[cc-licenses] Against DRM 1.0
Rob Myers
rob at robmyers.org
Fri Apr 14 10:31:17 EDT 2006
On 14 Apr 2006, at 14:54, Evan Prodromou wrote:
> This anti-DRM clause restricts the licensee's ability to port to
> platforms where DRM is required. I can't use an image under this
> license in many PDA bookreader platforms, nor in console systems
> like the Playstation.
This is a problem with those platforms, not the content. If the CC
licenses were to say that the content *must* be *distributed* in
transparent form, it allows the user to port the content to whichever
DRM-encumbered platform they like. If the content is allowed to be
distributed in DRM-encumbered form, the user can only use it on one
of their PDA bookreaders or on one of their Playstations. This may be
content, but it isn't open.
> A much better scheme (I think) is parallel distribution: licensee
> can use DRM, if they make an unrestricted version available, too.
> That way, creative folk can experiment with DRM'd platforms, but
> the recipients of the work can still exercise their freedoms to
> distribute and modify the work.
It is important to make the non-DRM form the primary form for
distribution. The GNU FDL's requirement of a transparent copy in
addition to the non-editable copy (rather than the other way round)
seems to cause no end of debate at Debian.
Making Open Content available in a form where it is actually open
must not be an optional extra or an afterthought.
> If you think that the Playstation market is going to dry up from
> lack of Open Content images and music, well, think again, and a
> little harder this time. Maybe, instead, Open Content will benefit
> from being available on DRM platforms.
Popularity is not the same as being right. And I didn't think we were
at the stage where non-DRM content could not be played by devices (if
we are, a lot of the apologists for DRM will need to update their
scripts). Maybe platform vendors will benefit from not being locked
into DRM licensing schemes that are against their and their users
interests. Nintendo's Revolution is planned as an open platform IIRC.
Open Content is a SNIU for this.
- Rob.
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