[DMCA-Activists] Re: [C-FIT_Community] Windows RMS and its uses -- a new policy controlled DRM for documents

[Daniel L Speyer]

On Sat, 22 Feb 2003, Seth Johnson wrote:

> To further improve protection and enhance interoperability,
> RMS uses the eXtensible rights Markup Language (XrML), a
> common, simple-to-use means for expressing and managing
> rights and policies associated with digital content and
> services. XrML was designed to meet any organization's
> needs, regardless of industry, platform, format, media type,
> business model, or delivery architecture.

Does anyone else find this paragraph *really* scary?  I mean, forget
Enron or the halloween documents, this is about format control.  Notice
that "rights" is in lower case, so XrML will be written as XML.  Thus
Microsoft has created a second XML not only incompatible with the
standard, but *illegal for anyone else to read under the DMCA*.

They must be really worried about XML effecting their monopoly lock-in.
Here they kill two birds with one stone -- they put legal force behind
their obfuscated formats *and* they discredit XML in the eyes of
businesspeople.

The only way I can think of to stop this is to block the upgrade to
Office2003.  Now, many companies are robably contractually bound to do so
at this point, but if enough large entities refuse, XrML won't become the
sort of de facto standard .doc is.  I'm not sure who to target -- the U.S.
government would be ideal, but they're Microsoft's lapdogs (at least on
technological issues).  Maybe Germany and Japan (and if they refuse to
upgrade, major companies there will follow suite)?  Maybe big companies
that are sufficiently tech-aware to see the problem (Dell)?  Maybe
companies using *nix workstations (Morgan Williams)?  Is there any sort of
trade organization that could be contacted?

I feal awkward ignoring private individuals, but I don't think they're the
relevant battleground.  What matters is entities with *policies*.  Private
individuals are more adaptable.

I hope somebody sees how to turn these thoughts into practical plans of
action.  I'll help if I can, but I don't think I have any contacts.

--Daniel Speyer
If you *don't* consider sharing information to be morally equivalent to
kidnapping and murder on the high seas, you probably shouldn't use the
phrase "software piracy."