DRM and Democracy

jar writes to tell us Bruce Perens has a short editorial on why DRM could have an impact on much more than just our record collections. From the article: "Within the last century, electronic communications have increasingly become the vehicle of democratic discourse. Because radio and television broadcasting are expensive with limited frequencies available, the wealthy have dominated broadcasting. The Internet and World Wide Web place into the common man's hands the capability of global electronic broadcasting. [...] In order to protect democratic discourse in the future, the Internet must remain a fair and level playing field for the distribution of political speech. The full capability of the Internet must remain available to all, without restriction by religious, business, or political interests."

Comments

Re:internet politics

[Total_Wimp]

It's our right to make poop. Some of it can even be used as fertilizer.

TW

Re:Simple Truth

[plasmacutter]

If people own something they have the right to protect their items from beings stolen.

except copyrights are not analogous to property. a copyright is merely a government enforced license to be the sole distributor for a short period of time.

you can't call a copyright property any more than you can call deer hunting (also a government enforced licensed activity) a property.

Re:exactly...

[plasmacutter]

I'm fully aware of the dangers of full abuses of trusted computing (and do not buy hardware with tpms in it for that reason), and the potential for overreaching legislation.

There are however growing coalitions which are actively preventing this with an excellent track record for success, the DRM mandate and broadcast flag style legislations/regulations in particular have powerful enemies such as the over a million strong american conservatives union (ACU).

trusted computing is another can of worms which will have to shake out before the public is prompted to action. I don't like the potential, but there exists a remote possibility it will not be abused for fear of organized backlash, etc.

i guess the point is that the concerns he raises are more with current legislation on the books and the current regulatory climate rather than potential doomsday scenarios.

I'm aware net neutrality should be on the books, but it currently has a broadcast flag attached to it, which defeats the purpose.

Re:Simple Truth

[plasmacutter]

I don't want a long discussion either, but this should be addressed from objective terms.

Digital objects are easy to copy. It is trivial to make a copy of a non-DRMed song and distribute it for money. If you are not the copyright holder, you don't have that right.

the only right expressly removed by the government through copyright laws is that of redistribution.

all other rights are not regulated, and it is overreaching to regulate them without first subjecting the proposed standard to judicial oversight.
This judicial oversight serves 2 functions. First, it provides judgment by an objective* third party which will consider both sides and hold them accountable, second, it discourages a copyright holder from regulating uses which have dubious commercial value by imposing expense of legal processes, thus preserving through "lack of regulation" those consumer rights which have negligible commercial impact.

DRM does not have this judicial oversight or accountability, it represents unilateral action (with arguably unconstitutional force of law thanks to dmca seciton 1201) by only one side of a debate; you can compare it to placing the right to life movement in charge of abortion regulation.

  I don't like DRM the way it is now, either. But as writer I do see it a a neccessary evil.

I'm sorry but I don't see it that way, if you want to take the RIAA/MPAA's side on this, DRM vendors are ripping them off becaues it doesn't prevent piracy, and if you want to take the consumer's side, it's ripping the consumers off by performing the logically fallacious task of "keeping honest people honest", but in the process stripping away fair use rights as they should exist.