A Hidden Threat to Free Expression: DRM

Thanks in part to organizations like Free Press Action Fund, the movement to protect free expression online is strong — for proof look at the millions of people fighting to save Network Neutrality. But there’s an important problem that many free-expression advocates aren’t aware of because it usually lurks just beneath the sleek interfaces of our devices and software: DRM, or digital restrictions management.

DRM is a broad class of technologies that give the manufacturer of a digital good special control over the ways people use it. DRM has been around since the 1990s and has colonized personal computers, smartphones, game consoles, cars, tractors and more. DRM harms free expression most when it interferes with our use of media like videos, books and music. This DRM is the underlying technology that prevents you from copying Amazon Kindle e-books on to a Barnes and Noble Nook, from downloading a clip of a movie on Netflix for use in a documentary or from sampling a song from Spotify in a new piece of music. DRM exists primarily so that Hollywood studios, big music labels and streaming services like Netflix and Spotify can use it to artificially corral us into spending more money than we would if we were able to make full use of media.

[Zak Rogoff is the campaigns manager at the Free Software Foundation.]