Protests And Other Thoughts About DRM

Recently, DRM Protestors staged a surprise demonstration at a Windows Hardware Engineering Conference , succeeding to the extent that they even disrupted Bill Gate's keynote. Further details, including pictures of the demonstrators in HazMat suits, is available at boingboing.com.

In response to these demonstrations, Randy Picker has a new post on the University of Chicago Faculty Blog about DRM and its relationship to the history of asymmetrical vs. symmetrical copying costs. Picker's primary point is that:

"[W]e can use technology and design to help enforce laws. Doing so involves lots of choices, but the fact that limits are imposed hardly makes the products defective by design. We need to decide what rules we want—about speed limits and about control over copies—and then figure out ways to make those rules work in actual practice.

For further perspective on DRM and its regulation, readers may also wish to look at David Berlind's editorial, which may not in itself be a response to the protests but is nonetheless appropriate to consider here. David Berlind is no fan of DRM, which he refers to as C.R.A.P., but he takes the position that if DRM is here to stay that at least it could "have the decency to disclose to us sheeple [sic] what it's capable of doing or enabling." In particular, while Berlind does not go so far as to suggest imposing legal mandates about DRM, Berlind strongly advocates that DRM providers should be publicly transparent about the types of services they offer to both content providers and consumers.