The implications of digital rights management for privacy and freedom of expression

Sadly, it is becoming increasingly difficult for our public institutions to live up to Carnegie’s vision. Not because of slashed budgets to our library systems, to the arts and humanities. Not because of diminishing literary standards. Not even because of a diminished taste for reading in correspondence to the advent of television, movies, computers and digital media. Rather, one of the most significant challenges faced by our libraries and other public institutions these days stems from a particular vision held by many powerful private institutions about how to maintain corporate control over the economics of intellectual property. Our public institutions are being threatened by new forms of social control through which private institutions such as our cultural industries now “reach the aspiring.” These new forms of social control – known now as digital rights management1 – are said to be a necessary response to the network environment and its many opportunities for the rapid and inexpensive dissemination of digital content.2 Concerned that the digital milieu will enable consumers Info, Comm & Ethics in Society (2004) 2: 1– © 2004 Troubador Publishing Ltd.