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The world of technology is expanding before our eyes, with various platforms converging into single devices ( e.g. the smartphone). Individuals throughout the world are able to upload, stream or post almost what ever they desire onto the Internet. This ultimately leads to world wide recognition of previously unknown musicians (Justin Bieber), film makers (James Button) and allows anyone to post various types of written work online ( blogs & webpages).
However, of late, the internet has become a paradox, through notions such as “intellectual property”, “User Agreements”, governed under the Digital Rights Management (DRM). But what is the DRM?
Well…
An article by Margaret Rouse states
“Digital rights management (DRM) is a systematic approach to copyright protection for digital media. The purpose of DRM is to prevent unauthorized redistribution of digital media and restrict the ways consumers can copy content they’ve purchased.”
Sounds great doesn’t it?
No, I don’t think it does.
The DRM has totally localized the incredible power of digital technologies, the masses losing power whilst a lone few have total control. It is blocking creation and innovation of the average digital media user, preventing foreword thinking and endangering privacy and freedom through the powers of censorship. Recently in 2009, Amazon.com deleted George Orwell’s “1984” and “Animal Farm” from its Kindle servers. This move was judged harshly by avid Kindle users, resulting in heavy criticism of Amazon. A spokesman for the company stated:
“The books were added to the Kindle store by a company that did not have rights to them, using a self-service function. “When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers’ devices.”
^^ questionable logic?
Don’t get me wrong, copyright is definitely a notion that needs to continue being practiced in order to protect the intellectual property of individuals. However todays culture does not appear to be promoting the freedom to create, instead it’s thrusting suffocating copyright laws on the public, where permission to do almost anything is required.
Cheers 🙂