Drop DRM on Age of Heroes

Dear Mr. Koltsov,

We, the undersigned, appreciate the hard work you have put into the Age of Heroes website. However, there is one technical measure on your site that raises concern.

The site uses a Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) system to prohibit visitors from downloading images, on the basis that they are copyrighted. There are several reasons why this approach is perceived fundamentally wrong. Signees agree with one or more of the following points:

1. Not every use of a copyrighted work constitutes copyright infringement. The United States law, as well as law systems of many other countries, recognize "fair use" of copyrighted material, which is permitted. For example, a user may wish to keep a copy of the image on their own computer without distributing it. DRM prevents any use of the protected content, even fair use.

2. Malevolent users will circumvent DRM protection anyway. As with any copy protection system, once a crack is invented, protection only causes inconvenience for legitimate users. In your case, ways of circumvention are so obvious that everyone who wants to save protected images despite your system eventually will.

3. Some material you have is copyrighted by 3DO, Ubisoft and other respective parties. Therefore, it is their responsibility to enforce their copyright, not yours.

4. By this move, you, a fansite webmaster, do not assume good faith; instead, you show disrespect and distrust towards your visitors, who are, like you, genuine Heroes fans. While we sincerely hope and believe that this expression of disrespect is in no way your intent, the evidence, which is the copy protection measure, points otherwise.

Due to the aforementioned concerns, we politely ask you to, and hope that you will enable saving images from your site and remove the popup box saying that the material is copyrighted, as the copyright notice is already present at the bottom of the page.