legal hijacking of technical terms -- Re: [IP] "DRM"
Begin forwarded message:
From: Ed Gerck <egerck@xxxxxxx>
Date: June 17, 2005 1:59:45 PM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Cc: Ip ip <ip@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: legal hijacking of technical terms -- Re: [IP] "DRM"
[Dave: for IP]
DRM is _not_ a legal term; it's a technical term. In IT security, when
we talk about "rights" we do not mean whatever the local legal meaning
for "rights" might be.
One would hope that the legal terminology war that has hijacked so much
of the X.509/PKI technical work would stop there, where it has already
shown to cause more harm than help.
The technical term Digital Rights Management is about "digital rights"
-- as in access rights to digital information. Whether those digital
access rights correspond or not to legal rights is an open, local and
variably-understood question. It may well be that DRM imposes access
restrictions that are not legal in some jurisdictions, while they are
legal in others.
OTOH, technically, "protection" is not the same as "rights". Therefore,
DRM and TPM, technically, should not be the same.
Regards,
Ed Gerck
From: Margaret Jane Radin <mradin@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: June 15, 2005 7:57:09 AM EDT
To: dave@xxxxxxxxxx
Subject: "DRM"
I wish people would drop the term "DRM." It was coined by those
who wish to claim as "rights" some things which are not actually
their rights, or are at best contested. In other words, the "R"
in the term "DRM" begs an important legal question. I wish people
would instead use the term "TPM" (Technological Protection
Measures) because at least it is neutral on whether or not those
who deploy them have a "right" to do what they're doing in locking
up information. And TPM happens to be the term used in the WIPO
treaties, too.
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