Eric writes in response to my Wired article:

the point that David misses is how much “DRM” enabling technologies can enable the “leeway” he speaks of….. The fact of the matter is that DRM enabling technologies are as *neutral* as the architecture of the computer … As such, “DRM” can just as easily allow you to illegally trade files (piracy) as it can keep from trading files (hollywood) — those are the extreme ends of it……and in between? Leeway.

This is certainly true if one looks at DRM out of its real-world context. As a technology, DRM is totally neutral. It enables artists and audience to negotiate agreements about how the artists’ works are to be used. Maybe Metallica will offer one-time listening rights to its new CD and Bon Jovi will let you make copies on any device registered to you and Elton Jon will let you burn as many CDs as you want. That’d be great.

But…

DRM, as with any technology, has to be evaluated within our actual context. That context is a profoundly uneven playing field in which the enormous economic forces that have a virtual monopoly on the broad mainstream of American culture are using every anti-market (and anti-emergent) advantage they can to maintain their control. DRM in the abstract is neutral; DRM in the world that exists will degrade our experience and our possibilities. Not everything about it is bad, but enough is that we ought to oppose it.

(Eric has an article coming out at DigitalID world on this topic soon…)

Categories: Uncategorized dw