The music streaming service Spotify uses Digital Restrictions Management (DRM); push back by saying NO to Spotify's invitations.

After being available in Europe for some time, Spotify has launched in the United States with a publicity campaign inviting people to use the service.

Our conclusion: Spotify is using DRM to prevent things legally permitted even by overly strict US copyright law, making Spotify defective by design.

Spotify works by having users register, choose a plan ranging from $0 to $10 a month and installing a piece of proprietary software used to enforce DRM

Spotify's software does all the things DRM usually does. Music is streamed to its users -- and cached on the user's drive -- in an encrypted format, which is then decrypted by the proprietary client. Spotify uses this control to enforce arbitrary rules on its users. For example: you can't save music to listen to it later or elsewhere, you can't take a snippet of a song and use it for something else like a presentation or review. And while Spotify makes a fanfare of the fact that users can opt out of the otherwise-required advertising by subscribing for a monthly fee, there is no way for users to opt out of DRM.

Technically, Spotify's use of the Ogg Vorbis codec under the surface leads us to the conclusion that Spotify could easily be a website using HTML5, removing the need for any kind of program to be installed.

A group of Swedish developers have figured out how the Spotify software works, and have created a limited alternative to Spotify's client. While this client is free software, its limited nature will lead many people to seek out the proprietary client, and Spotify could block this program at any time.

Take action!

• Spotify asks you to send them a little message to get an invite to the service. We've created a template for a real paper letter you can use to respond to them by mail.

• In the USA, send your letter to: Daniel Ek, Spotify, 76 9th Avenue, Suite 1110, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10011

• And for everyone else, send your letter to: Alison Bonny, Spotify, Golden House, 30 Great Pulteney Street, London, W1F 9NN, UK

Edit your own copy of the letter using LibreOffice.

You can see the letters we've sent here: USA and UK.

And follow it up

• @eldsjal is the Twitter account of the CEO of Spotify, Daniel Ek, and @alisonbonny is the Head of Spotify's Press Division. Tell them we want Spotify without DRM! You could say: "@eldsjal, @alisonbonny I'm politely declining the invitation from @Spotify because of DRM, http://defectivebydesign.org/spotify @SpotifyUSA" -- remember, you don't need to use the Twitter website directly when you do this; you can instead connect your Twitter account to your Identi.ca account and send it that way. Or use a local free software client, such as Gwibber or HeyBuddy (this way you avoid Twitter's proprietary JavaScript).

• Send an email -- daniel@spotify.com seems to work, but CC press@spotify.com just in case, and remember to- BCC us on all those emails too at info@defectivebydesign.org.

• Share this action with others! When you read news stories about Spotify, make sure to leave a comment warning people about DRM.

American book retailer Barnes & Noble have launched the third model of their Nook ebook reader. We've previously written about the Nook, but until recently the Nook did not get much attention due to the limited options available.

Things have changed and now the Nook represents a real threat to users because of its invasive DRM, close relationship with DRM champions Adobe, and because of its use of the Android operating system -- which might lead many to think the Nook is not defective by design.

Currently two models of the Nook are available -- a color Nook which has garnered widespread popularity with the Android hacking community, and a cheaper black-and-white model to compete with Amazon's Kindle.

And sadly, that's what the Nook amounts to -- a cookie-cutter Kindle-type device. The Kindle has begun experimenting with DRM-free books, but the Nook store has yet to catch up in even this regard. Magazine publishers with a technical audience, such as 2600 Magazine, continue to keep us informed of their own experiments in electronic publishing, and attempts to keep DRM out of their publication. For now, their yearly Hacker Digest Volumes remain the best way to get the magazine without DRM or DRM-capable devices such as the Nook or Kindle. But overall, the industry continues trending toward use of DRM on ebooks.

While The Nook itself is a fairly standard Android device under the hood, and as such could be loaded with ebook reader applications avaible from the F-Droid marketplace such as FBReader, which supports all the major formats for DRM-free ebooks and some lesser known ones too, Barnes & Noble has shown no interest in this direction.

Take action!

• Do you use Twitter? Let @nookBN know that you won't buy a Nook until they drop DRM. But please don't use Twitter on account of us.

• Tag the Nook Color and Nook on Amazon with "defectivebydesign". Don't forget to follow up your tagging with discussion in the tag forum.

• Email Mary Ellen Keating mkeating@bn.com, Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs at Barnes & Noble, and ask Barnes & Noble to drop DRM from the Nook. Be sure to BCC us at info@defectivebydesign.org on any emails you send!

• Comment on news stories and reviews of the Nook to warn shoppers about its DRM.