Fighting DRM - Digital Rights Minimisation

The National Consumer Council sounds like one of those nebulous bodies full of the occasional sound and fury, but signifying not a lot. To prove otherwise, the NCC has issued a surprisingly switched-on call for new laws to protect consumers' rights to digital content.

The problem centres around Digital Rights Management (DRM). This is one of the great misnomers of our time, since it is about taking away rights - ours - and giving a disproportionate amount of control to the owners of creative materials (note: to the owners, not the creators, who rarely get much benefit from these schemes). Digital Rights Minimisation would be a better description.

You can read the full report, which is mercifully short and easy to understand. Well, it was written for submission to an all-party group of politicians....