[WSIS CS-Plenary] DRMs Re: [governance] [A2k] Re: [Wsis-pct] IP Justice Comment to IGF on Top Policy Issues forAthens

Tue Apr 4 22:06:58 BST 2006

Hello

>On Tue, Apr 04, 2006 at 10:44:24AM -0400, James Love wrote:
>  
>
>>I am wondering if the emphasis on the term DRM is the wrong one.   I
>>believe the objections are partly about technical protection measures
>>(TPMs), which make it impossible to access works.   The various
>>versions of the GPL are themselves types of DRMs
>>    
>>
>
>I think there would be far less confusion if we could all agree that DRM and
>TPM are 3-letter words that mean the same thing. 
>
It seems that much of the heat of the debate relates
to a semantic misunderstanding.
DRM includes TPMs but it is more than just TPMs.  TPMs are DRMs but not
the reverse,
although many people are making the assimilation.
You may also use DRMs technologies for illegal uses (  defiance of local
laws by
monopolies for example ) .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Rights_Management
*Digital rights management* (*DRM*) is the umbrella term
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbrella_term> referring to any of several
technologies used to enforce pre-defined policies controlling access to
software, music, movies, or other digital data and hardware. In more
technical terms, DRM handles the description, layering, analysis,
valuation, trading and monitoring of the rights held over a digital
work. In the widest possible sense, the term refers to any such management.

The term is often confused with copy protection
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copy_protection> and technical protection
measures <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_protection_measures>
(TPM). These two terms refer to technologies that control and/or
restrict the use and access of digital media content on electronic
devices with such technologies installed.

DRM critics argue that the phrase "digital rights management" is a
misnomer <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misnomer> and the term *digital
restrictions management* is a more accurate characterization of the
functionality of DRM systems.

http://www.answers.com/topic/digital-rights-management

(*D*igital *R*ights *M*anagement) A system for authorizing the viewing
or playback of copyrighted material on a user's computer or digital
music player. DRM has centered around copyrighted music, with Apple's
FairPlay and Microsoft's Windows Digital Rights Manager being the two
predominant DRM systems. Video DRM is on the horizon as broadband
Internet and more highly compressed video formats take hold. See
FairPlay
<http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery;jsessionid=2d9pcatmqnfih?method=4&dsid=1512&dekey=FairPlay&curtab=1512_1&sbid=lc08a>, 

Windows Digital Rights Manager and copy protection
<http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery;jsessionid=2d9pcatmqnfih?method=4&dsid=1512&dekey=copy+protection&curtab=1512_1&sbid=lc08a>.

http://www.marketresearch.com/product/display.asp?productid=1163922&g=1

DRM (Digital Right Management) DRM concerns the management of copies of
virtual goods. It goes far beyond simple anti-copying protection, but
can notably make it possible to identify a work, rights holders and
authorised uses, as well as making it possible to describe related
rights such as simple and multiple playing, recording, simple and
multiple copying, copying limited to selected pieces of equipment etc.
It enables rights distribution and the collection of corresponding data
(a function that it shares with access control). DRM can also be linked
to access control. It can also be combined with a technical protection
measure.

> The acronym DRM was invented
>to describe technical systems for controlling access to and preventing copying
>of copyrightable files. 
>
It is more general than that, DRMs can control network traffic for
example, can
control the rights that you may have the possibility to transfer to
somebody else,
make use of RFIDs, etc...

> Including the GPL and other free software licenses in
>the same term, just because they involve the management of digital rights, is
>in completely contradiction to the widespread usage of that acronym.
>
>  
>
Yes, of course, DRM is a technology, not a legal instrument like a license,
  this confusion ( FUD ) is propagated by proponents
of DRMs, who presents DRMs are an unescaple consequence
of "rights protections" that needs to be "managed".

In practise, DRMs are much than just zipping a file with a password as
Milton, seemingly an advocate of DRMs,
gave as an example.
while it is just a primitive TMP.

DRMs are taking control over your computer, leaving no freedom
to a user to decide what he/she believes it is legal or not to do.
In other words, it is like a robocop that is taking control over
your free will, and may impose by force, something
you may find illegitimate, unethical or illegal.

Laws are just reflecting a state of historical fluxes,
whenever there is enough
people disobeying a law,  the law becomes ineffective, and
sooner or latter the law is changed, what was illegal
one day, becomes legal after.
( eg the use of strong encryption over the internet ).
  Citizens must have a right to make their own judgment,
to make laws evolve...

Remenber that, at some point of history,
slavery was legal, and most people were finding this
status as "normal", it took some severe disobediance and
wars to change this law....
Here, we are talking as enslaving our computers,
some people are finding it as "normal"...
some don't....  guess who is right ?

As Nietzche once said : The future belongs to those who
have the longest memory....

Best regards

Francis

PS :
In the US, some security employees already
got "voluntarily" a RFID implanted in their bodies....
Welcome to the Brave DRM new world !

DRM ...that would be a fitting title for a
dark SF movie...   ;-(

>I think I came to off-list agreement with Taran about this, too.
>
>  
>

-- 

------------------------------------------------------
Francis F. MUGUET Ph.D

MDPI Foundation Open Access Journals
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ENSTA   Paris, France
KNIS lab.  Director
"Knowledge Networks & Information Society" (KNIS)
muguet at ensta.fr   http://www.ensta.fr/~muguet

World Summit On the Information Society (WSIS)
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Scientific Information :  http://www.wsis-si.org  chair
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