RE: European Commission considers mandatory digital rights management

comments in-line...

>Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 16:37:53 +0100
>Message-ID: 
><1631B96E9023064683DC7E8AB1E695CE2A5D0A@amsterdam.nl.backstream.com>
>From: "Vincent Buller" <Vincent.Buller@backstream.com>
>To: "Rigo Wenning" <rigo@w3.org>
>Cc: "Renato Iannella" <renato@iprsystems.com>, <www-drm@w3.org>
>Subject: RE: European Commission considers mandatory digital 
>rights    management
>
>Dear Rigo,
>
>Thanks for elaborating a bit on this - I knew your opinions were more
>subtle than those two lines made seem ;-)
>
>I know that rubberstamping is the extreme - but I do believe that
>sometimes taking an existing specification involves more risk than
>starting all over again, because people may try to redefine (an in their
>good right!) the requirements to something the original spec wasn't
>intended to fix anyway. Which means, as always, that strict scoping and
>requirements definition are key, and if we scope to an area where there
>are at least no bloodwars going on we would be "safe". I don't believe
>public issues should be avoided at all cost, since I believe the W3C of
>all "standards" organizations has the most visibility to the public and
>is one to (historically) also incorporate public interest (see:
>accessibility).
>
>I would like to hear other peoples opinion on what the W3C could do here
>(I wasn't there at the 2001 workshop unfortunately). It doesn't
>necessarily have to be developing the whole framework - as HTML as well
>as XML protocol also heavily rely on IETF work such as HTTP. But -my
>first suggestion- providing an integration of a digital rights
>expression language and XML encryption and XML Protocol to pick a
>triangle may prove valuable. Please shoot!

Automated rights management for assets in/on the Web is crucial to the 
continued evolution of the Web and its use as a world community resource 
for communication and sharing.  If I have something to contribute but care 
how it's used, there has to be a way for me express my wishes or I won't 
contribute.  It's perfectly reasonable to imagine someone not caring who 
uses pet rocks to make others smile until somebody else starts selling them 
as a business.  They might not be interested in making money from the rocks 
but may strongly believe that nobody should charge for a smile.  We've had 
non-automated rights management for software programs for decades in 
"licenses" for Shareware nags and GPL.  Some argue that this non-automated 
best effort is good enough, but I see an opportunity for my computer to do 
more work for me over time and not have to got to the legal department to 
verify I can use some piece of Open Source code that seems to be just 
asking for beer if I use it.  That's what I mean by automated rights 
management.  It's not about locking up ideas or art or performances, it's 
about enabling the computer to handle the question as to if use of a work 
is within the wishes of the creator of the work.

A facility for automated rights management should be part of the Web 
Architecture, just as accessibility and privacy are.  I believe it is in 
the charter of the W3C participate in defining a rights expression 
architecture.  Rigo previously wrote:

>Date: Wed, 27 Mar 2002 14:41:33 +0100
>From: Rigo Wenning <rigo@w3.org>
>To: Vincent Buller <Vincent.Buller@backstream.com>
>Cc: Renato Iannella <renato@iprsystems.com>, www-drm@w3.org
>Message-ID: <20020327134133.GH1199@localhost>
>Subject: Re: European Commission considers mandatory digital 
>rights    management
>
>...
>
>2/ The experience with P3P with it's very diverging opinions on
>privacy all over the world has shown, that building consensus in an area
>with very controversial opinions is lengthy and very resource -
>consuming. I see some consensus among those proposing an activity within
>W3C. But that's not all it takes. W3C requires public accountability and
>I expect a large communication with the Public (Web community at large)
>The Workshop gave a feeling of it, as there were people from the library
>community. So what I mean here is, that building consensus in the DRM
>might be possible, but it will be very very expensive. I expected DRM to
>take as long as P3P.

I believe it's exactly this experience with community consensus not just 
among the members and industry but consensus with the "Web community at 
large" that make the W3C the best choice of a standards body to take up 
this work an be successful.

JEff

Received on Wednesday, 27 March 2002 21:03:51 UTC