kiwipeso wrote:
I say that it's a choice between DRM and copyright, and that there shall be no penalty for unlocking DRM.
Edison Carter wrote:
My thoughts USED to be that there should be a choice; copyright or DRM. If you choose to try and limit copying by technical means you forfeit the right to limit copying through the legal system.
I also initially thought this but changed my mind. Intuitively it seems to make sense that if we're providing an incentive for publishing a work in a useful format, then there's less point in providing an incentive for publishing a work in a less useful format (i.e. there's less point in providing copyright for DRMed works), but thinking about it further, legally/economically, I don't think it works out neatly.
Although copyright is provided as an incentive for publication, it is an incentive granted to the author (generally), not the publisher. If we want a disincentive for publishing works in a DRMed format, I think we need this disincentive to apply to the publisher, not the author, otherwise things get complicated.
Obviously we're shouldn't withdraw the grant of copyright for unauthorised publication in DRM format, e.g. Apple published the VLC media player with DRM on their App Store without authorisation, and it makes no sense to withdraw rights from the authors of the VLC media player for this. Neither does it necessarily always make sense to withdraw the grant of copyright for authorised publication though, e.g. TiVo (like everyone) is authorised to use Linux, and they're not prohibited from using it with DRM. More generally, a work may include parts (libraries, toolkits, frameworks, engines, etc.) that may also be available without DRM, and are covered by copyright. We could say that the parts not published without DRM are not covered by copyright, but it is not necessarily very useful if we are only legally able to copy these parts. The only workable way to ensure that none of a DRMed work is covered by copyright is to make this a requirement on the publisher, I think.
From another angle, if something which uses DRM is a dominant method of distribution in a particular field (like iTunes or App Store), then authors may feel that they need to publish via this means to reach a wide audience. If the author is later open to publishing without DRM, I think this would still be useful, so it would still be in our interests to provide an incentive for this. If we've already withdrawn the offer of copyright, then we are no longer providing an incentive for them to do something that would still be useful to us--we've locked them into DRM. If we want to best prevent DRMed distribution of copyrighted works, then I think there needs to be a consistent disincentive for DRMed distribution of copyrighted works--every act of DRMed distribution of copyrighted works is subject to the disincentive, and no act of DRM-free distribution of copyrighted works is subject to it. e.g. I think a high tax on the DRMed distribution of copyrighted works could be a way of addressing this--it would provide a disincentive specifically targeted at DRMed distribution of copyrighted works, which is what we want to reduce. Again, for this approach to work, it would have to be a requirement on the publisher.
Given these thoughts, is there still interest in some kind of withdrawal of the offer of copyright for DRMed works to be an option in the vote?
Edison Carter wrote:
But now I don't think this is the best approach at all. A better answer is that there should simply be no legal protection for DRM. Most DRM is quite weak, nothing more than an annoyance. If circumvention, trade in circumvention tools and unrestricted personal copying are allowed then for all practical purposes such DRM doesn't exist.
Legalising DRM circumvention would definitely be a great help, and straightforward to implement, and I think this is probably where we can all agree.
Edison Carter wrote:
Stronger DRM will defeat itself. In an environment where people are used to 'owning' what they bought, being able to share with friends, etc. products restricted by strong DRM are going to be as popular as a pork chop in a mosque.
I don't have so much faith in this. People have accepted CD keys and product activation. Even I've reluctantly got a copy of MS Office 2003 so that I can exchange documents with others. As long as each new DRM is only slightly more troublesome than the last, I think people will keep accepting it and getting locked into it.
Edison Carter wrote:
The same with closed-source software. If people are mostly free to copy your software and find ways around whatever restrictions you tried to add, a lot of the incentives for keeping the source closed in the first place are gone.
I disagree, I think Microsoft keeping Windows closed source gives them leverage over the whole desktop market.
kiwipeso wrote:
And the issue of publishing source code has been discussed before james.
the fact the NZ govt. has the source code to windows doesn't make it secure
Yeah, I know we're not discussing disclosing source code here, and I don't think it's a policy of the international pirate movement, so it won't be a core policy, which means if we discuss such a policy at all, it will be have to be after we've sorted out core policy, and I don't think there seems to be much interest within PPNZ for it, so I doubt we'll have a policy on it anyway. I mentioned it because I see DRM and disclosing source disclosure as part of the same issue: that when a work is published, it may be more useful to the public if provided in some forms rather than others, and that therefore it may make sense for an incentive such as copyright to aim to promote the publication of works in more useful forms rather than less useful ones.
It's not so much a case of security as usefulness I'm thinking of here. Closed source software can not be adapted. Specific organisations have access to the source under non-disclosure agreements, but this is not widely useful.
