June 18, 2004
DRM and Microsoft

Cory Doctorow puts up the transcript of a talk on digital rights management (DRM) that he gave recently at Microsoft:

I'm here today to talk to you about copyright, technology and DRM, I work for the Electronic Frontier Foundation on copyright stuff (mostly), and I live in London. I'm not a lawyer -- I'm a kind of mouthpiece/activist type, though occasionally they shave me and stuff me into my Bar Mitzvah suit and send me to a standards body or the UN to stir up trouble. I spend about three weeks a month on the road doing completely weird stuff like going to Microsoft to talk about DRM.

I lead a double life: I'm also a science fiction writer. That means I've got a dog in this fight, because I've been dreaming of making my living from writing since I was 12 years old. Admittedly, my IP-based biz isn't as big as yours, but I guarantee you that it's every bit as important to me as yours is to you.

Here's what I'm here to convince you of:

  1. That DRM systems don't work
  2. That DRM systems are bad for society
  3. That DRM systems are bad for business
  4. That DRM systems are bad for artists
  5. That DRM is a bad business-move for MSFT
Posted by dcoates at June 18, 2004 08:55 AM
Comments

That was a great read! Thank you for posting it.

Posted by: kevin on June 25, 2004 02:36 PM
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