Some Thoughts On DRM, Mobility, AOL's TV Reruns

There are some interesting conversations buzzing around the blogosphere regarding the future of media content, moblity and DRM. The announcment that AOL is going to be making reruns of past TV shows available free piqued my interest further on this, as did Sony's recent Rootkit DRM fiasco.

I don't have any answers to this big mess, but I've got a lot of questions and the more I read it seems the more questions I have.

It appears that most of the arguments break down at the core into competing schools of thought, or rather two competing schools of desire.

• Creators have a right to protect their intellectual property. Content providers want to protect their investment.
• Users (consumers, viewers, participants, etc...) want the right to use the content when and where they choose.

Out of those two schools of thought spring a bevy of different debates but at the core these seem to be the issues that cause friction.

I certainly agree that content creators have the right to protect their interests. There is no argument there(although the moves towards doing so in perpetuity carry things to an extreme in my opinion.) Where I have some difficulty is when the methods used to ensure those rights involve invasive and potentially damaging intrusions (Sony's Rootkit) and tying content to a specific device or delivery system.

Back up before the digital age. Books and recordings were bought, read or listened to. Some were kept in collections. Some were resold. Some were passed down from generation to generation. (I still have my grandmother's collection of series of books and vinyl records.) Video and audio tapes added new wrinkles to the mix. Mix tapes became popular. Neighbors recorded TV shows and Movies of the Week for other neighbors who were recording something else at the same time and swapped tapes. Yes, there were cries of foul play from the content providers, but there was no realistic way to enforce or prevent this sort of copyright violation, so largely those cries and FBI warnings went unheeded.

What's important here, is that like obeying (disobeying) speed limits on the highway, this behavior became somewhat ingrained, was viewed as completely benign, and propagated and nothing happened unless someone got caught.

Now fast forward (or scan) to today's digital age. Digital content can be tracked in many ways, and the use of it restricted depending on the license agreement. One of the many things that came out of the Sony Rootkit DRM fiasco was some good reporting on what is actually included in the EULA for the affected CDs. (Good thing we have good reporting because no one reads these things anyway, another part of the problem.) Some of the clauses terminating rights to the content strike me as not only unenforceable, but ludicrous.

• If your home is robbed you and the CD is stolen you lose the rights to use the music.
• If you move out of the country you have to delete all the protected music.
• If you declare bankruptcy you have to delete all the protected music.
• You have no right to transfer the music even with the original CD.

The larger point is this and it applies equally to all phases of the issue. Just because sharing digital content can be easier doesn't make it right. Just because protecting digital content is easier doesn't make any method of doing so right.

So, let's get hypothetical here. I want to give a gift to my daughter. That gift will include the following:

• All of the episodes of Desperate Housewives that I can now get via iTunes (I don't have a video iPod, I haven't downloaded any of the episodes)
• My DVD collection of the Sid Caesar collection(I do own that)
• My book collection of Tom Clancy novels (I own that as well)
• My record collection of The Beatles (owned)
• My Sony CD collection (very hypothetical)

What is the fundamental difference among any of that content? Simply put, that portions of the transfer between I and my daughter can be monitored, tracked, and restricted, but not completely.

Again, I have no real answers to offer here as I'm ruminating on the topic, and I'm sure there are holes in my thinking. But it does raise some interesting questions. I'll be blogging more on this as I ruminate further. In the meantime, here are some interesting reads on the subject.

The New York Times, If Books Are On Google, Who Gains and Who Loses?

Michael Parekh, On AOL Running Warner Reruns On Demand.

The New York Times, It's Like Selling Meals By the Bite. It May Work.