DRM Bill Sides With Consumers
Representative introduces digital rights management bill that aims to punish pirates while allowing consumers to make backups.
Gretel Johnston, IDG News Service
A bill introduced Wednesday in the U.S. House of Representatives approaches digital rights management from consumers' standpoint, ensuring that people who buy digital media can make backup copies and play them on whatever device they like without fear of breaking copyright law, according to the bill's sponsor.
Representative Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat from California whose district includes Silicon Valley, introduced the bill, saying that the legislation seeks to maintain in the digital age the same balance that existing U.S. copyright law upholds between the interest of copyright holders in controlling the use of their works and the interests of the public in the free flow of ideas, information, and commerce.
"Consumers need a voice in this debate," a release issued by Lofgren's office quotes the congresswoman as saying. "Right now it is the entertainment industry versus the technology industry, and the consumers are watching from the sidelines."
Let Them Have Backups
The bill seeks to punish digital pirates without treating every consumer as a criminal, the release said. Lofgren noted that current proposals to combat digital piracy focus on "locking down" content and controlling how consumers use it. Cryptographic tools currently under development, for example, could play a role in legislative efforts to prevent copyright violations involving DVDs.
The bill also prohibits shrink-wrapped licenses, also known as end-user license agreements, from limiting consumer rights, and the proposal clarifies the ways in which consumers can legally sell, archive, or give away copies of digital works they purchased. In addition, the law gives owners of digital content the flexibility to develop new and innovative ways to protect their content and enable its use without violating copyright law.
Lofgren's bill is supported by the Computer & Communications Industry Association, the Association of Research Libraries, and the public interest advocacy organization Public Knowledge, all of which are based in Washington. It is also backed by Stanford Law School Professor Larry Lessig, founder of the Stanford Center for Internet and Society.
The Recording Industry Association of America, which has been heavily involved in crafting DRM legislation, had no comment on Lofgren's bill.
Taking the Burden Off IT
The California Democrat's bill stands in contrast to a bill introduced in March by fellow Democrat Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina. That bill, which received a frosty reception from IT industry officials, would give the IT, consumer electronics, and entertainment industries one year to develop safeguards to protect digital content from illegal copying. If those efforts were to fail, the federal government would step in and mandate specifications.
Hollings' bill has been referred to the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, but it has not received a formal hearing.
