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

[Seth Johnson]

Peter Eckersley wrote:
> 
> 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.  The acronym DRM was invented
> to describe technical systems for controlling access to and preventing copying
> of copyrightable files.


I don't believe there's any confusion on the point that the
technologies being referred to by the two terms are basically the
same.  "Technological Protection Measures" is a pretty "neutral"
phrasing.  The worse aspect of it is that the same acronym also
stands for "Trusted Platform Module."  It doesn't refer to
"rights" of any sort, so in the long run it doesn't lead to much
confusion in itself, even if it might be used to describe some
measures as "protection" that shouldn't be.  It's much simpler to
ask for distinctions in terms of how the measures are being used
-- for bogus forms of copyright, or something else? -- in a world
that uses the term "TPM" alone.  Still, even there, I'd have to
think about what the overlap with "Trusted Platform Module" pulls
off.


Seth


> 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.
> 
> I think I came to off-list agreement with Taran about this, too.
> 
> --
> Peter Eckersley
> Department of Computer Science   &                  mailto:pde at cs.mu.oz.au
> IP Research Institute of Australia             http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/~pde
> The University of Melbourne

-- 

RIAA is the RISK!  Our NET is P2P!
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http://www.nyfairuse.org

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