My name is Ren Bucholz and I currently live in Toronto, Ontario. More info on me and my work is
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August 15, 2005
Reason #4,232,408 to Hate DRM: It Gets On My Immigration Docs
Now that I reside in Canada, I figure that it's a good idea to get my paperwork in order. So I go to Citizenship and Immigration Canada and download the ream of forms that I can trade for socialized healthcare. Everything is peachy.
Until I hit this form. It's wrapped in DRM, and I'm only allowed to print in low-quality mode, which produces a document that reads like xeroxed Braille. I can't fill it out digitally because all of my apps (Apple Preview, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Everything Else) want a password when I try to do anything useful with the document.
I assume that this is an accident, since several of the other docs do not have such a bug. But it's also an example of how user expectations are thwarted by DRM. Why, Canada, why?