Dear James Moore: Is your intellectual property more important than my personal property?
By Dorian Taylor
To the hon ourable mem ber from Port Moody-West wood-Port Co quit lam:
I ap plaud your en thu si asm for pro tect ing the prop er ty rights of your con stituents and Cana di ans at large. Your re cent per for mance has demon strat ed your courage and zeal. I do, how ev er, have one con sid er a tion to offer. I hope I can com mu ni cate in a way that you per ceive as nei ther too tech ni cal nor too ex trem ist.
My con sid er a tion con cerns pro posed leg is la tion to out law the cir cum ven tion of so-called dig i tal locks by in di vid u al peo ple or their agents, on their own prop er ty, for their own pri vate pur pos es. My con cern is not about a right to de prive oth ers of rev enue, but my right to com mand my own pri vate prop er ty, con sis tent with the found ing prin ci ples of the party which you rep re sent.
In re cent decades it has be come ex treme ly ad van ta geous for man u fac tur ers of nu mer ous mod ern con sumer and in dus tri al goods to turn from plain me chan i cal or elec tron ic de vices to com put ers with com mod i ty at tach ments. A car is now a com put er with wheels. A cam era is now a com put er with op tics. A tele phone is now a com put er with a mic. This tech nol o gy en ables man u fac tur ers to cre ate, with much less over head, prod ucts that can per form any trick the at tached hard ware af fords them. This is gen er al ly good for the con sumers of these prod ucts.
The prin ci pal side ef fect is that these prod ucts are now worth less with out soft ware to drive them. The agree ment around this soft ware is sep a rate from the pur chase of the phys i cal prod uct, yet through this mech a nism it is ef fec tive ly tied. Pur chas ing a com put er-driv en de vice en tails agree ing in full to the terms of the man u fac tur er re gard ing how that de vice ought to be have. Be fore com put er-driv en de vices, the risk to the con sumer was a prod uct that didn't be have as ad ver tised. Now, the risk is that a prod uct be haves in ways that are not ad ver tised.
For tu nate ly, a great many of these prod ucts can be au dit ed by suf fi cient ly-skilled peo ple, who can dis able un want ed be haviour or re place it en tire ly, and share their re sults on what ev er terms they please to oth ers who are in ter est ed. The only mea sure that would pre vent them from doing so is the out law ing of the cir cum ven tion of dig i tal locks, which as of now I will call by the in dus try term Dig i tal Rights Man age ment, or DRM.
To be sure, it is this at tach ing of strings, a mere side ef fect of progress, which is erod ing the no tion of per son al prop er ty in our great coun try. How ev er, until the man u fac tur ers of these prod ucts, across so many af fect ed in dus tries, can re spond in a way that suits them eco nom i cal ly, cir cum ven tion is the only pro tec tion from this ero sion. To out law it is not only to call into ques tion the value placed on the per son al prop er ty of or di nary Cana di ans by this gov ern ment, but also its strat e gy of prop ping up what is wide ly un der stood by in dus try pro fes sion als to be a fan ta sy.
The fan ta sy of which I speak is that in for ma tion of any kind can be pro tect ed ef fec tive ly by tech ni cal mea sures when it is in pos ses sion of some body other than the per son in ter est ed in pro tect ing it. It is noth ing short of a law of na ture that makes these locks cheap er to cir cum vent than to en force, as any com put er pro gram can be re li ably fooled about its en vi ron ment. DRM is a quixot ic arms race against eco nom ic, math e mat i cal and phys i cal re al i ty.
This is where the term dig i tal lock de parts from an un bi ased at tempt to re late to non-ex perts. We un der stand a lock as a means of pro tect ing our own prop er ty from tres pass, van dal ism and theft, and to sig nal our in tent to do so. We have laws pe nal iz ing those who ig nore this sig nal. How ev er, the cost of lock ing a piece of prop er ty is borne on the per son who sees fit to pro tect it, the site of any in fringe ment is the prop er ty it self, and the risk of ma te ri al loss to this per son is near ly al ways the price of a new lock in the very least.
In con trast, the cost of en forc ing DRM-pro tect ed in for ma tion is over whelm ing ly borne by ev ery body but its au thor, hob bling the prop er ty of the ma jor i ty to serve the in ter ests — not ex clu sive ly copy right in ter ests — of what is ul ti mate ly a mi nor i ty. More over, if you pur chase
an ob ject which is ul ti mate ly still under the con trol of the one who sold it to you, do you re al ly own it? Is it re al ly your prop er ty if it can be tray you and obey some body else? We see this be haviour al ready with locked mo bile phones and HD ca bling boon dog gles among nu mer ous other com mon ex am ples. It does not ben e fit the con sumer one iota to have these locks in place.
I can un der stand con tent pro duc ers sig nalling their in tent to ex er cise rights over their in tel lec tu al prop er ty and can re spect it vol un tar i ly, but an an ti-cir cum ven tion leg is la tion would man date that re spect at the cost of my rights to my prop er ty. That, or make me a crim i nal to cause the equip ment I work hard to pay for, and pay taxes on, to be have ex clu sive ly ac cord ing to my in ter ests and no body else's.
Thank you for your at ten tion.
Dorian Taylor is an independent designer of software and information systems. He is currently involved in reconciling the Web with the original visions of hypertext, its applications for information and project management, and a philosophy around the business of creative work. His writing can be found at doriantaylor.com/.
Comments
2 Comments
Stephan Wehner
Jun 24, 2010 at 5:24pm
You make good points. I think you still only scratched the surface though! That's the sad thing about "digital locks".
Besides they're questionable value, they're not even ready for "production use", let alone talking about them in general laws.
Stephan
mjmuk
Jun 25, 2010 at 4:21am
Very good article with many valid points. It's just one more aspect of more and more complicated software infringements into our lives coupled by a general ignorance of what consumers are agreeing to when they buy these products.