Re: DRM

[Jonathan S. Shapiro]

On Sun, 2005-11-06 at 13:14 +0100, Michal Suchanek wrote:
> On 11/5/05, Alfred M. Szmidt <address@hidden> wrote:
> >    I do not believe that the DRM technology is evil per se. I strongly
> >    dislike DRM, but I believe that an author should be able to control
> >    the use of their work within the limits and framework of copyright.
> >
> > The author can already do that: don't share it to begin with.  What he
> > shouldn't be allowed to do is dictate how people who he has shared
> > that information with are supposed to handle it.
> 
> I think the author should be able to set the terms under which his
> work can be used. However, he should not be able to enforce the terms
> for centuries or even forever.

Yes. This is why I kept writing "within the framework of copyright". The
purpose of copyright was to establish a balance between private and
public interests. The private interest lies in the ability to control
(for the purpose of revenue generation) for a reasonable but limited
amount of time, which is why copyright terminates. The public interest
lies in permitting a limited monopoly so that individuals are willing to
speculate in creating new works that may or may not be accepted by the
public.

The system that existed before copyright was patronage. Patronage works
very well if you can find a rich person who is interested in (or at
least, willing to fund) your work. However, it does not provide
incentives that allow for the author of a work to create a work whose
market is not known in advance -- this is a form of speculation. There
are rare individuals who will choose to create for free, but this is an
extreme case. The problem with patronage is that it doesn't provide any
middle position between having a rich patron vs. being wealthy enough to
patronize yourself.

I do not suggest that copyright is perfect. Recently, the ever-extending
expiration here in the U.S. has become quite malignant. But the
conceptual compromise that sits underneath copyright was not a bad
compromise for either society or authors.

> The problem I see in DRM is it sets the terms for the authors,
> disallowing uses guaranteed by law, and prohibiting the circumvention
> of copy protection even if you do have the right to make a copy.

I tend to agree, which is why I made my comment about registry of plain
text with the Library of Congress.

Occasionally, I have argued that if a vendor decides to use DRM, they
are deliberately choosing to evade the "eventually public" half of the
copyright social contract. I have suggested that if they break the
social contract, then *all* parts of the social contract should become
void. That is: if you choose technical means to prevent copying, you
give up your legal protection if I somehow manage to copy anyway.

With the rate of IP theft, I don't think this is really a viable
position. I would not like to see music and movies restricted to payment
for performance. I've managed bands professionally, and I have too clear
an understanding of what the impact of that change would be. My proposal
for Library of Congress registry is an attempt to strike a middle
ground. Certainly flawed, but perhaps better then the current situation.

Maybe there is a better way. GPL/GFDL illustrate a better way for some
purposes, but they are most useful in contexts where a community effort
is required. I am not sure how well the positive feedback incentives in
GPL/GFDL would generalize to other domains.


shap