In January of this year, Apple announced that its iTunes Store will now offer music tracks without anti-copying restrictions.    This release comes as a great relief to music fans because the Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology that encrypts the digital music has prevented buyers from fully accessing the music they own.    After purchasing a favorite song for $0.99, the buyer only was allowed to listen to the music on a limited number of computers and portable listening devices.  In contrast, the music one purchased on a CD from a music store is not DRM-protected, so that music can be uploaded and shared with unlimited number of computers and portable listening devices.  It just is inconsistent that music distributors would offer the same music in both DRM and DRM-free formats.

The intents of DRM are obvious—to prevent users from infringing copyrights.  For instance, DRM prevents iTunes music buyers from sharing their music with their other million-plus friends.  But in encrypting the digital music information and preemptively preventing copyright infringements, DRM also precludes legitimate cases of fair use.  In the past, the potential for infringement often has far outweighed the claims of fair use (for example, MGM v Grokster).  But recently (maybe due to the economic crisis), that balance seems to be shifting.

iTunes now is offering DRM-free music because of stories like Cory Doctorow’s in “Microsoft Research DRM Talk”—Doctorow, an avid purchaser of new Apple PowerBooks ever ten months, explains how “Apple rewarded my trust, evangelism, and out-of control spending by treating me like a crook and locking me out of my own music” (Doctorow 23).  Responding to similar concerns, the PR and Marketing Manager, Tom Ohle, of Good Old Games (GOG) recently indicated that they would be offering their games DRM-free because “we’d rather reward paying customers than punish potential pirates.”  And there are rumors that Nokia’s new music service in the US will be DRM-free as well.

But it is surprising to me that DRM technologies are even allowable and protected in the first place.  As per Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) § 1201, “no person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.”  This is surprising because the federal government has not always been so supportive of encryption techniques.  Take the investigation of Phil Zimmermann, who developed and published a public-key encryption software called Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) for the purpose of encrypting emails.  Granted, the investigation of Zimmermann has different issues at hand, because PGP was distributed all over the world, which violates a “US export restrictions for cryptographic software.”  But Zimmermann describes that “law enforcement and intelligence interests in the government have attempted many times to suppress the availability of strong domestic encryption technology,” and citing a number of examples.  This just is not consistent—that companies can use DRM to preemptively limit the extent of infringing uses of copyright, but the public cannot have encryption software for securing our own emails?  Under DMCA § 102, aren’t emails protected as copyright material as well?

Obviously, a DRM-free world would logistically make things easier for music lovers, music distributors, and music regulators.  But more so than a DRM-free world, I just hope to see more consistency in company and federal policies.

-Danny S