GristyMcFisty, our most frequent news submitter, supplied us with this very potentially damaging effect of DRM. This is the unlikeliest side of DRM's impact, that of ending copying under fair use provisions at universities. This specifically regards the British Library's effort to preserve audio records:
Just as "fair use" in the U.S. allows anyone owning something such as a CD with programs or music to make a backup, this making of backups for archival purposes is exactly what is threatened. This is especially necessary for libraries, as libraries preserve and obtain important cultural references and academic works. As library budgets are not unlimited, it is sometimes necessary to make copies of certain works so that others may still access the content.
Imagine universites suddenly unable to copy needed sources because of DRM
interference, nor professors able to do the same to present some needed material
to their class. This would mean that by removing the ability to copy
sources responsibly, the library would have to go to much greater expense to get
additional copies, and professors who could not use the parts they needed inside
their classrooms would have to either do without it, take time on their own
finding some way to circumvent the protection to get what they need to present,
or even take their classes en masse to the library. The very ability of
libraries to preserve and offer important information for academic uses is what
is at issue here, as well as the effort to perhaps digitize important works, so
they are more meaningful and more interesting in an audio format, therefore also
saving the library precious storage space for physical print matter.
This is another reason why DRM is so heavy-handed: in the effort to
protect content, it paints everyone as a potential 'pirate,' ignoring
responsible users of the source material. DRM is especially idiotic where
the work in question is extremely rare and impossible to replace. One can
only imagine if there were an important work printed in the late 1800s, but that
it is such bad shape that the only way to preserve it is to digitize it into
audio. By DRM at least seriously limiting access to one person and/or
preventing alternate copies being made, it nearly guarantees eventually losing
such a work forever. So, if this fight is lost, this is quite possibly a
worldwide academic loss of an incalculable nature, impossible to assess nor
replace. We can only hope the British Library succeeds in its mission to
stop DRM on this front; were it to win, this would establish a much-needed
precedent to reduce DRM use, and possibly bring it one step closer to being
ended.
Source: PC Pro
