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By Jon Noring

Eric FlintJim Baen’s legacy lives on — not just in the realm of e- and p-books, but also related issues such as copyright and DRM.

Eric Flint (picture at right), an associate of Jim’s, has written the first in a planned series of articles lambasting recent copyright law expansion and digital rights management. For this July 4th here in the States, it’s something to ponder.

Eric makes a strong civil-liberties case against the recent rise of DMCA-onerous laws and consumer-unfriendly DRM as a danger to the future of our democracy.

(Detail: I prefer to call DRM “technical protection measures” or TPM.)

As a libertarian (of the pragmatic, not Objectivist variety), I’ve been concerned with this issue for quite a while, and have been meaning to write about it, similar to what Eric plans to do. So Eric’s article has struck a special chord with me, and has also saved me the time and effort to write about it myself!

Eric gives four summary points that will underly his series of articles. He notes:

We’re calling the column “Salvos Against Big Brother” because that captures the key aspect of the problem, so far as Jim Baen and I are concerned. Both the publisher of this magazine and its editor believe that so-called Digital Rights Management (DRM) — by which we mean the whole panoply of ever more restrictive laws concerning digital media, including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) — are the following:

  1. First, they represent a growing encroachment on the personal liberties of the American public, as well as those of citizens in other countries in the world;

  2. Second, they add further momentum to what is already a dangerous tendency of governments and the large, powerful corporations which exert undue influence on them to arrogate to themselves the right to make decisions which properly belong to the public;

  3. Third, they tend inevitably to constrict social, economic, technical and scientific progress;

  4. And, fourth, they represent an exercise in mindless stupidity that would shame any self-respecting dinosaur.

Eric also quotes Thomas Babington Macaulay who, in 1841, said before the British Parliament:

Copyright is monopoly, and produces all the effects which the general voice of mankind attributes to monopoly . . . I believe, Sir, that I may with safety take it for granted that the effect of monopoly generally is to make articles scarce, to make them dear, and to make them bad. And I may with equal safety challenge my honourable friend to find out any distinction between copyright and other privileges of the same kind; any reason why a monopoly of books should produce an effect directly the reverse of that which was produced by the East India Company’s monopoly of tea, or by Lord Essex’s monopoly of sweet wines. Thus, then, stands the case. It is good that authors should be remunerated; and the least exceptionable way of remunerating them is by a monopoly. Yet monopoly is an evil. For the sake of the good we must submit to the evil; but the evil ought not to last a day longer than is necessary for the purpose of securing the good.

Eric goes on and gives a good overview of the role and purpose of copyright law which I’ve not seen as cogently written — I fully agree with his view that copyright is a monopoly privilege and not a natural right. He then delves into issues of DRM (which really refers to TPM, since some types of DRM, such as a simple copyright statement, don’t utilize technical measures to restrict access to content.)

I look forward to Eric’s next articles. Unfortunately, I don’t see an RSS feed for his column.

Please let others know about Eric’s article. The comments area below is open for your feedback.

(P.S., So my position on DRM and TPM is clear, I do not oppose any and all use of TPM. But I do oppose the use of heavy-duty TPM, such as chaining content to particular hardware, for most types of content used by consumers.)

 
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