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The ‘open source’ DRM debate
April 4, 2006 | 3:58 am
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By David Rothman
In “open source” DRM of the kind Sun advocates, two big issues arise, among others. First, will “open” truly be uncrackable? Second, how about other issues such as fair use? How much of a passage you can copy, for example? Wired News and if:blog examine these matters. Related: Larry Lessig’s endorsement of open-source DRM and Jon Noring’s The Perils of DRM Overkill for Large Publishers.
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Comments:
Color me suspicious about an “open” initiative that won’t let me see the specs unless I give over lots of personal information, and agree to a long contract that in turn says I may have to agree to other contracts I haven’t yet seen in order to see the documentation.
Maybe they’re just doing a slow rollout in the alpha stage of specs. But the most trustworthy open software initiatives that I’ve seen have no problems about making their specifications widely readable without restriction once they’ve announced them, so that anyone else can easily verify and/or demonstrate that it works as it claims, and make useful suggestions for improvement.
Given that the whole field of DRM has been rife with claims that end up not lining up with reality when put to the test, any new DRM scheme that wants to be accepted as open and trustworthy is going to need to be a lot more transparent than they are at present.
Useful thoughts, John. Whether a DRM initiative is called “open” or not, there’d darn well be lots of tire-kicking!
I can show you how a lock works, don’t mean you still won’t need the key. Yet even if it were “open”, that still doesn’t mean “free”. I believe “free” to be the more important of the two, if only because it largely represents what we had in the pre-DRM world.
Branko, I think it would be cool for you to list the things you’d like to be able to do with nonDRMed books while still allowing the writers to make money with the present biz model. Or are you saying the model has to change? If so, what do you want in its place?
I myself can see both sides. Like you, I cherish fair use. I want to be able to lend an e-book to a friend temporarily. On the other hand, that’s different from distributing the file permanently to 10,000 strangers. One reason I’m keen on the library model is that it would allow books to be social objects while still providing compensation for publishers and writers.
Thanks,
David