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Robert Gellman | @Info.Policy : Government should use DRM sparingly

By Robert Gellman, Special to GCN

Digital rights management is a hot topic for copyright and technology. For those just tuning in to the debate, DRM is associated with a set of technologies designed to enforce access restrictions to digital information imposed by the information provider.

DRM has obvious applications for music, video recordings and any other copyright-protected digital materials. But it also has sparked controversy between data users and copyright owners over privacy, fair use, regional coding, data sharing, backup, rootkits and other indicia. The Center for Democracy and Technology just published a useful background paper at GCN.com, Quickfind 694.

DRM use in a government context is a new issue, at least for me. A recent paper from the New Zealand State Services Commission opened my eyes. The subject is government use of DRM as opposed to government regulation of DRM technologies and applications. The paper is titled “Trusted Computing and Digital Rights Management Principles & Policies.” You can find it at GCN.com, Quickfind 695.

A good illustration of the problem arises if we consider information submitted to the government in the form of a comment on a proposed government regulation.

Comments of this type are usually public documents, and today they are often available on the Internet. What happens if a commentator used DRM to restrict access to the text?

A similar issue came up years ago when I worked for a House of Representatives subcommittee. Someone submitted testimony for a hearing with a prominent copyright notice. Did that mean that the testimony could not be distributed or printed? No one was quite sure, but we took the easy way out. We ignored the copyright notice. The submitter never objected, preferring to influence and not anger the committee. With a DRM-restricted document, however, subsequent dissemination of that testimony could have been difficult or impossible.

Another example could arise with a contractor report paid for by an agency. If the contractor used DRM to allow online access only to agency officials, the agency could end up in hot water under the Freedom of Information Act if it could not produce a copy in response to a request for disclosure.

More news on related topics: Business Process Management, Content / Record Management, Management



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