Information Research Weblog

Having a little time to spare on my trip to Loughborough today I spent some of it in the library and found that Communications of the ACM, April 2003 issue, had a number of papers devoted to 'digital rights management'. The drive towards DRM comes, of course, from those with vested commercial interests in intellectual property, especially the (largely US-based) music industry.

In a very interesting paper, Pamela Samuelson (a regular contributor to Comm ACM) notes:

"...even though copyright law confers on copyright owners the right to control only public performances and displays of these works, DRM systems can also be used to control private performances and displays of digital content. DRM systems can thwart the exercise of fair use rights and other copyright privileges. DRM can be used to compel users to view content they would prefer to avoid (such as commercials and FBI warning notices), thus exceeding copyright's bounds."

Now there's a couple of interesting thoughts. I wonder if legislators are aware of these particular consequences of the extension of copyright?

Samuelson adds that DRM technology is misnamed - it is not about "rights" but about '..."permissions" to do X, Y, or Z with digital information.'

If you have access to the ACM's digital library, you'll find this paper here.