Everyone Hates DRM
Douglas Gary Lichtman · SSRN Electronic Journal · 2009
Ten years ago, the rights and responsibilities associated with copyright protection were largely defined by federal law. Today, while those explicit rules are obviously still important, a meaningful discussion of copyright protection can’t help but also include technological protections - like the encryption technologies that serve to discourage consumers from making unauthorized copies of their DVDs, or the watermarks that to some degree allow copyright holders to detect when their audio or video content shows up without permission on a site like YouTube. These so-called “digital rights management” or DRM technologies are impacting every aspect of the copyright equation. In this podcast, we therefore set out to take a comprehensive tour of the technology, law, and strategy of DRM. Guests include Ed Felten from Princeton University and Randy Picker from the University of Chicago. UCLA’s Doug Lichtman hosts. (Podcast available for free in the archives at ipcolloquium.com.)