Digital Analogy Management
Sorry I've been so quite lately. It's been a tough couple of weeks, just very busy.

However, I've found a new distraction. I was writing a short essay on DRM and the potential downfall of the western tech industry. But, in the middle of an analogy (something lame about bicycles that can only be ridden when there's an R in the month), I became convinced that I was inadvertently repeating one I'd read somewhere else. I did a quick google and accidentally invented a new pastime.

Here are some samples:

"We need to put in speed bumps to keep people honest."
- Jack Valenti – President of MPAA

Imagine if Tower Records sold you a CD, but then, a few months later, knocked on your door and replaced the CD with one that you can't play in your car. Would you still feel like you "owned" the CD? Not so much, eh?
- EFF

It's like a blender that will only chop the food that Cuisinart says you're allowed to chop.

It's like a car that will only take the brand of gas that Ford will let you fill it with.

It's like a web-site that you can only load in the browser that the author intended it to be seen in.

My data is my life, and I won't keep it in a strongbox that someone else has the keys for.
- Cory Doctorow

Requiring hardware DRM on machines [...], or policeware applications on machines [...], is like saying "Well, people do drugs, commit acts of violence, and steal in peoples' homes. So to fix this problem, we're going to require government security cameras in every room of ever home in the country."
- Mark A. Stratman

[I]magine that you can build an impregnable armored truck. This truck can carry bags of money anywhere; and as long as you keep the doors closed nobody can rob the truck. The problem is that the truck is useless unless you open its doors. Suppose you want to carry the day’s sales from a WalMart store to the Bank. You have to open the doors at WalMart to put money in, and you have to open them again at the Bank to get the money out. Robbers can strike when you open the doors at WalMart or at the Bank.
- Edward W. Felten

DRM is a folding chair - specifically, it's one of those folding chairs that people use after shoveling out the snow from a parking space that they use to claim it after they drive away.
- Frank Field