Digital Rights Management
What is DRM?
Digital Rights Management is technology that limit rights on digital materials. These rights are really dependent upon what the publishers deem is an acceptable use. DRM is commonly used in libraries to provide access to digital materials through 3rd party vendors. This presentation aims to demonstrate the basic ways in which DRMs are actually limiting the rights to access, creating a dependency upon a single technology, and are successful only in deterring and frustrating the general public, not “hackers” and “pirates”. In looking at how other industries are dealing with the issues around DRM, we can see that libraries have been complacent with whatever vendors have to offer, but we also have the power to make demands and create the changes that will ultimately benefit our patrons.
How does this all affect libraries?
In 2006, the APA conducted a consumer survey that showed one in every four respondents had listened to an audiobook in the previous year. And over 50 percent of audiobooks listened to were borrowed from a library, up from 38 percent in 2001. Among the consumer respondents, 34.8 percent said they had an iPod or MP3 player—and that was two years ago! Listening averaged nearly five hours a week. http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6556160.html
The Boycott Against Boston Public Library’s Use of DRM:
“By adopting a DRM system for library content, the BPL is giving OverDrive, copyright holders, and Microsoft the ability to decide what, when, and how its patrons can and cannot read, listen, and watch these parts of the BPL collection. They are giving these companies veto power over the BPL’s own ability to access this data — both now and in the future. Cryptographically, BPL is quite literally handing over the keys to their collection. In the process, they are not only providing a disservice to their patrons. They are providing a disservice to themselves. http://mako.cc/copyrighteous/20080207-00
But people will steal the audiobooks and eBooks!
Random House has even gone so far as to say that the only titles that will remain under DRM in their catalog are the ones used by OverDrive — which means that libraries are now quite directly keeping DRM in business when publishers and consumers want it gone.
Music has gone DRM-free, and we thought that would never happen. Now we are holding on to these eBooks and audiobooks and saying that the publishers would never allow the content to be DRM-free. Many of the materials are in the public domain, so there is no reason that they need to be encoded with DRM.
What We Can Do:
Make public stances and demand DRM-free materials from publishers and vendors. The MIT boycott showed how we can make changes.
