A New Acronym

by Miguel de Icaza

Last year we got "AJAX" for "Asynchronous JavaScript and XML".

This year, we get "CRAP", which stands for: "Content, Restriction, Annulment and Protection" a much better description for the euphemistical "DRM".

The expression was coined by David Berlind, executive Editor for ZDNet, see the details here:

CRAP stands for Content, Restriction, Annulment and Protection. It's my catchy buzz-phrase for a technology that's really called DRM. Now DRM technically stands for Digital Rights Management, and it's a rather cancerous technology that technology vendors are actually building into most of the products that we're buying today.

So for example, if you own an iPod, it's got CRAP in it. That's right, it's got this technology that will restrict what you can do with your content, allows the owners of the content to annul that content-in other words, take it away from you-or protect it from being copied out onto the internet.

And there is a video too: here.

A must-read.

Posted on 27 Mar 2006