P. Trei writes: > I've been watching the entertainment industry's approach to computers > with what I can only think of as Kafkaesque horror.
The solution to the current problem is so simple that it is hard to believe that no one is pushing it forward. It involves purely voluntary actions, with no legislation at all required. The proper solution is to encourage DRM (digital rights management) software and hardware developers to offer solutions in the marketplace. Let computer manufacturers include so-called "trusted computing" features in their systems. These will allow content to be personalized to a particular computer and only display on that computer. Let them continue to work towards encrypting as much of the data path as possible, so that only analog signals will be available unencrypted. Systems like HDCP, once improved by the cryptographic community, will lead to speakers and video displays that have only digital inputs, on which the data is encrypted. Sampling of images and sounds will only be possible in the analog domain, requiring a re-digitization phase and a single-generation loss in quality. The marketplace will then consist of several types of content. Some will be sold by the content providers in encrypted form, customized for display on a single device (or a specific set of devices). This will be high quality. Some will be pirated versions of such content, taken from the analog domain. These will be slightly lower quality. And some will be conventional and pirated content made available for display on ordinary systems not requiring trust-management features. These will be created by content providers who don't care much about piracy. Consumers will have a choice of purchasing systems with and without DRM features. Or if they get a system with DRM chips and software, they will have a choice about whether to purchase content for use with those features. Anyone who creates or distributes content will likewise have a choice about whether to make it freely available or to use DRM features. Everyone wins in this system. Each participant is able to make his own choices about what to do, with no way to coerce or force anyone else to behave differently than they desire. Yet both privacy advocates and content owners fear this solution. Content owners are afraid consumers would reject DRM technology, forcing owners to continue to make their content freely available. Privacy advocates are afraid that equipment manufacturers will stop making systems without DRM technology, forcing consumers to accept whatever limitations and prices content owners choose to dictate. Each side feels that it must use force to make sure that its own desires are met. Neither is willing to accept the risk that the solution found by the marketplace will not be their ideal. Both sides are part of the problem, not part of the solution. The solution is to reject legislative approaches and to encourage development of a variety of approaches to managing content. DRM systems may or may not be a good solution, but they should not be rejected out of hand. A competitive marketplace with a multiplicity of options will provide the most robust foundation for the future of digital content.
