[Infowarrior] - Is DRM just a consumer rights issue?

[Richard Forno]

# 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.
http://technocrat.net/d/2006/6/6/4149

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 affects your music collection, think again. It
affects the very core of democracy.

    Bruce Perens