Fair use advocates silenced at DRM meeting

phr0gster used our newssubmit to tell us that advocates speaking in name of the consumer in a DRM meeting, weren't allowed to talk or ask questions. DRM or Digital Rights Managment is a new invention of the computer industry to protect copyright material. The problem is that they can alter legal material also. Various consumer groups who defend privacy have began protest against DRM.

The meeting's purpose was to discuss the progress of digital rights management -- the process by which record and movie companies control how you use the products you've purchased from them -- and how the government can help grease the wheels of DRM. The fair use advocates argued that digital rights management allows Big Hollywood to steal fair use copying rights from the public and steal several current uses of computers away from the public.

Brett Wynkoop of NY for Fair Use did get a comment on the record because he sat at the table with Big Hollywood and Big IT and commandeered the microphone at one point, which meeting moderator Phillip Bond, undersecretary for Technology in the U.S. Department of Commerce, later objected to. "We have a structure here," Bond said more than once when fair use advocates tried to take the floor

It seems like this is another setback for human rights. If we aren't even allowed to speak anymore, there's nothing much we have left. Maybe a sign that big business is becoming too big? For more info see here

Source: NewsForge