Everyone Hates DRM
Suggested ReadingsDefusing DRM
Digital rights management technologies have been villified in both the academic literature and the popular press. In this short essay, I make the case that DRM is in fact not so different from all sorts of other self-help measures that have long been tolerated by both the law and the public. I draw analogies from trade secret law, privacy law, and the First Amendment, and ultimately argue that the introduction of DRM is simply not the watershed event some deem it to be.
Mistrust-Based Digital Rights Management
In this article, Randy Picker introduces the concept of identity-based DRM, and along the way provides an engaging and thoughtful introduction to DRM systems more generally, their uses, and the troubles that have arisen in recent years.
Freedom To Tinker
Although not formally part of the readings for this show, no DRM reading list would be complete without a link to Ed Felten's blog, Freedom to Tinker. Always full of timely discussions on DRM and related technical and policy issues, Freedom to Tinker is widely read not only within the legal community but also within the computer science and technical communitites. The posts are remarkable in that they speak to all of those audiences at a high level simultaneously, despite obvious differences in each group's background and interests.
