[Ecommerce] CED report on special problem of digital IP

[Manon Ress]

Xmas reading?

The CED (you know, the "Best of business thinking...") has a long report
(over 100 pages) on "Promoting Innovation and Economic Growth: The
Special Problem of Digital Intellectual Property" (Paul Horn, Elliot
Maxwell and Susan Crawford)

http://www.ced.org/projects/ecom.shtml

The industry expresses concerns over the "substantial effects" of
technological mandate on the tech industry, innovation and consumer
electronics industries.  The report also discusses current content
industries' proposals and their impact on the public domain.

It's a review of 3 major trends: from analog to digital information,
from physical to intangible goods and from sale to licensing followed by
recommendations.

On DRM and consumers:
QUOTE:
In particular, the capacity of such systems [DRMs] to accommodate users'
rights traditionally allowed under intellectual property law needs to be
further explored so that the appropriate copyright balance can be
maintained.  If government-mandated systems are proposed, they should be
evaluated on the basis of their capability to maintain such a balance
and their convenience for consumers. Consumers should play a substantial
role in evaluating and approving mandated technological protection systems.
END of QUOTE

(Also see Part VI on licensing which has good stuff on unreasonnable terms!)

Enjoy.
--
Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org,
www.cptech.org

Consumer Project on Technology in Washington, DC
PO Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036, USA
Tel.:  1.202.387.8030, fax: 1.202.234.5176

Consumer Project on Technology in Geneva
1 Route des  Morillons, CP 2100, 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 791 6727