Digital Rights Management vs. Copyright

My exposure to the Blank Audio Media Levy process has sensitized me to the discussion on copyright in general and what some perceive as the panacea to fix all the problems with the digital revolution's apparent complete defile of copyright law, Digital Rights Management (DRM). This section will serve as my repository for thoughts and resources in my research into this critical area of the growth of the Internet and personal computing - both areas I am intimately involved in.

Along the way, I expect this will absorb the Cyber Crime section I started a while ago. The two are part and parcel of the same problem domain.

As Time Goes By

January 18, 2004 - http://www.drmwatch.com/drmtech/article.php/3294391 article that summarizes DRM in 2003.

December 5, 2003 - I've been following (for many reasons) the battle between SCO and what seems like the rest of the software world, at least to me. Watching this battle (and it can be classified only as a battle, not simply a law suit) I came to the realization that I was witnessing a revolution again.

November 25, 2003 - an excellent article on DRM at: EDN Magazine including a discussion of the technologies, legal and marketing problems.

"It's easy to lose sight of the true goal of copy protection. It is not about preventing copying. In most cases, a perfect digital copy is unnecessary; many DVD-copying applications make good-enough copies--copies that users can't tell from the originals--from analog outputs. Effective copy protection, rather, is about making distribution of pirated material difficult enough that you can turn most nonpaying pirates into paying users.

Of course, you can always try charging a reasonable price and trusting people to be honest. Just think of all the money you'll save not having to implement DRM."

October 20, 2003 - I received an e-mail sent to the Digital Copyright mail list (http://www.digital-copyright.ca for subscriptions and archive) regarding the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) Treaty. The chapter on intellectual property seeks to impose restrictions and penalties that are even more draconian than the hated Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) which is in the process of being repealed or drastically modified. There is a petition (I have signed it) at:
IP Justice Petition to Delete FTAA's IP Chapter:
http://www.ipjustice.org/ftaa/petition.shtml

As a counter-point (to the proposed treaty), take a look at this section of Richard Stallman's about a possible future with similar legislation.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

This is just the latest round in what appears to me to be a fight to the death by the third of the three parties (public, creators, intermediaries - aka publishers/distributors) in the public contracts of Copyright and Patent, to keep their hand in the pie in the face of the ability of creators to use digital means to self-publish and also in the face of drastic lowering of the cost of creating "perfect" copies. See FTAA (below) for more links.

My thoughts on this are now in a new page - Of Social Contracts and Government Sell-outs

Overview

Many of the ways that we receive information and entertainment today may (probably will) change radically in the not too distant future. Whether the changes will be just a passing fad, enshrined in law, successful, or complete failure will depend on the outcome of the debates that are going on right now in boardrooms and legislatures around the world. I doubt if there is any other topic today (besides the war on Iraq) that has more rhetoric passing around with almost no real information on what the topic might mean to the average person or business in Canada in specific but in the "free" world in general.

Part of the problem might be traced to the the potential for new sources of income for the technology industry.

Part might be traced to the advances in copying techniques.

Part might also be traced to panic on the part of information publishers seeing their income sources potentially disappear (note - publishers, not necessarily creators.)

And part might be traced to ignorance, stupidity or maybe even corruption (or at minimum giving in to pressure from well funded and generous lobbyists) on the part of legislators.

But no matter what the problem stems from, the results will be felt by citizens of the affected countries not only shortly, but potentially forever.

Specific Areas of Concern

This article started life as a single document but has grown enough that I've had to break it apart. What has prompted this is the fact that we're now having to deal with not only copyright, but also software patents - and adding a section on patents will extend this substantially.

Resources

Following are specific to the FTAA Intellectual Property section