Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology

150 Dijkstra, Edsger W.discs. A bigger controversy arose in 2005 when Sony beganto use DRM technology that (without notification) installeda rootkit (a kind of “back door” to the operating system) thatpotentially left systems open to attack. Facing public outcryand several lawsuits, Sony withdrew the DRM, which, ironically,was rather ineffective at preventing copying. By 2007music CD producers had concluded that DRM had morecosts than benefits, and such protection is no longer foundon audio CDs.Music distributed online is often protected by DRM.However, some services such as Apple iTunes now offer theoption of buying DRM-free music at a higher price. (Apple’sSteve Jobs has called upon the online music industry tocompletely eliminate DRM.)Legal and Other IssuesGenerally, the argument for DRM has been straightforward:If people can get something for free, they will not buy it.Content creators and publishers would go out of business.Organizations such as the Recording Institute Associationof America (RIAA) have aggressively sued college studentsand others accused of sharing copyrighted music or videoonline and successfully forced the best known file-sharingservice, Napster, to become a licensed music service (seefile-sharing and p2p networks).The principal legal means for enforcing DRM is the DigitalMillennium Copyright Act (DMCA), passed in 1998. Thelaw prohibits the production or dissemination of technology(software or hardware) that allows users to circumvent DRM.However, it has been difficult in practice to prevent the rapiddissemination of “cracks” for DRM over the Internet.There are also a number of legal arguments againstDRM. One is that it prevents certain actions allowed to consumersunder copyright law, such as making a backup copyof media that one has purchased (see intellectual propertyand computing). Also, because many DRM schemeswork only with Windows or Macintosh machines, users ofother operating systems (notably Linux) must “crack” DRMin order to be able to use the protected media. (Under thelaw, such action to promote “interoperability” is allowed,though not if the purpose is to facilitate illegal copying. Butlike most matters of intent, this can be hard to determine.)There have also been First Amendment issues. Althoughthe DMCA includes a “scholarly research” exception, somecryptography researchers have said that they have beeninhibited from publishing analysis of DRM for fear of legalprosecution.A number of activists and groups have opposed DRM,including open-source advocate Richard Stallman and theElectronic Frontier Foundation (see cyberspace advocacygroups). One of their efforts has been promotion of theFree Software Foundation’s General Public License (GPL3),which prohibits the use of DRM in products distributedunder that open-source license.Further ReadingDefective by Design: A Campaign of the Free Software Foundation.Available online. URL: http://defectivebydesign.org/.Accessed September 12, 2007.Electronic Frontier Foundation. Available online. URL: http://www.eff.org. Accessed September 12, 2007.May, Christopher. Digital Rights Management: The Problem ofExpanding Ownership Rights. Oxford, U.K.: Chandos, 2007.Motion Picture Association of America. Available online. URL:http://www.mpaa.org/. Accessed September 12, 2007.Recording Industry Association of America. Available online.URL: http://www.riaa.org/. Accessed September 12, 2007.Van Tassel, Joan. Digital Rights Management: Protecting and MonetizingContent. Burlington, Mass.: Focal Press, 2006.Zeng, Wenjun, Heather Yu, and Ching-Yung Lin. Multimedia SecurityTechnologies for Digital Rights Management. Burlington,Mass.: Academic Press, 2006.Dijkstra, Edsger W.(1930–2002)DutchComputer ScientistEdsger W. Dijkstra was born in Rotterdam, Netherlands,in 1930 into a scientific family (his mother was a mathematicianand his father was a chemist). He received anintensive and diverse intellectual training, studying Greek,Latin, several modern languages, biology, mathematics, andchemistry. While majoring in physics at the University ofLeiden in 1951, he attended a summer school at Cambridgethat kindled what soon became a major interest in programming.He continued this pursuit at the MathematicalCenter in Amsterdam in 1952 while finishing studies for hisEdsger Dijkstra’s ideas about structured programming helpeddevelop the field of software engineering, enabling programmersto organize and manage increasingly complex softwareprojects. (Department of Computer Sciences, UT Austin)