Slashdot Mirror
Libraries Say DRM May Harm Their Services
Ernest Adams writes "The BBC is reporting that the British Library is concerned about DRM's effect on its ability to make materials available to the public. Libraries have a legal right to distribute materials under the Fair Use provisions of the copyright law, but DRM systems may block this. Furthermore, they point out that DRM systems don't automatically switch themselves off when a work goes out of copyright. DRM systems may allow copyright holders to retain control over their material longer than they are legally entitled to. Worse yet, if the software no longer exists to unlock a DRM-protected file, its contents may be lost forever -- exactly the thing libraries are intended to prevent." We've discussed stories like this before.
I'm saying there has been a ridiculous and often deliberate blurring of the distinction between that "freedom-wanting" information and "payment-wanting" entertainment ever since someone learned they could rip a CD to file and share it with 10,000 of their closest friends. You've asked me not to assume that just because something is entertainment that there is not intellectual freedom issue associated with it, and I say that's fair. But the state of things, in libraries and elsewhere, will be a lot better when people likewise understand that just because something can be digitized and easily disseminated does not makeit magically become "information" with a price tag of $0.