Digital Restrictions Management - Revision history

Arnulf: /* History of DRM */ avoiding terminological pitfalls

2007-07-14T12:00:06Z

History of DRM: avoiding terminological pitfalls

Arnulf: added Category:Advocacy

2007-07-14T11:50:18Z

added Category:Advocacy

Arnulf: tagged as not appoved und unofficial

2007-07-14T10:46:16Z

tagged as not appoved und unofficial

Arnulf: intro

2007-07-14T10:45:14Z

intro

New page

The acronym DRM is resolved in two ways:
* Digital Restrictions Management
* Digital Rights Management

They basically describe the same thing but obviously from different ideological view points. Each party will say that the other's perspective is wrong and OSGeo should be careful to respect both positions and find a consensus on how to approach them.

== History of DRM ==
"Restriction" in itself is not inherently bad. Consider restrictions for large companies to use your private data for their commercial advantage and everything makes sense. The problem with the term "DRM" is that it has been used by the music industry (nota bene: not the artists but the industry) with the single interest to defend their commercial profits. Information technology and more so the "internet" (ubiquitous availability of digital data) have made business with providing physical digital copies of works of art virtually impossible.
* Every copy of the digital data is as good as the original
* The cost for producing a digital copy is next to nothing
* The original is not lost during the process of copying
Therefore an artificial shortage hass to be created to allow to charge more than the mere copying ocosts. This can be achieved by restricting access.

== DRM and Geodata ==
In general terms the same as above applies to geodata producers but obviously geodata is somewhat different to the 2'17" second punk rock track.

Web mapping technology allows users to also access geodata very easily at almost no cost. Duplication (copying) of the digital geodata is also possible at low costs and the original is not lost either or otherwise impacted by the process of copying. The operational cost of providing access to the geodata once it is there using web mapping technology is low.

But the cost of producing and maintaing geodata is not and usually the geodata covers a much larger area or set of themes than are of interest to the user. Simply imagine that if you want to listen to the above 2'17" second punk rock track you need to get access to all tracks ever published including all romantic ballads that ever gave you a headache. Therefore there is high interst of the geodata industry (geodata producers, providers, brokers, content dealers) in restricting access to their digital data.

== DRM and Security ==
Beware to not mix up security and the above interests. Security is a much larger beast of its own and does not depend on DRM at all. But DRM depends on security. Only security enabled systems will allow to '''enforce''' DRM technically. Without security DRM is only a proprietary licensing method that can only be enforced legally.

== Public Geodata ==
''(There is a [[Finanzierung von Geodaten durch Verursacherprinzip | German language working page on how to fund Public Geodata ]] that will be translated to English once it is more or less coherent.)''

← Older revision		Revision as of 11:50, 14 July 2007
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	== Public Geodata ==		== Public Geodata ==
	''(There is a [[Finanzierung von Geodaten durch Verursacherprinzip \| German language working page on how to fund Public Geodata ]] that will be translated to English once it is more or less coherent.)''		''(There is a [[Finanzierung von Geodaten durch Verursacherprinzip \| German language working page on how to fund Public Geodata ]] that will be translated to English once it is more or less coherent.)''
		+
		+	[[Category:Advocacy]]

← Older revision		Revision as of 10:46, 14 July 2007
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		+	''This page has not been appproved by the OSGeo and is not official policy but only a work place''
		+
	The acronym DRM is resolved in two ways:		The acronym DRM is resolved in two ways:
	* Digital Restrictions Management		* Digital Restrictions Management

@@ Line 12: / Line 12: @@
 * The cost for producing a digital copy is next to nothing
 * The original is not lost during the process of copying
-Therefore an artificial shortage hass to be created to allow to charge more than the mere copying ocosts. This can be achieved by restricting access.
+Therefore an artificial shortage has to be created to allow to charge more than the mere copying costs. This can be achieved by restricting access.
 == DRM and Geodata ==