More on the Lessig "defence" of Palladium
Lawmeme, Yale Law School's "Slashdot for IT/IP Lawyers" (cf Harvard's Greplaw), via Ernie Miller, has an extended piece on Lessig's defence of Microsoft's version of digital rights management (ie, technological protection for copyright works via the operating system - otherwise known as a "trusted computing platform"). Lessig's point, as I blogged the other day, seems to be - better Palladium, which confines DRM to the "ends" of the network, than some other system, that might change the whole network.
Miller's response: most DRM is at the ends, rather than in the network (citing Professor Felten, who has also blogged the issue, and has far more technical knowledge than me), and if Palladium is better than other DRM systems, "the difference is more akin to that between the electric chair and lethal injection; either way fair use [ie fair dealing in Australian law] gets a death sentence."
I think Miller's last point is a significant one - with DRM that restricts use (which is the Palladium idea, that Lessig suggests is better than the alternatives) - each time you upgrade the system, you may have to renegotiate the licenses you have to use works - or the upgrade of the software just won't work. And you can see how that might happen: You get "Palladium 1.0" with your operating system, and you have a copy of a movie that plays on it. Version 1.0 allows you to play the movie, and fast forward through the boring bits. When you get Palladium 1.3 however, they've added some new bits to the program. Now the same copy you had before won't allow you to fast forward through the previews/ads - because the software has changed. ouch.