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‘Liberal’ Hollywood? Not when it comes to full DRM disclosures
March 24, 2009 | 12:10 pm
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By David Rothman
The Copyright Alliance, in some ways just another variant of the recording and movie lobbies, doesn’t want to consumers to know the lowdown on DRM.
Are you hoping to fully determine before the purchase if you can own a book for real—exactly what the DRM-related gotchas might be? Forget about any future legal requirements for this, at least if Copyright Alliance Exec Director Patrick Ross gets his way.
Hollywood included, the entertainment world is a liberal place generally. But when it comes to true consumer protection on DRM matters, it’s 1950s Mississippi. Isn’t this something to ponder as the March 25 FTC hearing on DRM nears? Citizens are furious over the AIG bonuses. Will the day come when they realize how much they’ve also lost out to special interests in the copyright area? Will the FTC reverse the trend? Or will we just see more of the same sellouts?
Here’s the anti-consumer line from the Copyright Alliance:
Uniform language gets very difficult, especially when uses keep expanding. We agree that it’s important to disclose, but we want to do it in way that is not disruptive to the consumer experience. If we’re going to compete with free, we need to offer a positive consumer experience, and having a lot of pop-ups or click-throughs mandated by the FTC is just not a positive consumer experience.
"Positive experience"? As a pro-copyright guy, I like the idea of, say, social DRM—along with, yes, vigorous prosecution of big-time ripoff artists. But sneaky DRM tactics in time will backfire and turn citizens against copyright. If traditional DRM technology is too hard for the consumer to understand, let’s get rid of it—especially since it can’t protect against illegal distribution of scans of paper books.
(ContentAgenda, via a Tweet from Kirk Biglione of Medialoper.)
Technorati Tags: FTC,Federal Trade Commission
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Comments:
David … Thanks for alerting us to this event.
The funny thing about these draconian DRM techniques, is that they are not working at all. Just about any newly released film is available for watching, on the Internet, free. People are watching the video at home, recording it, then uploading it to file sharing/storage sites. I am not approving or disapproving of this practice: just sharing the fact. Piracy is rampant. But the solution is not increased control by technology and by force.
It is time for a more innovative, more open and potentially effective approach to protect copyrights, such as the methods you have been suggesting, including Social DRM.
By the way, the March 25 DRM event will be webcast live (on March 25 of course). To access the webcast go here
http://www2.ftc.gov/bcp/workshops/drm/index.shtml
and look for the “Webcast” link near the middle of the web page.
MP
Thanks, Michael. I continue to wait for a study saying that DRM saves more money than it costs in lost sales–by annoying the devil out of customers. People with enough people smarts to organize a “Copyright Coalition” also ought to have enough to appreciate the possibilities of social DRM. So I’d hope. Reality, of course, can be rather different, alas. David