[Ecommerce] More on OECD, DRM and battle lines (Michael Geist's blog)

[Manon Ress]

http://www.michaelgeist.ca/index.php?
option=com_content&task=view&id=1093&Itemid=113&nsub=

Battle Lines

I'm just returning from participating in the OECD's Future of the
Digital Economy conference in Rome. The conference attracted about
350 attendees with all expected companies, lobby groups, NGOs, and
governments in attendance.  I may write more about the conference
next week, but it is worth highlighting my major take-away, namely
the clear divisions for what are likely to be the two big battles in
this area in 2006 (and possibly beyond).

The first big battle again involves digital rights management (DRM)
technologies.  While one might be forgiven for thinking that we're
back in 1996 rather than 2006, but DRM came up at virtually every
panel.  From my perspective, the news is that there is at least some
acknowledgement of the problems involving DRM.  The privacy,
security, innovation, etc. issues are still largely ignored, however,
there is a tacit (and sometimes explicit) recognition that DRM has
created consumer concerns.

The battle lines revolve around the source of these concerns.  For
the content companies, the problem lies not with their DRM but rather
with the interoperability problems engendered by DRM.  They argue
that the problem therefore rests with the electronics companies, who
insist on releasing devices that won't recognize all DRM, thus
leaving consumers stuck with products that frequently can't be
shifted from device to device.  This discussion reminded me of the
recent headline during the Canadian election which ran along the
lines of "Martin attacks Layton for not attacking Harper."  In this
context, the not-particularly catchy headline would be "Content
companies attack electronic makers for hurting their attack on
consumers with their own attack on consumers."

Incredibly, this is described as a "neutrality" issue.  The content
companies would like a device neutral world (except when they don't,
such as with the broadcast flag) in which DRM will work on all
devices. Indeed, there was some discussion about the need for
government mandated interoperability.

Another recurring theme at the conference pointed to the other side
in this debate.  It was remarkable to see the amount of discussion
around the growing importance of user-generated content.  Although
unfortunately tagged as the rise of the "amateur" (or marginally
better "creative activation"), there were noteworthy presentations on
Creative Commons, the BBC Creative Archive, Flickr, Google Book
Search, and blogs (Technorati founder Jason Sifry reported that
75,000 new blogs are being created every day with Japanese emerging
as the leading language for blog postings in January - less than 1/3
of blog postings were in English).

Among this group not only is DRM not needed (which drew a response
from Intel's representative who seemed genuinely puzzled at its
absence), but it is harmful with negative effects for free
expression, user acceptance, as well as privacy and security.  This
again brought up the growing call for DRM consumer protection that
would better protect against DRM misuse.

Given the "buy your senator an ipod" campaign in the U.S., I expect
that this is where the battle will be fought.  Once everyone in the
Senate has an iPod and experiences the limitations of DRM, the
response from the content companies will be to blame the consumer
electronics industry and to try to force changes to devices, not the
DRM'd content itself.

The other big battle will be well known to readers of this blog -
network neutrality.  The issue surfaced repeatedly in questions and
comments as a serious threat to the digital economy.  That said,
Verizon was on hand to present its IPTV, which looked a lot like a
private Internet.  It isn't described as such of course, but we were
told that the residents of Keeler, Texas are thrilled with the new
high speed lines that permit transmission of high-definition
television and other content.  Content companies also like it - so
much so that Disney was delighted to strike a deal with Verizon to
deliver its content in this way.  And it turns out that Disney gets
more than just fast delivery of content in the bargain as Verizon has
agreed to assist them with their IP enforcement efforts.

Ultimately, if the OECD's conference was unable to arrive at a
consensus on the future of the digital economy, it succeeded in
highlighting where the future battles will be fought.

************************************************
Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org,
www.cptech.org

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