The UK Parliament on DRM [LWN.net]

The All Party Parliamentary Internet Group is an organization in the UK which "exists to provide a discussion forum between new media industries and Parliamentarians for the mutual benefit of both parties." It is open to members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords; its actual makeup (in terms of party representation and such) is not entirely clear. This group decided to have a hard look at the interaction of digital rights management (DRM) schemes and copyright law. To that end, they received written input from dozens of groups on all sides of the copyright dispute and listened to a large number of interested people. The result of all this work is a report [PDF] and a series of recommendations.

This group shows some signs of having actually understood the problem - or parts of it, at least. A reading of the full report is recommended for those who are interested in the issue. For everybody else, here is a set of select quotes.

To start with, the group does not buy the notion that DRM schemes will always be easily overcome.

In the future it must be expected that TPMs [technical protection measures] will rely more and more upon specialist hardware functionality and that some systems will prove to be extremely complex to overcome and to develop generic evasion technology for. It would therefore be unwise to base public policy upon a continuation of the situation that TPMs are relatively easy to overcome. It may well be that propping up technical measures with legislation will become entirely irrelevant. Equally, assuming that egregious problems caused by TPMs can be addressed by just `breaking into the system' may become unrealistic. (¶ 21).

So the "speed bump" view of DRM does not necessarily apply into the future.

Often, the discussion at the political level appears to have lost track of what copyright is for. So it is somewhat refreshing that this group has not forgotten entirely:

Copyright is generally understood to be a trade-off. The creator of copyright material is given a monopoly on exploiting it for a period of time. Currently for a new song or book this is until the creator dies plus 70 years. At the end of this period, the created work enters the public domain and may be exploited by anyone. This scheme is intended to ensure that there are incentives for creators, without creating an indefinite monopoly....

However, should all available versions of the material be protected by highly effective TPM systems, it may prove impossible, when the copyright expires, for the exploitation to occur because the material will remain inaccessible except via the monopolistic TPM system. (¶ 32-4).

The report goes on, however, to dismiss this concern by claiming that "all available versions" of any given work are unlikely to go under DRM anytime soon. The authors may find themselves surprised by the ambitions of the entertainment industry.

At least some of the costs of DRM are understood:

From a completely different perspective, Intel told us that it was important that the legal infrastructure does not inhibit technical innovation and they feel that the `trade-off' should address this as well! As an example, they pointed out that there were no portable video jukeboxes on the market just devices capable of video downloads or playing consumer recordings because it was against the DVD consortium rules to create a portable device. (¶ 49).

Alternative licenses from the Creative Commons and elsewhere are touched upon:

Several of the rights-holders were rather negative about these licenses, suggesting that the creators and performers did not always understand what they were "giving away forever" and how it could affect an artist's ability to enter into an exclusive license at a later stage in their career. Although artists should naturally consider these matters, we suspect that these licenses are clearer than many media industry contracts. (¶ 71).

The report's authors seem to believe that the worst DRM-related problems will be addressed in the market. But, they say, fully-informed consumers will help to bring that about:

Because, as we have observed, consumers expect to copy CDs, we believe that all CDs should in future come with a prominent label saying, "you are not permitted to make any copies of this CD for any reason"... The prominent label should add, when appropriate, "and if you try to make a copy, you should note that we have tried very hard to ensure that you will fail". Doubtless, even clearer and more accurate wording is possible....

For some types of content the labelling will need to warn the user, "you cannot access some parts of this DVD without a working Internet connection to enable us to record your identity", or "your playing of this song may be recorded in marketing databases in foreign countries". (¶ 100-102).

There is also some discussion of what happens if a DRM-using vendor goes out of business or changes policies. The potential loss of an individual's media collection is raised, but the possibility that valuable material could be lost to society as a whole is not.

There is little patience with DRM code which ignores users' commands, hides itself, or endangers the host system:

[W]e recommend that OFCOM publish guidance to make it clear that companies distributing TPM systems in the UK would, if they have features such as those in Sony-BMG's MediaMax and XCP systems, run a significant risk of being prosecuted for criminal actions. (¶ 118).

The authors received input from a number of groups related to free software, but the bulk of that input appears to have been boiled down to about two sentences. The lack of free DVD players is mentioned, as is the effect of governmental DRM mandates. The report claims, however, that no DRM mandates are in view in Europe; evidently broadcast flags and anti-circumvention laws don't count. In general, the needs of the free software community were either not understood or not seen to be important.

So, in the end, the APIG report is not all that one might have hoped for. Still, this document shows a higher level of understanding of the issues than can be found in many other government venues. Let us hope that it is a sign of progress in the right direction.

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The UK Parliament on DRM

Posted Jun 9, 2006 2:50 UTC (Fri) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Whatever the dangers are perceived to be, locking up material "forever" is somewhat of a theoretical issue at the moment, since, in practice, material is very seldom available in a single format; and, for new material created today, unfettered access will not be an issue until very much later this century.

While it's true that "unfettered access will not be an issue until very much later this century" it's not a reason to be complacent. Open this page and scroll down to "Looking for Astro Boy film prints". As you can clearly see it's real practical problem already: some materials are only available as "customer copies" (DRMed is media industry will have it's way). Copyright holder does own copyright (Astro Boy copyright will not expire for a long time yet), yet it does not have copies anymore! While this situation is not ideal (often master-copy has better quality - or higher bitrate in digital age) sometimes it's the only option available.

If we are forced to use customer copies of TV shows back from 1960th then what reason do we have to claim that this process will not be necessary 50 years later for today's shows ? While this is "far in the future" it's valid concern as the history shows!