I happened across this entry from fellow blogger Tim Lee at Technology Liberation Front. In essence, he hopes that the current efforts to come up with DRM standards will collapse. Raises some interesting issues about the relative advantages and disadvantages of open vs. proprietary, addressed by colleague Jim in his paper on standards and Ray Gifford in his address on standards from Milan.

Personally, I found the blog entry... surprising. In essence, he hopes that the current efforts to come up with DRM standards will collapse. This is where the "be careful what you wish for" comes in. Because you might get it...

We're all hanging out here in pundit-land waiting for the next business model for producing and distributing online content to show up. Maybe it is iTunes, maybe not. Maybe it is the Grateful Dead, maybe not. Both of those models have their limitations, so one hopes that there will be a wider array of options to choose from. A much wider array. One thing, though, that most potential business models have in common--they need some way to exclude free riders. Somehow. A physical or technological barrier. Perhaps contractual limitations. Perhaps statutory boundaries. Something, somehow, or a combination of things.

Physical or technological barriers, DRM included, are in a lot of ways preferable to legal ones. They operate by prevention. They are responsive to consumer demand. They operate across international boundaries. They don't have associated policing or enforcement costs (though they aren't free, either). Imagine if the police had to keep burglars out in an environment where no one had thought of or invented locks on doors, or even walls. It would be grossly inefficient, even absurd.

Thus, ultimately, if DRM and the associated private efforts at developing standards fails, we'll either be stuck with extremely limited business models or, even worse, I think, ALL the burden of enforcing boundaries is going to fall on the legal system. Contract or statute or both. In a digital environment where traditional enforcement mechanisms of policing, prosecution, and litigation are already inadequate. There will be tech bans and mandates, all kinds of schemes of expanded liability and penalties for those able to be identified and caught for whatever reason. It won't be pretty.

Of course, my TLF colleague wouldn't support those measures either. But one would think that he would find the private ordering of DRM vastly preferable, enough to temper his rhetoric a bit, at least. Boundaries of all sorts can be a nuisance when they are being worked out, but, well, in the end they are pretty useful.

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 12:48 PM | DRM & Watermarks, etc.

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