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Chandos Book Publishing 		‘Digital Rights Management: the problem of expanding ownership rights’ by Christopher May, Oxford: Chandos Publishing, 2007, ISBN 978 1 84334 125 6 (pbk); 978 1 84334 185 7 (hdbk), Digital Rights Management by C. May

Reviewed by Ruth Rikowski


In the Preface to ‘Digital Rights Management’, May argues that with DRM we want to consider how to:

…ensure that there is a fair and equitable balance between the legitimate rights of (intellectual) property owners, and the equally legitimate rights of consumers and users of knowledge and information.? (p. ix)

Furthermore, that the rationale for the book:

…is to shine some light on this particular nexus where technology and intellectual property meet… (p. xi)

So, the book examines digital rights management (DRM) tools, which are a set of technologies that have only been around in the last 10 years or so. May emphasises that his book is not a manual on how to implement a DRM system, but rather it is:

…to examine the role and function that DRM plays in the contemporary ‘information society’ and to explore the problems and issues, specifically related to intellectual property, that the deployment of these technologies raises. (p. 1)

For May, DRM is a political issue, not just a technical problem that requires better and tighter regulation.

Chapters in the book include intellectual property and social norms, digital rights management in the music industry and the software industry; and DRM and open alternatives.

Many different areas are covered in the first chapter. Early on for example, May considers ‘technological determinism’ and whether technologies in themselves can produce social change. May’s approach is essentially Marxist rather than technological determinist. He says that what we have seen through the years of the information revolution:

…is not merely the continuity of capitalist society but rather the intensification of capitalism. If we take Marx’s key characteristics of modern capitalism – constant technological change; velocity of circulation linked to profitability; property relations and commodification; the continued development and extension of the division of labour – what we see is that ICTs have contributed to the expansion and intensification of these aspects of society, not their supercedence. (p. 10)

The new economy or knowledge economy and information work is also briefly examined and May makes his position clear here, saying that:

…rather than a new society, we remain in an essentially modern capitalist society where there is ‘business as usual’. (p.14)

Here:

…resources are commodified and owned (for exploitation) by the large-scale corporations who also own and deploy many other forms of property in the global market. (p. 13)

Chapter 2 includes a section on the meaning of intellectual property rights (IPRs) and the different types of IPRs. The wider global context that lies behind the political economy of DRM is also considered, and this includes looking at the World Trade Organisation’s agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) (p. 27-33), which is an area that I have also covered in many of my published works (see for example, Rikowski 2005).

The second chapter examines the relationship between the protection of intellectual property rights and different aspects of the ‘new economy’. There is also a short historical perspective on IPRs. In regard to DRM and the digital divide May says that:

It seems likely that the deployment of DRM technologies will consolidate (or even worsen) the uneven distribution of information and knowledge across the so-called ‘digital divide’.” (p. 52)

Furthermore, DRM can restrict access for visually impaired people (p. 85). Lawrence Lessing’s work on DRM is referred to, saying that DRM can enable powerful industries to ‘leverage’ their control over ‘virtual’ markets as well as over ‘real’ markets. May is also of the opinion that:

The central role of IPRs is to construct a scarcity as regards use where none necessarily exists in the realm of information and knowledge. (p. 63)

In Chapter 3 May examines what he terms ‘hard DRM’ and ‘soft DRM’. Early on in the chapter he notes that DRM technologies track and control the use of content in the market-place. Soft DRM relies on practices that were in existence pre the Internet and digitalisation age. This includes deploying user registration and post-sale electronic advise of use. Whilst ‘hard DRM’:

…is a ‘technological fix’ to the problem of unauthorised copying; it is intended to make unauthorised behaviour impossible, or perhaps more realistically, impossible for all but those with well-developed technological skills. (p. 76)

There are two case studies in Chapter 4 in regard to DRM – the music industry and the software industry. May says that the music industry aims to make DRM work for the ‘dominant players’, whereas such control is resisted in the software industry, but instead a ‘competing model of work’ has been developed (p. 121).

The final chapter (chapter 5) looks at DRM and open alternatives and May argues that really they represent two opposed choices and that sometimes openness is the preferred option whilst at other times protection through effective DRM systems are preferred.

In conclusion, this book examines DRM from a somewhat different perspective and as such, makes a valuable contribution to the literature.

The book includes references and an index.


References
Rikowski, Ruth (2005) Globalisation, Information and Libraries: the implications of the World Trade Organisation’s GATS and TRIPS Agreements, Chandos Publishing: Oxford


© Copyright, Ruth Rikowski, September 2009




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