The importance of digital rights management is now such that it achieved
inclusion in the agenda at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos,
Switzerland, last week. One session at the Forum was dedicated to DRM,
while the topic came up in various other sessions concerned with media and
technology.
The session
"A New Democracy in Digital Rights Management" featured a discussion,
moderated by John Markoff of The New York Times. Panelists included
consultant and DRM Watch editor Bill Rosenblatt, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin,
former Sony Corp. of America CEO Mickey Schulhof, and two media technology CEOs:
Michael Fries of the international cable/broadband operator Liberty Global, and
Stefan Roever of the digital content e-commerce startup Navio Systems.
Markoff initiated discussions of various ticklish issues surrounding DRM
today, including the recent debacle over copy protected CDs and the roles of DRM
in consumer created content and home entertainment networking. Regarding
the latter topic, Schulhof said that although movie studios are paranoid about
content security, the restrictions they want over content can be characterized
as reasonable use within the home but not beyond. Martin expressed
disappointment that a US federal court struck down last year's Broadcast Flag
regulation, saying that it is necessary to protect content.
Rosenblatt addressed the issue of consumer created content (sometimes known
as C3) on this panel as well as in other sessions at the Forum on News. He
said that blogs have fueled the explosive growth in C3 because they are both
standardized and extremely easy to produce; if DRM is to play a role in the
distribution of C3 then it must be equally easy to use. A good example of
C3 where DRM might be relevant, he said, is not the usual one of family
photographs or self-published music, but a serendipitous camera-phone picture of
a major news story in progress. The photographer may well want to keep
control over her picture as she talks with commercial news organizations about
using it.
The topic of DRM also came up in other Forum sessions with high-profile
technology leaders, who acknowledged its importance while declining to offer
specifics; in one case, for example, a consumer electronics executive was asked
about the effect of DRM on his cost structure and danced around the answer.
Events
IE 7
Firefox 2.0
