[advocacy] DRM in OGG - A Proposal

[Daniel James]

> AIUI it should be possible to completely disable hardware support for TCPA
> systems (like Palladium), the only (negative) side-effect being that you
> won't be able to access audio/video/pictures/text that has been designed to
> require a TCPA system.

We will have to see how much difference that makes in practice - even if it is 
possible to disable, it might not be feasible for the average user. As for 
the commercial copyright infringers, do we believe that they will simply 
close down their businesses? Seems unlikely - more likely is that they will 
invest substantially in breaking TCPA, and they can afford to. 

> We ought not to
> support TCPA-requiring audio/video/pictures/text, even if it doesn't
> necessarily infringe consumers' rights with respect to
> audio/video/pictures/text.

Based on my experience of DRM systems so far, it's not the kind of music that 
I want to listen to that is most affected. Robbie Williams (singer) just 
signed a supposed 80 million pound deal for five or six albums with EMI - you 
can bet that some form of DRM figures in EMI's plans to make a profit on 
that.

I'm not likely to ever hear his music (except by accident on the radio) but I 
still don't want his fans to lose their established rights. And not just 
because if the system is profitable then it will end up being used by the 
labels of the artists that I do listen to. 

For those of you who think DRM=always bad, consider that the GNU GPL is a form 
of DRM. It manages the rights of both authors and users of digitally stored 
information, in this case usually source code and binaries rather than audio 
and video. The enforcement is by legal threat over copyright infringement, 
although it rarely actually goes to court.
 
Cheers

Daniel
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