Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ One of the net's most important freedom canaries

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

I don't normally abbreviate headlines from the posts I'm covering, but this is a three-liner which states, in full: "One of the net's most important freedom canaries died the day the W3C greenlit web-wide DRM; what can we learn from the fight?" What we can learn, according to Cory Doctorow, is that separating the side effects of DRM from DRM is a powerful argument against DRM. "We proposed a membership rule that would allow members to use DRM law to sue anyone who infringed their copyrights -- but took away their rights to sue people who were breaking DRM for some other reason, like adapting works for people with disabilities, or investigating critical security flaws, or creating legal, innovative new businesses... This was devastating.  We made those companies address our concerns, and swept away the piracy smokescreen."

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Dec 23, 2024 11:18 a.m.

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