchannan here).

The people that seem to be beating the war drums the loudest are those with the least amount of skin in the game. I know people who are willing to fight to the last - well, to be accurate, the last someone else’s kid - to achieve our objective! What that objective is…well, they’re not too sure of that. Question too far and your patrotism is, of course, called into question.

One of the lessons I learned from my Grandfather soon after this war was started was that one could - and needed to - separate the war from the warrior. Nothing irritates me more than to hear someone make the statement “you have to support the mission of you support your troops!” It’s just another facet of the false dichotomy that seems to be the party line of this administration, namely “you are either with us or against us”. It’s completely possible to think that the mission is bullshit and still support your forces; very few situations are in stark bland and white.

Even the phrase “support our troops” has become diluted. What, exactly, does it mean? Does it mean you tack a few magnets onto your SUV? Maybe throw a “These Colors Don’t Run” bumper sticker on the pickup? Or is it a bit more? To me, “support our troops” means, first and foremost, that you exercise the rights that we are told they are protecting and trying to export to Iraq. Chief amoungst those is the freedom to disagree with the government that sent these young men and women into harms way in the first place.

I have a cartoon tacked into my office closet, a Doonsbury from the end of the first year of the war. The name of every soldier killed in the Iraq war to date appeared on that cartoon. The number keeps going up, but it’s become background noise anymore. The headlining stories are about Britney Spears or American Idol. Four dead by a roadside bomb in Iraq? Forty dead in a marketplace bombing? That’s just a sidenote; besides, it or something like it happens every day.

I remember a popular joke going around four years ago - it was pretty stupid, taking the form of a father talking to a son. The son asks what the World Trade Center was….the father explains about terrorists from the Middle East. Then the son asks “what was the Middle East”?

I’m guessing that the next few generations are going to have plenty of knowledge about the Middle East.

Todd and I were briefly discussing politics this morning. I really can’t stand politics - it’s the whole “wheels within wheels” component that I can’t stand. I know some people enjoy the hidden meanings, innuendos, and subtexts that are part of the political world, but not me. The political sphere is one area where I’d rather hear the unvarnished truth than have to decode the spin that is applied to a particular issue.

Since I’ve been old enough to care, the Presidential elections have always been a disappointment to me. I can’t think of a time where I’ve been excited about either of the two candidates. Southpark really hit the nail on the head when it comes to our Presidential elections - the choice normally comes down to either a Giant Douche or a Turd Sandwich. I can’t remember where I heard it first, but my favorite quote about the presidency is that “the very qualities you would want in a president would prevent that person from running for office.”

OK, I’m done with the political mini-rant. As I told Todd, my concern with this election year is that whoever gets elected is most likely going to get to appoint a new Supreme Court Justice to take Justice Stevens place when he retires. Given some of the disturbing dissenting opinions to come out of the court (mostly from Justices Scalia and Thomas) I have some real concerns that the appointment of an ultra-conservative Justice could fundamentally alter the way Church/State separation issues are judged. I know that I’m generalizing here, but having a government that can favor one religion over other world views (whether they are religious or not) is a very bad thing. No matter what your beliefs are; in fact, I would contend that unless you were part of the particular religious sect or movement that was being favored you would have some degree of displeasure with the results.

While doing some research on this subject - I try and be somewhat informed before I make noise - I came across the “Freedom First” petition linked to from the website for the Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Take a second and review the petition and see what people and organizations are signing it. For the impatient, I’ve included the text of the email that you can send from their site to your friends; although it is boilerplate, it distills down the purpose for the petition in one paragraph.

I just signed the First Freedom First petition — about the importance of safeguarding separation of church and state and protecting religious liberty. The founders of our nation believed that all Americans should have the right to worship according to their own beliefs, or not to worship at all. It was so important to them that they placed it in the first sentence of the Bill of Rights. I believe that religion is a deeply personal matter and that Americans must be free to practice their religion without coercion. Simply put, there must be a separation of church and state. I know that we agree about the importance of these issues, so I hope that you will ACT NOW, like I just did. Be a part of First Freedom First. Sign the petition and encourage others to join you. Together, we will send a powerful and resounding message — safeguard the first freedom! Please visit the website below and join me in standing up for this fundamental American freedom.

http://www.FirstFreedomFirst.org

Wow. Democracy is on the march in Afghanistan! Yes, that was sarcasm. To be honest, nothing much shocks me these days in terms of international and world news. However, for some reason this one just irritated the shit out of me.

Why is it that years after we “liberated” the freedom-loving people of Afghanistan - years which have included a good number of American boys and girls being killed and maimed - that someone can be sentenced to death for downloading a report from the internet. What is the subject of the report? Why, the report addresses the issue of women’s rights in a Muslim society. It was downloaded by a student journalist, Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, who was convicted of blasphemy by an Islamic court; from everything I’ve read it appears that he was tried without recourse to legal council. The sentence for downloading this report? Why, death of course! Makes perfect sense. Or not.

One would think that this is something that our government would want to get involved in - after all, if we are really interested in spreading democracy shouldn’t freedom of expression and freedom of inquiry be protected? How about to the right to a trial by a jury of your peers? Aren’t those some of the key elements of the democracy and freedom that President Bush fills his speeches with? I’m not an expert in foreign relations here, but it certainly looks like Afghanistan is sliding it’s way towards exactly what we saw with the Taliban - namely, an environment where the religious powers impose their will on the general populace and where questioning their absolute rule is something you only do if you aren’t too concerned about your personal safety.

I’ve pulled a few quotes from this story in the Independent to illustrate just how this story is viewed by those in Afghanistan:

Demonstrations, organised by clerics, against the alleged foreign interference have been held in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, where Mr Kambaksh was arrested. Aminuddin Muzafari, the first secretary of the houses of parliament, said: “People should realise that as we are representatives of an Islamic country therefore we can never tolerate insults to reverences of Islamic religion.”

At a gathering in Takhar province, Maulavi Ghulam Rabbani Rahmani, the heads of the Ulema council, said: “We want the government and the courts to execute the court verdict on Kambaksh as soon as possible.” In Parwan province, another senior cleric, Maulavi Muhammad Asif, said: “This decision is for disrespecting the holy Koran and the government should enforce the decision before it came under more pressure from foreigners.”

Now it may just be me, but I think it is sickening that we are supporting a government that not only condones this type of behavior, but also actively participates in it (as evinced by the Afghanistan Senate passing a motion confirming the death sentence). Dare I say that this seems to be an issue with Church and State being co-mingled? That is, without a strong demarcation between the two you run the risk of things like this happening, where a crime against Dogma is also a crime against the State.

Update - it looks like the Afghan Senate has withdrawn their confirmation of the death sentence. It is now up to the Afghan Court (and any appeals) to determine the sentence.