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March 03, 2006
The Big DRM Mistake
The Big DRM Mistake: That's the title of an essay by Scott Granneman at SecurityFocus. He immediately preordered a set of New Yorker magazines on DVD, yet later found they used client software not available on his Linux computer. He then lambastes other digital rights-management implementations. What's the big DRM mistake? In my opinion, it's thinking that DRM is something "out there". You want rights-management of your own digital work, what you produce, what you generate, your websites, your text, your images, your photos, even info about who you are and what you've done. If there's a database entry somewhere about your activity, then most people feel they have a right to that information and how it can be used. They generated it. If someone puts photos of you on their website, most people would want to stop their unauthorized use of your media. You can call it privacy, but it's also a rights-management issue. You have digital rights. Other people have digital rights too. We haven't figured things out fully here yet, sure. And there are tons of bad implementations, things which don't actually suit their creator because they didn't quite suit their audience. But the big DRM mistake, in my opinion, is in only looking at early commercial tools to manage those digital rights, and judging the entire concept of rights-management on that. You'll want your data to be protected from what you regard as abuse. Other people will too. We've got to figure out better, more mutually-agreeable ways for people to keep stuff private, or expose to only certain people, or expose for only certain purposes. Please don't argue against DRM in general when talking about the unfriendly way someone else chose to protect their privacy.
Posted by John Dowdell at March 3, 2006 07:22 AM
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Comments
Well you're talking about slightly different things here. Putting access controls on things you want kept private is one thing. Locking someone into a certain way of using something they've bought and paid for is another.
Posted by: Richard at March 7, 2006 10:43 AM
I understand that many will initially be resistant to seeing the commonality between rights-management exercised by others, and rights-management exercised by themselves.
A commercial transaction is a mutually-voluntary agreement. You don't need Britney Spears. The contract between the two parties is key.
Posted by: John Dowdell at March 7, 2006 09:08 PM
Certainly there are parallels, but this is a paradigm shift. Any physical good I purchase, as soon as I hand over the money, the company has no say in how I use it, destroy it, etc.
In the digital world, in order to prevent piracy, I can purchase something, but the creator retains all the rights, including how I use it. Shouldn't the consumer be entitled to consume something they own as they see fit? Should it be the responsibility of the consumer to understand software/hardware compatibility when all they want to do is enjoy a song/photo/software/etc?
[jd sez: If you don't like the contract offered for Britney Spears Product, then don't enter into it. There's better product out there. Doesn't give you a right to unilaterally dictate terms to others.]
Posted by: Richard at March 10, 2006 02:57 PM