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The topic of DRM is very political, and this should be reflected in the article, but at the centre of the topic there is a core technical subject. There is a problem with the definition at the moment, and it is that it only talks about the restrictive aspects of DRM. In theory and in the specialised literature, DRM refers to ALL types of management of rights online, even if these are not restricitve (such as placing a tracker to count acces, or XML with legal elements on it, or even Creative Commons banners). Restrictive DRMs have a name: Technical Protection Measures. Anduin13 08:00, 17 Nov 2005 (GMT)
This article needs to be merged with copy protection. -- Pde 06:30, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I also disagree. There is enough information specific to DRM to warrant a separate article.
This page seems to have substantial POV problems, as well as many markup and presentation errors. It looks as if it was reformatted from an email message. I would suggest, at a minimum, that the main article ought to concentrate on just the technical aspects of DRM, and the politics in various countries should be moved to separate articles. 18.24.0.120 02:05, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I would disagree that 'technical aspects' of DRM (in its various forms which differ substantially technically) are currently separable from policy aspects, including political reactions. The engineering problem for DRM generally is a considerable one given the assorted expectations (legal, commercial, traditional, ...) of any DRM system. Furthermore, those establishing the 'protection expectations' for DRM (in re music, or movies, or ...) have unclear and to some extent mutually contradictory desires about the desired performance. For instance, prevent all unauthorized copying while interfering not at all with a customer's experience.
Until these problems are addressed, there is, can be, and will not be any 'technical solution'.
On the other hand, it is certainly possible to adopt DRM solutions which merely provide what the engineering supplies. Unfortunately, many of the provisions the engineering supplies are problematic under one or another existing law or regulation -- as for instance in the US, the 'fair use' provisions of copyright law. Or such provisions are in conflict with commercial desirata for a DRM policy, most notably convenience for customer and his use of the property.
It would be, perhaps, ideal if such a separation were possible, but the current state of things (engineering, law, copyright owners' desires, ...) do not permit. It's a structural problem(s) and this article ought not to allow readers to conclude (by absence of information on the point) that there are not such problems.
ww
Agree there are significant POV issues. Tried to edit the use of quote marks on things and the use of "so-called" before terms but the edits were reverted. :P. Ripe 02:25, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
There was no opponent's view of DRM which I just added, and will expand upon. Some argue that DRM is nothing less then the beginning of the age of internet censorship, the digital imprimatur, so I think it important to share their viewpoints. Especially important since one opponent of DRM is Richard M. Stallman of Linux / GNU / GPL who calls it 'trusted computing', and wrote a story where DRM is the mainstay and people revolt for the 'Right to Read'. ShaunMacPherson
The link to Edward Felton's webpage is broken.
-- Furrykef 00:39, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
A more neutral term would be Digital Copy Protection (DCP). It's not a term that's in vogue, but it's clearly more NPOV. Connelly 03:44, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)
IMHO the very term "digital rights management" expresses a non-neutral point of view, since what is being managed has no relationship to anybody's legal rights at all, neither those of the vendor who makes use of DRM nor the customer who buys DRM-protected material. The restrictions placed on the use of the material are whatever restrictions the seller wishes them to be, independent of the legal situation. One example of this was Adobe's release of an Adobe eBook Reader edition of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"--which was based on Project Gutenberg's eText--which did not permit use of the "read aloud" text-to-speech feature of the software. The article addresses this by presenting the alternate reading of DRM as "digital restrictions management," but I feel there is still an issue. Dpbsmith 00:57, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
The term DRM is indeed awkward, and in some usages is probably non-POV, but the Wikipedia is not the place to reform offending usage. The term is unfortunate, but it is the term in wide use -- however unfortunatly misused, sometimes in an attempt to pervert the discourse for private benefit -- and we're stuck with it in my view.
Sorry to complicate this further, but there is another definition of DRM floating around that focuses on it as a shared ruleset between vendor and consumer that happens to be implemented/enforced using digital technologies. In this view, it's a matter of contract: the vendor offers content under a specific set of conditions and a consumer decides whether or not to purchase accordingly. This is of course problematic itself for a variety of reasons including 1) the consumer often won't know what all the conditions are and had no voice in designing them; 2) is it a contract of adhesion if the content isn't fungible?; 3) should we let contracts trump fair use (US version; called other things elsewhere)?; 4) DRM can enable a vendor to exert control over content that it doesn't actually own the rights to in the name of controlling its physical media (assuming analog distribution).
To give the pro-DRM crowd its due, DRM is intended to re-level the playing field. The physical limitations of analog media meant that the content vendor was limited in the terms he could set on use of his content but it also pretty effectively limited the consumer's ability to undermine the vendor's return on his investment through mass piracy/redistribution/copying (however you want to look at it). Digital technologies enable property rights relationships that were previously impossible and, if pricing follows, could make more content available to more people via price differentiation. For example, your medieval Gutenberg Bible had to be sold with the understanding that you could use it forever and it could be freely copied, albeit slowly and at high cost. Now a digital book can (well, effectively maybe someday) be sold for short-term use only and without the ability to be copied. That digital version ought to be substantially cheaper than the digital analog of the Gutenberg Bible. I don't personally believe the pricing differential will follow appropriately, but that's at least one argument.
In the article is a < sentence within > followed by EDIREC. Can anyone figure out what was intended here? I'll try to remember to come back and clean it out if no one can. ww 16:15, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Matt, I had in mind here the recent spate of organizational decisions to use Linux as the standard OS (in assorted countries, Munich, ...). Didn't want to say so for POV reasons. Got a way to say it that wouldn't be obscure (I agree with you there) or POV (by mentioning/'endorsing' a competitor)? ww 17:22, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
The anonymous edit here reverted removed w/o explanation some associated with DRM examples. Perhaps they shouldn't be here, but w/o any explanation of why, ... ww 16:11, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
DivX is referred to here as "a video compression protocol, akin to MPEG-4". In fact, DivX is an implementation of MPEG-4. I suggest "an implementation of the MPEG-4 video compression protocol." -Peter
The paragraph previously read:
This is simply not correct and expresses the point of view of the vendors and users of DRM systems. There is absolutely nothing about DRM that connects its use to the "owner" of the rights to the work, or ensures that the restrictions enforced by the system are in accord with the owner's rights. The previous definition is analogous to defining "handcuffs" as "a system used by police to restrain criminals."
Y'all can't seriously think this even remotely approaches a neutral take on the subject, can you?
I believe it is important to be factually correct, which this definition currently is not. The copyright holder is not one of the two possible entities that can directly control communications devices as only the device vendor or the owner can be in control.
Whether or not the vendor of the device, under a license agreement from the DRM vendor, should be in control of the device rather than its owner is a political debate. Whether these DRM vendors should be required by law to obey the license agreements of copyright holders, *only* those agreements, and *only* as far as those agreements are legal, is also an appropriate debate.
Clarifying who the two options are, and that the copyright holder is not one of those options, is a fact.
I have commented on this definition on my own site: http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/view/609
Dec 7, 2004
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | → | Archive 5 |
The topic of DRM is very political, and this should be reflected in the article, but at the centre of the topic there is a core technical subject. There is a problem with the definition at the moment, and it is that it only talks about the restrictive aspects of DRM. In theory and in the specialised literature, DRM refers to ALL types of management of rights online, even if these are not restricitve (such as placing a tracker to count acces, or XML with legal elements on it, or even Creative Commons banners). Restrictive DRMs have a name: Technical Protection Measures. Anduin13 08:00, 17 Nov 2005 (GMT)
This article needs to be merged with copy protection. -- Pde 06:30, 27 Oct 2003 (UTC)
I also disagree. There is enough information specific to DRM to warrant a separate article.
This page seems to have substantial POV problems, as well as many markup and presentation errors. It looks as if it was reformatted from an email message. I would suggest, at a minimum, that the main article ought to concentrate on just the technical aspects of DRM, and the politics in various countries should be moved to separate articles. 18.24.0.120 02:05, 26 Jan 2004 (UTC)
I would disagree that 'technical aspects' of DRM (in its various forms which differ substantially technically) are currently separable from policy aspects, including political reactions. The engineering problem for DRM generally is a considerable one given the assorted expectations (legal, commercial, traditional, ...) of any DRM system. Furthermore, those establishing the 'protection expectations' for DRM (in re music, or movies, or ...) have unclear and to some extent mutually contradictory desires about the desired performance. For instance, prevent all unauthorized copying while interfering not at all with a customer's experience.
Until these problems are addressed, there is, can be, and will not be any 'technical solution'.
On the other hand, it is certainly possible to adopt DRM solutions which merely provide what the engineering supplies. Unfortunately, many of the provisions the engineering supplies are problematic under one or another existing law or regulation -- as for instance in the US, the 'fair use' provisions of copyright law. Or such provisions are in conflict with commercial desirata for a DRM policy, most notably convenience for customer and his use of the property.
It would be, perhaps, ideal if such a separation were possible, but the current state of things (engineering, law, copyright owners' desires, ...) do not permit. It's a structural problem(s) and this article ought not to allow readers to conclude (by absence of information on the point) that there are not such problems.
ww
Agree there are significant POV issues. Tried to edit the use of quote marks on things and the use of "so-called" before terms but the edits were reverted. :P. Ripe 02:25, 6 February 2006 (UTC)
There was no opponent's view of DRM which I just added, and will expand upon. Some argue that DRM is nothing less then the beginning of the age of internet censorship, the digital imprimatur, so I think it important to share their viewpoints. Especially important since one opponent of DRM is Richard M. Stallman of Linux / GNU / GPL who calls it 'trusted computing', and wrote a story where DRM is the mainstay and people revolt for the 'Right to Read'. ShaunMacPherson
The link to Edward Felton's webpage is broken.
-- Furrykef 00:39, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
A more neutral term would be Digital Copy Protection (DCP). It's not a term that's in vogue, but it's clearly more NPOV. Connelly 03:44, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)
IMHO the very term "digital rights management" expresses a non-neutral point of view, since what is being managed has no relationship to anybody's legal rights at all, neither those of the vendor who makes use of DRM nor the customer who buys DRM-protected material. The restrictions placed on the use of the material are whatever restrictions the seller wishes them to be, independent of the legal situation. One example of this was Adobe's release of an Adobe eBook Reader edition of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"--which was based on Project Gutenberg's eText--which did not permit use of the "read aloud" text-to-speech feature of the software. The article addresses this by presenting the alternate reading of DRM as "digital restrictions management," but I feel there is still an issue. Dpbsmith 00:57, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
The term DRM is indeed awkward, and in some usages is probably non-POV, but the Wikipedia is not the place to reform offending usage. The term is unfortunate, but it is the term in wide use -- however unfortunatly misused, sometimes in an attempt to pervert the discourse for private benefit -- and we're stuck with it in my view.
Sorry to complicate this further, but there is another definition of DRM floating around that focuses on it as a shared ruleset between vendor and consumer that happens to be implemented/enforced using digital technologies. In this view, it's a matter of contract: the vendor offers content under a specific set of conditions and a consumer decides whether or not to purchase accordingly. This is of course problematic itself for a variety of reasons including 1) the consumer often won't know what all the conditions are and had no voice in designing them; 2) is it a contract of adhesion if the content isn't fungible?; 3) should we let contracts trump fair use (US version; called other things elsewhere)?; 4) DRM can enable a vendor to exert control over content that it doesn't actually own the rights to in the name of controlling its physical media (assuming analog distribution).
To give the pro-DRM crowd its due, DRM is intended to re-level the playing field. The physical limitations of analog media meant that the content vendor was limited in the terms he could set on use of his content but it also pretty effectively limited the consumer's ability to undermine the vendor's return on his investment through mass piracy/redistribution/copying (however you want to look at it). Digital technologies enable property rights relationships that were previously impossible and, if pricing follows, could make more content available to more people via price differentiation. For example, your medieval Gutenberg Bible had to be sold with the understanding that you could use it forever and it could be freely copied, albeit slowly and at high cost. Now a digital book can (well, effectively maybe someday) be sold for short-term use only and without the ability to be copied. That digital version ought to be substantially cheaper than the digital analog of the Gutenberg Bible. I don't personally believe the pricing differential will follow appropriately, but that's at least one argument.
In the article is a < sentence within > followed by EDIREC. Can anyone figure out what was intended here? I'll try to remember to come back and clean it out if no one can. ww 16:15, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Matt, I had in mind here the recent spate of organizational decisions to use Linux as the standard OS (in assorted countries, Munich, ...). Didn't want to say so for POV reasons. Got a way to say it that wouldn't be obscure (I agree with you there) or POV (by mentioning/'endorsing' a competitor)? ww 17:22, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
The anonymous edit here reverted removed w/o explanation some associated with DRM examples. Perhaps they shouldn't be here, but w/o any explanation of why, ... ww 16:11, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)
DivX is referred to here as "a video compression protocol, akin to MPEG-4". In fact, DivX is an implementation of MPEG-4. I suggest "an implementation of the MPEG-4 video compression protocol." -Peter
The paragraph previously read:
This is simply not correct and expresses the point of view of the vendors and users of DRM systems. There is absolutely nothing about DRM that connects its use to the "owner" of the rights to the work, or ensures that the restrictions enforced by the system are in accord with the owner's rights. The previous definition is analogous to defining "handcuffs" as "a system used by police to restrain criminals."
Y'all can't seriously think this even remotely approaches a neutral take on the subject, can you?
I believe it is important to be factually correct, which this definition currently is not. The copyright holder is not one of the two possible entities that can directly control communications devices as only the device vendor or the owner can be in control.
Whether or not the vendor of the device, under a license agreement from the DRM vendor, should be in control of the device rather than its owner is a political debate. Whether these DRM vendors should be required by law to obey the license agreements of copyright holders, *only* those agreements, and *only* as far as those agreements are legal, is also an appropriate debate.
Clarifying who the two options are, and that the copyright holder is not one of those options, is a fact.
I have commented on this definition on my own site: http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/view/609
Dec 7, 2004