Is DRM open to abuse?

In a word, yes.

Whilst we are not ashamed to be significant suppliers of DRM enforcing mechanisms and systems, we are convinced that the original reasons for creating copyright law, as demonstrated by the debates in the British parliament, were correct, and should be observed.

Although the origins of copyright might be argued to go back to ancient China and the right to reproduce official forms, modern copyright was determined to make sure that authors (creators) of works would be able to enjoy the fruits of their labours, just as those who created physical goods.  Because if they did not, then the only authors would be those sponsored by government, industry and commerce, an unhappy trinity on which to place your reliance.

And it was recognized that, in those days, getting full recompense for the writing of a book (other than popular novels) could take a very long time, and so copyright was granted even after the death of the author so that the family might draw benefit of the inheritance.

There was strong debate to the effect that the legislators did not want ‘publishers’ to be able to buy copyrights, because that might give them the means to decide what was to be published and what was not, but market forces prevented the development of the idea that author rights should be inalienable.

Now all of us can readily develop arguments to propose that in the Internet age distribution costs are marginal, and access to market is immediately global, and therefore perhaps copyright should last for no longer than the author (as it were).  But we cannot support arguments that say that an author should be behoven to hand-outs from those who feel like giving some money.  This reduces the author to the status of a street beggar, a corner musician or a pavement artist.  We believe that approach to be flawed (as no doubt would JK Rowling on the one hand and the estate of JRR Tolkein on the other).

But that should not be taken to mean that we believe DRM should be used as a mechanism to forcibly manipulate markets.

We live today in what Arthur C Clarke famously described to the US Congress (positing words originally from Marshall McLuhan) that the world is a global village.  But the dictum is that we are global.  And to be global is to be transparent in our dealings with our global customers.

So we do not accept that there should be regional pricing models, or that Internet goods and services should be restricted by either price of delivery date.  We, as a business, operate transparently in all markets.  We offer what we have at the same price (on the day of quotation since we suffer from exposure to the [unnecessary] manipulation of the currency markets) to any and all countries in the world permitted to purchase encryption technology by regulation.

When we release new product it is done globally, even though we have the tools to do otherwise.  Why don’t we charge different prices in different markets?  Simply because we believe that is a flawed and dangerous trade model.  It would be wrong for us to, through our pricing structures, compel different regions to compete at an economic (dis)advantage as determined by us.  The world is already the global village that Clarke foresaw, but it seems that some folks have thus far failed to, following Belshazzar, read the writing on the wall.

So we believe that DRM controls are correct, and that it is essential to reward the rights of an author to get paid for the work that they have carried out.  But we do not believe that DRM controls should be used to manipulate the economic environment.