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DRM and Copyright in the 21st Century

Posted by: Andrew Schwegler
Feb 11 2009 12:00pm

In light of Ruckus being shutdown, I’ve decide to post something here I wrote about DRM for StandUp a while back. It’s a crash course in DRM and how to get around it.

Digital rights management, DRM, is software employed by many copyright owners to protect their content from being pirated. Nearly all Americans come into contact with DRM on a daily basis. Enjoying music bought from Apple requires the use of DRM; even laughing at Garden State on DVD requires the use of DRM. So, DRM is good… right? Hardly a person exits who legitimately supports piracy; however, most DRM is extremely restrictive and takes away from what consumers can do with legally acquired content under their rights of “fair use.”

Fair use was created in the 1841 case of Folsome v. Marsh, and this judicial precedent was made law in the 1976 Copyright Act. Most importantly, “fair use” is a right born of the First Amendment. This right allows for parody, copying for educational purposes, rights for the press and various other personal use rights. It is important when looking at DRM, however, to inspect the right of personal copying. Consumers are allowed to duplicate a work for personal use to maintain the posterity of the original. For example, a dorm room can be a dangerous place for your DVD’s; roommates may not caress the Scrubs Season One DVD’s the way they deserve. Creating a backup copy of your DVD’s is useful for preventing such misuse from permanently damaging your media. Sadly, DRM is lurking on your Scrubs DVD’s, keeping you from creating such a copy.

So, consumers who buy a product are legally kept from enforcing a right guaranteed to them since the nineteenth century? Yes. Record companies and production studios use DRM to restrict the rights of consumers in hopes of curtailing piracy. Said DRM may actually be driving people to piracy rather than away from piracy because stolen copies of music and movies are, by their nature, DRM free. Yes, tech-savy citizens across the country are avoiding legal digital stored because of restrictive DRM.

Fortunately, DRM is easily broken. Most copy-protection is cracked within weeks of its own release, yet a law passed in 1998 called the Digital Millennial Copyright Act (DMCA) makes it illegal to circumvent said DRM. The DMCA also (allegedly) makes it illegal to tell people how to circumvent DRM. On top of this, it is even illegal to link people to sites on the internet describing how to break DRM.

Recently, many organizations have made progress in freeing music from its DRM infused shackles. Steve Jobs, head of Apple, Inc., posted and open letter on www.apple.com calling for the downfall of DRM within iTunes. Soon, EMI licensed its music to Apple for DRM free sales. EMI saw huge jumps in sales, with albums like Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon increasing sales by 300%. Universal Music Group has been making deals with other stores to sell its music sans-DRM. Most importantly, eMusic (www.emusic.com), the second largest digital distributor of music, has no DRM on any of their offered tracks, but, for the most part, they have no major artists available for download in their store. eMusic is only one of many ways to get music without DRM. There are even places to get music, and video for that matter, without having traditional copyright involved at all.

Students concerned with the growing rights of corporations, and their own shrinking rights, may want to try Creative Commons content. Creative Commons is a not-for-profit organization that allows for artists of all kinds to fore go traditional copyright in favor of a more lax stance on how people may use their content. Licenses range from one which allows for free noncommercial redistribution or work, to another that allows for anyone to do anything with the work as long as they attribute the original creator.

Even better than Creative Commons work is work created before Mickey Mouse. Why Mickey Mouse? Because, for some reason, just as the copyright negation date for Mickey Mouse is seen on the horizon, congress seems to conveniently extend the limit for how long a work can be copyrighted before it enters the public domain. Such public domain work, like old news reels, is freely available at www.archive.org.

Avoiding DRM is a paramount concern if people fear “accidentally” breaking modern copyright laws; yet, avoiding modern copyright or changing the modern laws surrounding copyright may be the only real solutions to the problem of DRM and the priggish destruction of “fair use.”

Activism against the DMCA is seen all over the internet, but rarely is such a geeky topic even muttered on national television or, God forbid, a national candidate’s official platform. To get involved, you could write your local members of Congress urging them to repeal the DMCA, but the most important thing to do is consume as little DRM infected media as possible.

How to Circumvent DRM on DVD’s

First, download the appropriate programs for ripping. On the Mac, grab Handbrake from www.handbrake.m0k.org. Handbrake will convert the DVD into MPEG-4 video and will even save you time by automatically adding the movie to iTunes. For Windows, just search for “DVD Decrypter.” If Windows users want to burn the movie back onto a DVD, they will need to go and download “DVD Shrink.” DVD Shrink will compress the decrypted “VOB” files so that they will fit onto a regular, single-layer DVD disc. Then, simply use your favorite DVD burning software to burn a personal backup copy.

How to Circumvent DRM on all Digital Audio

First, burn the music to a CD. Then, rip the music back to your computer. Sure, this fail-safe plot may take a long time, but this method is the only guaranteed way to always get the DRM off of your music. This “analog loophole” may not seem illegal; however, if you believe the (as of today) judicially untested clauses of the DMCA, it is.

Spotlight on Creative Commons Work

Librivox provides audio books of public domain work. Audio books ranging from Heart of Darkness to Macbeth are free of charge, and Librivox encourages listeners to record their own versions of books that are not available. http://www.librivox.org

Freshtopia is a video show about vegetarian recipes, as well as general tips on protecting the environment. Charismatic Tanja Andrews hosts this amazingly informative romp through all things green and healthy. http://www.freshtopia.net

BoingBoing describes itself as a “directory of wonderful things.” From a vintage portrait of “a pig faced lady” to the latest news on a super-powerful robotic arm, if it’s interesting, it’s all on BoingBoing.http://www.boingboing.net

Magna Tunes is a record label based completely on the internet. All songs on Magna Tunes are Creative Commons and are also DRM-free. Additionally, Magna Tunes uses a unique model, letting buyers listen to low quality versions of songs before buying the album for whatever price the consumer feels the album is worth. http://www.magnatunes.com

Jonathan Coulton, a musician based out of the San Francisco area, accompanied John Hodgman on his recent book tour. Coulton also offers several albums for download on his website and once held an event where he published a new song every week. All of Coulton’s songs are available DRM-free and under a creative com-mons license. http://www.jonathancoulton.com

 

This article originally appeared in the first issue of StandUp Magazine. Reprinted by permision of the author: Andrew Schwegler. Art also by Andrew Schwegler for StandUp Magazine.

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