Comment Of The Day

Dave, who I can always count on to make the counter argument, says in reaction to my post on the new French DRM law:

Shouldn’t the preferred method of DRM resolution be made in the markets, rather than by government diktat?

Or has Gore gotten to your brain?

If you don’t like the way DRM is currently managed by companies,
then you have two options: (1) invest in, or found, a music/movie/tv
company which deals with DRM in a consumer-friendly way, or (2) educate
the producers of such content about the benefits that will redound to
them should the adopt consumer-friendly DRM practices.

Posted by: Dave | Jul 1, 2006 4:36:46 PM

Well Dave I’d like to do both (1) and (2) and try to do (2) regularly on this blog. But I am not likely to do (1) because Apple has a defacto monopoly on digitally downloaded music and filmed entertainment by virtue of their use of the fairplay DRM to lock users into their proprietary services and devices. And government’s role is to step in when markets don’t work right and a monopoly is certainly a situation where markets haven’t worked. What France’s law is aimed at doing is breaking Apple’s monopoly and I applaud them for doing that.

#VC & Technology