In a previous post, I included a snippet that linked to Chris Anderson’s blog The Long Tail. (Chris is editor of Wired magazine.) After I posted that, I read a little more. I’ve been meaning to write about digital rights lately but haven’t found the time to set out a coherent thought on what can be a very controversial topic. So I was pleased to find this statement, which pretty much matches my thoughts:
Like Larry Lessig and his Creative Commons project, we believe in the value of protecting intellectual property rights, but we’re opposed to overzealous extensions and implementations of those protections. Copyright good; infinite copyright bad. Piracy bad; treating everyone like a pirate worse.
But equally, we believe in putting the consumer first. Consumers want more content, easier-to-use technology, and cheaper prices. If some form of DRM encourages publishers, consumer electronics makers and retailers to release more, better and cheaper digital media and devices, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. This is just being realistic: much as we might want it to be otherwise, content owners still call most of the shots. If a little protection allows them to throw their weight behind a lot of progress towards realizing the potential of digital media, consumers will see a net benefit.
The real question is this: how much DRM is too much? Clearly the marketplace thinks that the protections in the iPod and iTunes are acceptable, since they’re selling like mad. Likewise, the marketplace thought that the protections in Sony’s digital music players (until recently, they didn’t support MP3s natively) were excessive and they rejected them. Indeed, we were one of the first to criticize Sony in a big way for getting that balance wrong.
Let me put my biases right out front. I spent 20 years working for print magazines, and I’ve been writing books for more than a decade. In a sense, I am in the same business as musicians and movie makers, with a crucial difference: Anyone with the right software can make a perfect digital copy of a CS or DVD, cheaply and at essentially zero cost. You can’t make a perfect copy of a book or magazine unless you own your own printing press, and the cost is more than most people can bear. For now at least, it’s easier to buy a book than to print your own copy. And even though all the books I’ve written in recent years have also been available in electronic versions, I guess people still like to turn pages and scribble notes in the margins, which you can’t easily do with an e-book.
When perfect copies are easy and free, the temptation to make copies and pass them around is overwhelming, even for people who are basically honest. So, like Chris, I understand the need for protecting digital media. But as soon as any company decides to use DRM to protect their rights, they have a responsibility to make it not only possible but effortless for me to exercise the rights I buy from them. I should be able to make archival copies. I should be able to play music on a portable player and a car stereo and my home music system without paying for it three times, and the TV shows I record for personal convenience shouldn’t expire unwatched just because I’m on a vacation that lasts more than two weeks.
I think the Electronic Frontier Foundation is doing excellent work, but I don’t agree that all media should be free to copy by anyone, anywhere, at any time. Reasonable restrictions are just fine with me. It’s too bad the entertainment industry (movies and music) is run by people who don’t seem willing to be reasonable about much of anything. That’s one reason I listen to a lot of music by artists on independent labels. I’d love to see an equally healthy independent movie and video industry that could tell the big studios to shove it.
Ed Bott 