What Every Citizen Should Know About DRM, aka - Public Knowledge

More documents

Recommendations

Info

V. Conclusion: Can ThereBe a “Humane” DRM?models for distributing content, within the constraintsof copyright law.B. For Technology Makers: It must maintaintechnology companies’ ability to create a widerange of innovative non-infringing products,and to design, build, and maintain those productsefficiently. It must maintain the ability tochoose between open-source and closed-sourcedevelopment models. It must enable technologymakers to come up with robust, interoperable,relatively simple technologies that are fault-tolerantand easy to maintain.C. For Citizens and Ordinary Users: It mustmaintain access to a wide variety of creativeworks, both past and present, including bothpublic-domain works and works still protectedby copyright. It must maintain access to advancingconsumer technology for uses not related tocopyright. It must continue to allow for maintainfair use (including time-shifting, space-shifting,archiving, format translation, excerpting, and soon) and also must be flexible enough to allow fornew, innovative fair uses (e.g., uses of home networkingand other kinds of fair use we haven’tyet imagined or discovered).These are, of course, difficult criteria to harmonize.I cannot imagine, for example, a governmentbasedregulatory framework that might create this,starting at square one.I can, however, imagine a way that a truly freemarket in DRM-protected works might get us atleast closer to these combined goals. The key tocreating that market is not only to remember andvalue the great creative works that are already inthe public domain, but also to use DRM platformsas a way of revitalizing and redistributing publicdomainworks.Consider: Almost all DRM development nowadays— at least when it comes to copyright — isdesigned primarily to protect works that are currentlyalso within their term of copyright protection(e.g., most movies, recent books, and so on).Remember Stephen King’s novella, “Riding theBullet,” discussed back in Part I of this essay? It wasan electronic book, all right, but in many ways itwas more difficult to use (and to copy from) than itwould have been if it had been published on paper.In general, we expect computers to make informationeasier to get access to, not harder, so the limitationson “Riding the Bullet” and on many othere-books are frustrating. (One couldn’t, for example,cut-and-paste a passage from King’s novella into ahigh-school essay on the subject — the sort of thinga student would love to be able to do with a digitalbook — nor could one print it out, since thatoption was disabled.) This is due primarily to therestrictions traditional publishers place on e-bookpublishers — or, if they are within the same company,on their e-book publishing divisions.The practical outcome of the restrictions onproprietary e-book formats is that these formatsare dead in the marketplace — e-books are unpopular,considered clunky and burdensome, and, atbest, an idea whose time has not yet come. Designersof e-book platforms have been cogitating aboutthe “right” combination of content protection andflexibility, but in the meantime the whole conceptof e-books has been languishing. In a world withnot enough trees in it — a world in which computerdisplays are now good enough to give us abook’s worth of readable text — this is an unacceptableresult.E-books and the Public DomainSuppose, however, that some enterprising companyset out to take public-domain works and editions ofworks and make them available on e-book platforms— with all the DRM copy protection turnedoff. That company could sell the e-books at a nominalprice over the Web, but might even expresslyallow that these e-books may be freely copied,excerpted, subjected to cut-and-paste, and so on.Such an e-book — perhaps a lesser-known MarkTwain work, or Constance Garnett’s translations ofa Russian novel — would have all the advantages ofbeing based on a digital platform and none of thedisadvantages (you could even print out your copy,if paper were the only thing that would satisfy you).Suppose, further, that DRM-disabled digitalformatpublic-domain works became widespread— perhaps even via peer-to-peer file sharing. (Forschool districts this availability might signify a wayto save textbook acquisition costs even as they32
What Every Citizen Should Know About DRM,a.k.a. “Digital Rights Management”made up for increased expenses in the computerlab.) The e-book publisher might even produce aDRM-enabled teacher’s edition of the same work,including critical commentary and lesson plans,and generate a revenue stream from the “teacher’sedition” — in addition to the revenue generatedby direct sales of the public-domain work in e-book format.Nor has this scenario yet touched upon the factthat other people besides students read or otherwiseenjoy works that are now in the publicdomain. (Those works may not be limited tobooks; early films and recordings may also be availablefor this kind of public-domain dissemination.)It seems to me that, should some enterprisingcompany, perhaps based in Redmond, Washington,or Cupertino, California, were to take on this project,it would have a golden opportunity both to educatethe public about the potential convenience ofdigital reader or playback software platforms, and tohelp citizens grow more accustomed to using them.The next step (or, rather, the accompanyingstep) would be to make the same platforms availableto the publishers of current works. Yes, thosepublishers might insist on (and receive) limitationson the extent to which users could copy or excerptthe digital work in question. At the same time,however, consumers would know that the limitationson their use of these works came from thepublisher (or even the author) and not from theplatform itself.One obvious result of this scenario is that consumersbecome educated that it’s not e-book ordigital-media formats that are inherently limited —it’s that the limitations have been insisted upon byparticular publishers or artists. This additionalinformation enables consumers to make betterinformedchoices — they might choose one workover another because its DRM-enabled player hasbeen set to be more flexible or less restrictive.They might forgo buying books from a particularpublisher if that publisher insisted on too manyrestrictions. A more informed market for digitalworks is likely over time to become a more rationalmarket, making better-informed choices aboutwhat kinds of access to a work they are willing topay for. And because the consumer-expectationbaseline is set by the unrestricted availability ofpublic-domain works in DRM-enabled formats,publishers know that the restrictions they chooseto impose upon a copyrighted work are going to becommunicated directly to the buyer.It seems to me that a number of benefits immediatelyinhere from this proposal. First of all, makingmore public-domain works digitally available andmore widely distributed enhances citizens’ ability totake advantage of the wealth of creative works thatare already in the public domain. Second, it diminishesthe cost of reproducingpublic-domain works,which means that more DRM platforms couldsuch works can becomemore widely available at a be used to distributelower cost. Third, it givesboth publishers and digital-mediaplatform makerspublic-domain works inincentives to loosen restrictionsrather than tightenunprotected ways – thusthem, because consumers educating consumerswill naturally prefer lessrestrictive formats. Fourth, about who is insisting onit helps platform makersmake their platforms for copying restrictions fordigital media more familiar,more commonplace, newer works.and more user-friendly thanthey are now.It may be argued that what I’m proposing here ismerely that the influential companies that craftDRM platforms and schemes perform a kind of“community service” in making public-domainworks available. I think, however, that there is asignificant value proposition for these companies inusing their platforms to make public-domain worksavailable in an unrestricted way. Part of the value indoing so lies in revitalizing (or, perhaps more aptly,“vitalizing”) dormant media formats such as e-books. Making public-domain works available for anominal price (but nevertheless a price thatrecoups the cost to the company of digital formattingand distribution) could jumpstart the currentlylimited market for such books, especially if the formatadds significant value (such as the enhancedsearchability of texts).33
Page 1 and 2: What Every CitizenShould Know About
Page 3 and 4: AcknowledgementsThis “DRM primer
Page 5 and 6: I. A Brief Introduction To DRMand i
Page 7 and 8: What Every Citizen Should Know Abou
Page 11 and 12: II. What Does DRM Look Like?system
Page 13 and 14: II. What Does DRM Look Like?The “
Page 15 and 16: II. What Does DRM Look Like?The “
Page 17 and 18: II. What Does DRM Look Like?support
Page 19 and 20: II. What Does DRM Look Like?sion br
Page 21 and 22: II. What Does DRM Look Like?ing tel
Page 23 and 24: III. Should DRM Be ImposedBy the Go
Page 25 and 26: III. Should DRM Be ImposedBy the Go
Page 27 and 28: IV. The “Threat Model” of Unive
Page 33: V. Conclusion: Can ThereBe a “Hum

What Every Citizen Should Know About DRM, aka - Public Knowledge

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?