[Infowarrior] - Associated Press Tries To DRM The New

[Richard Forno]

Associated Press Tries To DRM The News
from the good-luck-with-that dept
http://techdirt.com/articles/20090723/1858235640.shtml

DRM has failed in almost every instance it's been tried. Not only does  
it fail to actually prevent copying, it tends to piss off legitimate  
users and limit value rather than enhance it. And yet... people keep  
trying. But, honestly, I can't think of anything as pointless as the  
latest move from the Associated Press which appears to be an attempt  
to DRM the news. That's not what they call it, but that's what it  
sounds like:

The Associated Press Board of Directors today directed The Associated  
Press to create a news registry that will tag and track all AP content  
online to assure compliance with terms of use. The system will  
register key identifying information about each piece of content that  
AP distributes as well as the terms of use of that content, and employ  
a built-in beacon to notify AP about how the content is used....

The registry will employ a microformat for news developed by AP and  
which was endorsed two weeks ago by the Media Standards Trust, a  
London-based nonprofit research and development organization that has  
called on news organizations to adopt consistent news formats for  
online content. The microformat will essentially encapsulate AP and  
member content in an informational "wrapper" that includes a digital  
permissions framework that lets publishers specify how their content  
is to be used online and which also supplies the critical information  
needed to track and monitor its usage. Hopefully I haven't "violated"  
that rule by quoting the section above. It really does sound like the  
mythical dreams of DRM that the software industry discussed two  
decades ago and the music industry discussed a decade ago. Neither one  
worked -- and both of those were (theoretically) a lot more  
"protectable" than news. Honestly, it's difficult to think of anything  
quite this useless:


	• It won't work. It physically can't work. News is news. You can't  
put any real DRM on it, because it's so easy to copy text and remove  
any sort of "registry" tags.
	• It removes value. Nothing in this move increases the value of the  
AP's content to anyone. It does the opposite. It significantly limits  
the value, and for those who actually want to help promote the  
content, it now gives you extra incentives not to do so.
	• It's a waste of AP resources. At a time when the AP should be  
focusing on looking for ways to add value to create a better business  
model, it's now about to throw away money, time and staff on putting  
together a DRM for news that doesn't work? Talk about screwed up  
priorities.
This has been said before (multiple times) but you don't rescue your  
business model by "protecting" against what people want to do. You  
don't rescue your business model by wasting resources trying to hold  
back what people want to do. You rescue your business by providing  
more value and figuring out a way to monetize that value. Putting  
bogus DRM on news does none of that.  It only hastens failure.