Digital Rights Management

Digital Rights Management is a technology that promises to make copying difficult and also allows the possibility of the copyright owner restricting uses of the product in specified ways. It also allows the possibility of payments that are geared to usage of the product where the user can be granted new uses if payments are forthcoming, based on an intelligent system contained within the product itself.

Such technologies can be found in simple anti-copy technologies, such as the 'broadcast flag' that is to be embedded in future television broadcasts, or the technology in current DVD players that is intended to allow only the playing of DVDs created for particular geographic areas.

There has been much discussion of the pros and cons of technological controls and limitations on copyright.

To some, such technologies raise the specter of restrictions of free speech and the elimination of creative reuse. It has also been claimed that consumer's rights are being restricted beyond what is efficient for society. In particular, activities that fall under the rubric of fair-use, such as copying small portions of a copyrighted work for the purposes of scholarship or making personal backup copies, appear to be threatened.

The decisions that society makes now are likely to influence us for many years. It is important that these decisions be informed by careful and thoughtful scholarship.