DISQUS

As the world, not just New Zealand and America shift to a truly digital platform, where people no longer care if they buy a CD, or a DVD, or a HD DVD, or a BluRay Disc, or a MiniDisc, or a Vinyl Record, or a Cassette Tape but care that they own the right to said media for the rest of their lives.

As well as the ability to give or sell that right to anybody else they wish. Just like you can sell a store bought CD to anyone else.

I'm going to write a letter soon, which will take it from the angle of document formats. The european union, and the usa have gotten together and commissioned a standardised document format, which is open (as in the specification), and is called the Open Document Format, or ODF. This format was created because government agencies realised that microsoft office documents from 1997 will eventually not be able to be read, as the format is proprietary. Which means that the specification on how it works is not published.

This is very similar to DRM in the fact that, it's a proprietary system, with one much larger problem, in that it's illegal to learn how it works, and allow people to publish that information / make a tool to do it for them.

I feel very strongly about this, as I'm an engineer with a passion for understanding how things work, and then using that information to try and better society. If it's illegal for me to learn how a system works, and publish information on the possible ways around it, then I may have to look at moving to another country.

Ryan