DRM Day at Seybold

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by Derrick Story
Network Newsletter for 09/11/2002

Dear Reader,

Yesterday was "Digital Rights Management Day" at the Seybold Conference in San Francisco, California. I attended sessions titled, "The Anti-Piracy Wars, I and II," where a handful of knowledgeable panel participants grappled with DRM, fair use, and copyright issues.

I went into these sessions concerned that the focus would be solely on implementing strict DRM as quickly as possible. Fortunately, that was not the case. Instead, I listened to a very balanced discussion that represented different interests surrounding these issues. As Tim O'Reilly has said many times, "when extreme viewpoints meet and exchange ideas, moderation follows." That proved to be true once again yesterday.

The only sad part was that, aside from some of the heinous legislation pending in Washington D.C. right now, each session had only about 30 people in attendance. Clearly these issues don't appear to be any more important to publishing professionals and technologists than they are for consumers at large.

If you're curious about some of the comments made at the conference, take a look at my Weblog, "Sound Bites on Fair Use and Copyright Law." And if you have something to say, please comment in the TalkBack section at the end of the piece.

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This is an important issue for the technology sector.

Until next week,

Derrick
O'Reilly Network Managing Editor
derrick@oreilly.com

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