Comment Number:	539814-00697
Received:	2/3/2009 12:09:18 PM
Organization:
Commenter:	Frederick Paul Kiesche III
State:	NJ
Agency:	Federal Trade Commission
Rule:	FTC Town Hall to Address Digital Rights Management Technologies - Event Takes Place Wednesday, March 25, 2009, in Seattle
Attachments:

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Comments:

Any DRM scheme can be broken. If it is encoded by man, it can be broken by man, given enough effort. So what DRM does is to punish honest customers. Twice now I've lost access to electronic books, once because the provider went out of business, the second time because the company providing content to the e-book distributor I was using walked off in a snit (I was lucky in only losing one book--some lost hundreds). CD's that won't work on my PC, DVD's that won't work on my PC...I bought it, honestly. Why can't I use it the way I want? Because of artificial constraints that affect the honest user. Electronic books that work on one device but not the other. There are no "technical issues", just commercial ones (DRM). If I were dishonest, I could crack the DRM and laugh. But silly me, I'm honest, I'm willing to pay for content, but I'm constantly stymied by this problem. DRM does not work. It only affects those that are honest enough to purchase content and not dishonest enough to look for ways of getting around the constraint.