A Portable Chip for Digital Rights Management - But is it Really What We Want?
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There is no question that SanDisk’s memory cards, usable in multiple devices, are an improvement over systems that bind content up in a single proprietary host device. “This enables secure content to be truly portable for the first time,” insists Harari. And indeed, if I have bought a movie, some music, or a video game, I expect to be able to play it in any device that supports that media, be it a desktop computer, laptop, gaming console, or some kind of small portable platform such as a Sony PSP or a PDA. I would feel ripped off otherwise.
The thing is, I’m also used to being able to move my content around by re-recording it, and sharing it with my friends in this way (remember “mix tapes”?). This wasn’t such a big issue with copyright holders until digital recording came out. All of a sudden, copyrighted content could be played any number of times without deteriorating, and literally hundreds of copies could be made (and sold) easily that were as perfect as the original. Organizations such as the Recording Industry Association of America saw every digital copy made and shared as lost income. While there is a certain degree of piracy going on, in most cases people are just engaging in the same kinds of behavior they were used to doing with the older media.
In this vein, the Associated Press noted the opinion of Fred von Lohmann, senior intellectual property attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He believes that putting the copy protection technology on the SanDisk card didn’t make any sense because those who want copyrighted content can find it easily enough for free online. At the more restrictive end of things, mobile phone operators may not want their subscribers to be able to buy content from retail stores, since many of them now offer their own multimedia services from which consumers can purchase music and other material. “For this to succeed, it requires the entire mobile device and content ecosystem to change,” notes Avi Greengart.
Granted, TrustedFlash seems to have copyright holders at least cautiously optimistic. Technology companies who have to cater to the needs of copyright holders along with those of their customers will probably be pleased to see something that reduces consumer complaints of not being able to play the content they purchased legally on whatever device they wish. As for the rest of us, we just might have to get used to not being able to do as much with copyrighted material – and be glad we can do more with it than we might have been able to do otherwise. Of course, for the diehards, there is always analog.
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