Indrani Thuraisingham - DRM Presentation

The global voice for consumers La voix des Consommateurs à travers le monde La voz global para la defensa de los consumidores Digital Rights Management

Copyright project
In 2005 CIKL successfully conducted a project titled ’Copyright and Access to Knowledge'
The main findings were that:
Copyright limits access to knowledge in developing countries
Although international treaties include exceptions and limitations to copyright to enhance access to knowledge, most countries don't use these provisions fully

Digital Rights Management and A2K
In March this year, CIKL extended the copyright project and did a study on Digital Rights Management or DRM.
To assess the impact of DRM the office bought 5 e-books and 8 academic articles online
The findings were disappointing, like copyright DRM also limits the access to knowledge, the barriers posed by DRM are even higher.

What is DRM
DRM controls and manages copyright in a digital world.
DRM includes various protection measures:
License agreements
Technological protection

Fortunately, there were not many restrictions on the use of academic articles. Once downloaded they could be copied and printed as many times as the user wanted.
The download period was however restricted, some articles were only available for downloading for 24 hours.
Academic Journals: user-friendliness

Academic Journals: Price
The average price of an academic article is $25
A US citizen has to spend 0.69% of his monthly income to obtain this article
Somebody from India or Cambodia, has to spend 41.67% and 75.95% respectively of her monthly income to buy the same article!
Some excesses:
One article could be bought from different content providers, the price ranged from $29 to $42.36
One article was only one page long and cost $30, meaning a dollar per sentence!

Two of the five books couldn't be printed, not even a page.
From two of the five books, nothing could be copied and pasted into another document, not even a word.
Four of the five books could be accessed on only a limited number of computers, this number was sometimes as low as three.
One book could only be read online and had an expiry date. For $78 a book could be read for only 150 days, after that, access was gone.
E-books: user-friendliness

Like for academic articles, e-books are unaffordable for consumers in developing countries
In developing countries, the price of a hard copy edition is even lower than that for a digital version of the same book
An example: Financial Management, Principles and Applications
E-books: price

E-books: price II
Comparison of online price with hard-copy price
Online price in relation to a country’s living standards

Conclusion
The technological protection measures used by copyright holders are very consumer unfriendly
The technological protection measures used pose extra barriers to access to knowledge in developing countries
Protected content is simply unaffordable for the average consumer in developing countries.

Next steps I: more research
Unfortunately, there are more problems.
DRM can inflict a consumer's privacy
DRM can not accommodate fair use
DRM enables the copyright holder to extend its rights beyond what is provided for in national copyright laws

Next steps II: campaigning
Companies
Hold them accountable for their appropriation of more rights at the disadvantage of the consumer
Make them use DRM in an enabling way in stead of a restricting way. TPMs can also be used to differentiate in price for example
Governments
Were copyright laws intended to protect the copyright holder from infringement, now copyright laws should protect the consumer in stead.

The global voice for consumers La voix des Consommateurs à travers le monde La voz global para la defensa de los consumidores Thank you for your attention

Indrani Thuraisingham - DRM Presentation

by CI.World.Congress.2007 on Oct 29, 2007

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Indrani Thuraisingham - DRM Presentation — Presentation Transcript