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May 8, 2004
DRM is a Folding Chair
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...or so argues Frank Field, who's written a not-to-be-missed response to Ernie's previous Copyfight post on the usefulness of digital rights management (DRM) to the entertainment industry, despite the fact that it doesn't work.
Snippet: "[DRM is not] necessarily supposed to work. But it is supposed to tell us that, if we mess with it, we're doing something wrong, and something bad might happen. The more that DRM gets used, and accepted, as an appropriate thing to include in products, the more inured we become to the notion that the thing it protects is property to be owned. And, by accepting it, we'll become less able to frame, much less pose, the question of whether the thing it's defending even should be owned -- and if so, by whom?"
Comments (4)
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1. cypherpunk on May 8, 2004 9:32 PM writes...
His analogy falls apart in the last phase, where his folding chairs are illegal.
A better analogy is homesteading. DRM is a "No Trespassing" sign at the boundary of some land tract. It doesn't act physically to keep people out, but it serves notice that the boundaries exist.
Permalink to Comment2. Ernest Miller on May 8, 2004 9:58 PM writes...
The problem with DRM however, is that the sign inevitably is placed not only on the privately owned land but on the publicly owned sidewalk as well.
Not that I like property metaphors very much. I prefer to think about regulations of distribution or, if you insist on thinking in terms of property, of riparian rights.
Permalink to Comment3. cypherpunk on May 10, 2004 6:14 PM writes...
If we want to move beyond analogies, I prefer to think of DRM as a contract between buyer and seller. Both parties agree to the terms, and DRM acts to help the buyer credibly commit to the contract. This allows contracts to occur which would not be possible otherwise, and increases the economic efficiency of the whole system.
Permalink to Comment4. Seth Finkelstein on May 11, 2004 6:41 AM writes...
DRM is a contract of adhesion. The contract theory applied to copyright was rejected for a long time for this reason.
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