82
Views
1
CrossRef citations to date
0
Altmetric
Original Articles

Does Lessig's criticism of digital rights management target one technology that the information industries desire more than they can actually provide?

Pages 235-252 | Published online: 21 Aug 2006
 

Abstract

According to Lessig's idea of ‘code is law’, digital rights management (DRM) is seen as a technology with perfect control and has great potential for offering persistent and permanent protection for the digital content that information industries own. Moreover, some consider that DRM is powerful enough to replace copyright law in protecting digital products. Clearly, such a conclusion about DRM is problematic. As we know, perfect control is impossible because no technology is 100% secure. Some circumvention cases can provide evidence of this. Paradoxically, Lessig's criticism of DRM seems to have come true. Backed up with the force of anti-circumvention provisions, although there are lots of technological flaws and ongoing legal arguments, DRM has been one technology that information industries desire more than they can actually provide.

Notes

1 Charles Brill, ‘Legal protection of collections of facts’, Computer Law Review and Technology Journal, Vol 12, 1998, http://www.smu.edu/csr/articles.html

2 Mary Maureen Brown et al., ‘Database protection in a digital world’, The Richmond Journal of Law and Technology, Vol 6, No 1, 1999, http://law.richmond.edu/jolt/v6i1/conley.html

3 V K Unni, ‘Internet service provider's liability for copyright infringement – how to clear the misty Indian perspective’, The Richmond Journal of Law and Technology, Vol 8, No 2, 2001 http://www.richmond.edu/jolt/v8i2/article1.html

4 Seybold Research, Industry Survey: Digital Rights Management – Usage, Attitudes and Profile Of Users, Seybold Seminar & Publications, Foster City, CA, 2001.

5 Peter Biddle et al., ‘The darknet and the future of content distribution’, in E Becker et al. (eds) Digital Rights Management: Technological, Economic, Legal and Political Aspects, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, p 359, 2003.

6 Charles C Mann, ‘The heavenly jukebox’, 2000, http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/09/mann.htm

7 International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, ‘IFPI music piracy report 2002’, 2002, http://www.ifpi.org/site-content/library/piracy2002.pdf

8 Ibid.

9 The Motion Picture Association of America, ‘Anti-piracy’, accessed 13 December 2004 at http://www.mpaa.org/anti-piracy/content.htm

10 Clifford Lynch, ‘The battle to define the future of the book in the digital world’, First Monday, Vol 6, No 6, 2001, http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue6_6/lynch

11 Gail Dykstra, Gail, ‘DRM for a brave new world’, 2003, http://www.econtentinstitute.org/infohighway/0303/03apr01.asp

12 Bill Rosenblatt, Bill Trippe and Stephen Mooney, Stephen, Digital Rights Management: Business and Technology, Hungry Minds, New York, pp 86–87, 2002.

13 Fabien A P Petitcolas, ‘Digital watermarking’, in E Becker et al. (eds) Digital Rights Management: Technological, Economic, Legal and Political Aspects, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, pp 81–92, 2003.

14 Susanne Guth, ‘A sample DRM system’, in E Becker et al. (eds) Digital Rights Management: Technological, Economic, Legal and Political Aspects, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, pp 150–161, 2003.

15 Rosenblatt, supra note 12, pp 114–123.

16 Gabriele Spenger, Authentication, identification techniques, and secure containers – baseline technologies', in E Becker et al. (eds) Digital Rights Management: Technological, Economic, Legal and Political Aspects, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, pp 62–80, 2003.

17 Rosenblatt, supra note 12, pp 82–84.

18 Dirk Kuhlmann and Robert A Gehring, ‘Trusted platforms, DRM, and beyond’, in E Becker et al. (eds) Digital Rights Management: Technological, Economic, Legal and Political Aspects, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, pp 178–205, 2003.

19 Ross Anderson, ‘“Trusted computing” frequently asked questions’, 2003, http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/rja14/tcpa-faq.html

20 Will Knight, ‘Microsoft's anti-piracy plans spark controversy’, NewScientist.com news service, 1 July 2002, http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id = dn2483

21 Stefan Bechtold ‘From copyright to information law – implications of digital rights management’, 2002, http://www.jura.uni-tuebingen.de/bechtold

22 Ibid.

23 Dykstra, supra note 11.

24 Matt Hines, ‘Microsoft, InterTrust iron out lawsuit’, CNET News.com, 12 April 2004, http://news.com.com/2100-1014_3-5189980.html?tag = nefd.lede

25 Rian A LaMacchia ‘Key challenges in DRM: an industry perspective’, accessed 21 September 2004 at http://www.farcaster.com/papers/drm2002/drm2002.pdf

26 ‘The technology review ten’, MIT Technology Review, 2001, http://www.nicolelislab.net/NLNet/Load/Media/MITTechnologies2001.pdf

27 Josbua Dubl and Susan Kevorkian, ‘Understanding DRM systems: an IDC white paper’, 2001, www.intertrust.com/main/research/whitepapers/IDCUnderstandingDRMSystems.pdf

28 Association of American Publishers, ‘Digital rights management for Ebooks: publisher requirements’, 2000, http://www.publishers.org/digital/drm.pdf

29 Rosenblatt, supra note 12.

30 National Research Council, ‘Music: intellectual property's canary in the digital coal mine’, in The Digital Dilemma: Intellectual Property in the Information Age, National Academies Press, Washington, DC, pp 76–93, 2000, http://www.nap.edu/html/digital_dilemma/ch2.html

31 Lynch, supra note 10.

32 National Research Council, supra note 30.

33 R Mori, ‘Superdistribution: the concept and the architecture’, The Transactions of the IEICE, Vol E73, No 7, 1990, http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/ElectronicProperty/MoriSuperdist.html

34 Rosenblatt, supra note 12, pp 70–73.

35 Mann, supra note 6.

36 Rosenblatt, supra note 12, pp 88–89.

37 RealNetworks, Inc. v. Streambox, Inc. [2000] WL 127311 (WD Wash. 2000), http://www.law.uh.edu/faculty/cjoyce/copyright/release10/Real.html

38 Willms Buhse and Amelie Wetzel Amelie, ‘Creating a framework for business models for digital content – mobile music as case study’, in E Becker et al. (eds) Digital Rights Management: Technological, Economic, Legal and Political Aspects, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, pp 271–287, 2003.

39 Dykstra, supra note 11.

40 Judy Mottl, ‘Digital rights management: content's secure wrapper’, 2002, http://www.infowecuritymag.techtarget.com/2002/mar/features_digitalrightmgmt.shtml

41 Elisabeth Goodridge, ‘Keep it confidential’, accessed 12 December 2004 at http://www.microsoft.com/business/executivecircle/content/page.aspx?cID=886&subcatID=3

42 Microsoft, ‘Information rights management in Microsoft office 2003’, Microsoft TechNet, 2003, http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/office/office2003/operate/of03irm.mspx

43 Rachel Konard, ‘Trouble ahead, trouble behind’ 2002, http://news.com.com/2102_1082_3-843349.html?tag=st_util_print

44 Lolly Gasaway, lolly, ‘The new access right and its impact on libraries and library users’, 2002, http://www.unc.edu/∼unclng/the%20new%20access.htm

45 R Anthony Reese, ‘Legal incentives for adopting digital rights management systems: merging access controls and rights controls’, Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Vol 18, 2003, http://www.law.berkeley.edu/insitutes/bclt/drm/papers/reese-drm-btlj2003.html

46 Supra note 37.

47 Universal City Studios v. Reimerdes, 111 F.Supp.2d 294 (SDNY 2001).

48 Ibid.

49 Dan L Burk, ‘Anti-circumvention misuse’, 2002, < http://tprc.org/papers/2002/29/misuse.pdf > 

50 Jane C Ginsburg, ‘From having copies to experiencing works: the development of an access right in U.S. copyright law’, Public Law & Legal Theory Working Paper Group, 2000, http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id = 222493

51 ibid.

52 Guth, supra note 14, p 151.

53 Dan L Burk and Julie E Cohen, ‘Fair use infrastructure for copyright management systems’, Harvard Journal of Law & Technology, Vol 15, No 1, p 51, 2001.

54 Supra note 37.

55 John Therien ‘Exorcising the specter of a “pay-per-use” society: toward preserving fair use and the public domain in the digital age’ Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Vol 16, 2001, http://www.law.berkeley.edu/journals/btlj/articles/vol16/therien/therien.pdf

56 Tom W Bell, ‘Fair use vs. fared use: the impact of automated rights management on copyright's fair use doctrine’ North Caroline Law Review, Vol 76, 1998, http://www.tomwbell.com/writings/FullFared.html

57 Yaman Akdeniz, ‘Case analysis of league against racism and anti-Semitism (LICRA), French Union of Jewish students v. Yahoo! Inc., (USA), Yahoo France, Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris (The County Court of Paris), Interim Court Order, 20 November, 2000’, 2000, http://www.cyber-rights.net

58 Anderson, supra note 19.

59 Konard, supra note 43.

60 Electronic Frontier Foundation, ‘Digital rights management: a failure in the developed world, a danger to the developing world’, 2005, http://www.eff.org/IP/DRM/itu_drm.php

61 Electronic Frontier Foundation, ‘Unintended consequences: five years under the DMCA’, accessed 3 March 2005 at http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/freetrade-ctte/submissions/sub165att2.pdf

62 Rosenblatt, supra note 12, p 45.

63 Princeton University Press v. Michigan Document Services, Inc., FED App. 0357P (6th Cir. 1996).

64 American Geophysical Union v. Texaco, Inc., 60 F.3d 913 (2nd Cir. 1994).

65 Ibid.

66 Bell, supra note 53.

67 Lydia Pallas Loren, ‘Redefining the market failure approach to fair use in an era of copyright permission systems’, Journal of Intellectual Property Law, Vol 5, No 1, 1997, http://www.lclark.edu/∼loren/articles/fairuse.htm

68 Burk, supra note 47.

69 Bell, supra note 53.

70 Loren, supra note 61.

71 Bechtold, supra note 21.

72 Therien, supra note 52.

73 Burk and Cohen, supra note 51, p 56.

74 Mark Stefik, ‘Shifting the possible: how trusted systems and digital property rights challenge us to rethink digital publishing’, 1997, http://www.law.berkeley.edu/journals/btlj/articles/vol12/Stefik/html/text.html

75 Rosenblatt, supra note 12, p 45.

76 Burk and Cohen, supra note 51, p 56.

77 Burk and Cohen, supra note 51, p 63.

78 Dykatra, supra note 11.

79 Jorg Reinbothe, ‘Private copying, levies and DRMs against the background of EU copyright framework’, in Conference on ‘the Compatibility of DRM and Levies’, 2003, http://europe.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/intprop/news/2003-09-speechen.htm

80 Bill Rosenblatt, ‘Trends in DRM’, 2001, http://www.giantstepsmts.com/drmtrends.htm

81 Stefik, supra note 68.

82 Supra note 47.

83 Therien, supra note 52.

84 Pamela Samuelson and Suzanne Scotchmer, ‘The law and economics of reverse engineering’, Yale Law Journal, Vol 111, 2002, http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/∼pam/papers.html

85 Bechtold, supra note 21.

86 Marshall Leaffer, ‘Engineering competitive policy and copyright misuse’, in University Dayton Law Review, Vol 19, pp 1087–1108, 1994.

87 Samuelson and Scotchmer, supra note 77.

88 J H Reichman and Jonathan A Franklin, ‘Privately legislated intellectual property rights: reconciling freedom of contract with public good uses of information’, in University Pennsylvania Law Review, Vol. 147, pp 875–970, 1999.

89 David Nimmer, Elliot Brown and Gary N Frischling, ‘The metamorphosis of contract into expand’, California Law Review, Vol 87, 1999, http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/property00/alternatives/nimmer.html

90 Rosenblatt, supra note 74.

91 Lawrence Lessig, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, Basics Books, New York, p 135, 1999.

92 Burk and Cohen, supra note 51, p 51.

93 Bechtold, supra note 21.

94 Supra note 37.

95 Supra note 47.

96 Rosenblatt, supra note 12, p 133.

97 Pamela Samuelson, ‘Intellectual property and the digital economy: why the anti-circumvention regulations need to be revised’, The Berkeley Technology Law Journal, Vol 14, 1999, http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/∼pam/papers/Samuelson_IP_dig_eco_htm.htm

98 Reese, supra note 45.

Log in via your institution

Log in to Taylor & Francis Online

PDF download + Online access

  • 48 hours access to article PDF & online version
  • Article PDF can be downloaded
  • Article PDF can be printed
USD 53.00 Add to cart

Issue Purchase

  • 30 days online access to complete issue
  • Article PDFs can be downloaded
  • Article PDFs can be printed
USD 878.00 Add to cart

* Local tax will be added as applicable

Related Research

People also read lists articles that other readers of this article have read.

Recommended articles lists articles that we recommend and is powered by our AI driven recommendation engine.

Cited by lists all citing articles based on Crossref citations.
Articles with the Crossref icon will open in a new tab.