An encouraging sign [LWN.net]

An encouraging sign

Posted Mar 2, 2004 19:03 UTC (Tue) by iabervon (subscriber, #722)
In reply to: An encouraging sign by jre
Parent article: The Committee for Economic Development on digital copyright

I don't think it makes much sense to legislate against DRM. DRM is
essentially a form of encryption. It is not suitable for preventing
copying of the content by someone authorized to get that content, and,
without legislative additions, therefore ineffective against copyright
infringement. On the other hand, it would be bad to outlaw it entirely,
since PGP, for example, is a DRM system.

It might make sense to have laws saying that content protected with DRM
is not the content itself; if someone sells you a CD with DRM on it, it
is as fraudulent as selling you a blank CD pretending to be the one you
wanted to buy. But, even so, I think the market is likely to defeat any
attempts to use DRM which are not routinely defeated by consumers if DRM
is not government-mandated.

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How about proactive entitlement to fair use

Posted Mar 3, 2004 12:52 UTC (Wed) by AnswerGuy (guest, #1256) [Link]

How about a law that says that publishers are not permitted to implement features that prevent fair use of their products? A proactive assertion that fair use is a right associated with sale of any copyrighted work --- as a provision of the uniform commercial code (law(s) governing retail transactions)?

That would (in essence) be an "anti-DRM" law.

At least that's what I hope is meant by "anti-DRM legislation."