Is DRM Just a Consumer Rights Issue?

Is DRM just a consumer rights issue effecting your record collection? A UK board is treating it as such. But it's much more important than that.

Before Gutenberg, copyists, using pen and ink, duplicated written political dialogue laboriously. Only the wealthy and the church could afford to employ copyists, and during this period the paucity of communications limited the exercise of democracy to small groups. The advent of Gutenberg's press made the mass distribution of written political dialogue possible. People vote based on what they hear and read, and the improvement in communications brought by the press made egalitarian mass democracy possible. It is thus no surprise that the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the freedom of the press.

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. Clearly, the Internet is the most important tool of democracy since Gutenberg developed movable type.

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.

A number of "Internet radio" and "streaming TV" devices and programs have become available today. Most of the products sold for this purpose only receive stations that have been enabled through the gateway site of product's manufacturer. The devices are sold below their real cost, because the manufacturers of these products get a royalty from all of the stations that the product is allowed to carry. Thus, the manufacturer of an Internet radio or TV will control what stations their product provides access to, and what political viewpoints are available via the product. Most of these products use proprietary file formats to lock out anything the manufacturer doesn't control.

One day in the future, most of us will receive text, audio, and video programming via the Internet, either wired or wireless. Imagine the problem for democracy if, when that day dawns, the manufacturers of our access devices are a few companies that have attained a market lock on Internet broadcasting, thus determining what political viewpoints the electorate can receive.

Unfortunately, the trend is for law to further restrict any attempt to circumvent a manufacturer's choice of what programs you will be able to receive, through protection of their proprietary formats in the name of "eliminating piracy". DMCA does it today, Barbara Boxer's PERFORM act, and the WIPO broadcasting treaty will soon add to the burden. The $250,000 fine attached to DMCA and the associated legal defense costs would be enough to bankrupt most people, and there's jail time too. A tiered Internet would further limit your choices.

So, if you think DRM only effects your music collection, think again. It effects the very core of democracy.

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This text was written by Bruce Perens, but we at 404 totally aggree with it.