Posts Thanks to my friend David from Canada, these arrived in the post on Monday:
DRM is Digital Rights Managment – the technical “wrapping up” of electronic content in its formatting so that only some devices or users can access it. It is a way to apply to easy-to-copy-and-distribute digital objects “ownership” models that suit hard-to-copy-and-distribute physical objects.
My major problem with DRM is that it locks up cultural growth and creativity in a way that is very hard to technically archive or preserve. It stops sharing – not just sharing via piracy, but the type of sharing that communities have for years entrusted their libraries to facilitate.
This cartoon from Randall Monroe’s xkcd, Steal this Comic, explains the problem very well:
The image on the “Librarians against DRM” buttons was created by artist Nina Paley for Readersbillofrights.org. The site has been set up to raise awareness of the issues around ebooks when considering the right to read – and to invite critical examination and discussion of this. There is a bibliography of further reading and a readers’ bill of rights for digital books section of the website. It is also interesting to check out the site to see that the ways they are communicating – no Facebook page,for example – match their commitment to the free and unrestricted flow of information.
Nina Paley – an advocate for author-led distribution models – is interesting in her own right. To be the subject of an entire other blog post, I think.
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