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How DRM Based Content Delivery Systems Disrupt Expectations of Personal Use has just been published by John Han, Aaron Burnstein and Deirdre Mulligan (of the Samuelson clinic; disclosure: I'm a member too). Really interesting analysis that John will present at the DRM '03 conference next week.
They try to get at how closely right's expression languages reflect copyright law, and how people's expectations for different medias not always reflected in the DRM on that media, and how the media type may frustrate user's expectations for fair use. For example, people have only experienced DVD's with CSS as the DRM, so they don't expect to be able to say, send a DVD made for Region 1, to their relative as a gift, who lives in Region 2. On the other hand, with music, and CD's, people have grown accustomed to making a copy of a CD they buy, for the car, the computer, etc. They want that same functionality and ease with future DRM mechanisms, and are confused and upset by the loss of those fair use rights.
Also noted are how CD related DRM protections haven't flowed with people's expectations, while the CSS protection for DVD's has flowed with the grain of people's expectation, but then they map the use of the media with those protections visually against (the four broad, non-exclusive factors courts consider for) fair use for those medias for space and time shifting. They compared them to other media relationships and expected uses, and against what they thought of as the "indicators of personal use": device and format portability, experimenting and the extent of relationships between users and copyright holders. The results are disheartening.
DRM limitations include a distinct lack of portability. Also, people's expectations were very frustrated by the lack of ability to experiment with the media or services they looked at. An example of a comparison movie was a streaming movie, where every time the user wanted to stop the movie (for a bathroom break, a snack, phone call), they had to re-ask for the license, and so felt that this went against their privacy expectations. They didn't like being tracked this way. One thing the paper notes is how different the motivations are for copyright holders, who may want to monitor every copy, see how it used and track starts and stops, verses distributors, who just want to monitor the point of sale.
Also, they noted how DRM can stop some behaviors, especially fair use, can circumvent the warrenty or access processes, and can have legal ramifications for users under the DMCA, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and various state laws.
Their conclusions: users won't switch to medias with overly-excessive DRM; content pirates certainly won't switch, but expectations may change over times. Also, terms of service agreements should reflect the actual DRM terms so users can make informed choices. And, the biggie: DRM supplants people's expectations of fair use, and doesn't reflect realities of fair use, based on the specific restrictions they reviewed.
Good stuff. Give it a read.
Posted by Mary Hodder at October 22, 2003 07:37 PM