A DRM By Any Other Name...

Joseph Laszlo | May 10, 2007, 05:41 PM

Slashdot points out that HBO's CTO, Bob Zitter, at NCTA, called for a change of moniker for digital rights management (DRM) to digital consumer enablement (DCE).

This may be a classic example of saying what you mean, not meaning what you say. Mr. Zitter COULD mean that DRM technologies should be used in consumer-friendly ways, ways that permit new business models and new consumer offerings, not, as David Card puts it, in ways that simply shore up old, obsolete ones. He might mean that, and that changing what DRM is called would be justified by changing the way it is used.

Or.

Or he might just be saying that consumers are stupid, and if the media industry simply renames DRM, all the annoying, confusing, restrictive things it's used for will suddenly go down a lot smoother, and consumers will passively and happily accept whatever terms media companies dictate on digital content.

In which case, it's more than a little naive.

I take no public position on which interpretation I expect is the accurate one. But I do point out that "The CTO of HBO thinks renaming DRM DCE will make the EFF fall in L-U-V." is pretty funny.