GartnerG2 and The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School released "Copyright and Digital Media in a Post-Napster World". This 45-page white paper reviews basics of US and EU copyright law, the impact of digital technologies on the business models for music, movies, television and books. It includes briefs of cases dealing with fair use, the DMCA, constitutional issues, e-publishing rights and non-copyright laws protecting creative control or distribution, as well as sketches of pending legislation.
It includes a description of various forms of Digital Rights Management (DRM) tools that embody a rights model, such as Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL), extensible rights markup language (XrML), content scrambling system (CSS) and Johansen's DeCSS program, the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) and Macrovision's CDS-300.
The authors suggest that the history of "launch and crack" associated with DRM systems will continue, and "points to a longer-term requirement for media companies and copyright holders to shift away from a mindset of absolute control over every piece of content." (white paper, p. 38). The authors also suggest that using technology to enforce copyright rights cannot map the evolving doctrine of fair use, pointing to Prof. Lessig's writings on code as law. Further, they say, such control stifles or penalizes innovation. They close the DRM section by introducing GartnerG2's concept of "perfectly portable content," described in the paper.
The paper closes with some editorial remarks and a promise of another publication to be released addressing five scenarios of possible outcomes under different assumptions of the playout of tech, business, legislative and legal developments.
Source: "Unintended Consequences" at DougSimpson.com/blog
Posted by dougsimpson at August 5, 2003 03:32 PM | TrackBack