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by JadeNB 494 days ago
> * access is non revokable and if any part of the drm scheme stops working the provider must provide a drm stripping tool

This is unenforcable even in the presence of good will. (If a company goes bankrupt, they might simply not have the resources, or, if relevant programmers leave, then they might not have the ability, to distribute a stripping tool.) A practical measure in this direction might be to mandate that DRM schemes "phone home," which they surely do already, and that they are required to disable themselves if they don't get an affirmative signal.

(Of course, this has its problems from the publishers' point of view, but as a customer I'd be very pleased with it.)
2 comments
Larrikin 494 days ago
Make it a legal requirement during development of any DRM that the tool is created with the DRM. Release of the source code for the tool during bankruptcy, release of the tool and hosting as a legal requirement if they no longer want to support it indefinitely.

Theres no reason taking away our rights should be easy for the company when DRM mostly just makes life miserable for anyone trying to buy digital goods legally.

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goosedragons 493 days ago
I think there should also be a limit of how long you can use DRM. Something like 5 or 10 years. After that for most things your sales have plummeted and now you're just punishing the consumer. If you want people to buy again for some new format or whatever you need to add actual value. Working on the new thing when purposefully ignoring the old is not value.
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Galatians4_16 494 days ago
>This is unenforcable even in the presence of good will. (If a company goes bankrupt, they might simply not have the resources

Easy. Lock it with a key that functions like a deadman switch and releases into the Library of Congress

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Mindwipe 493 days ago
There's no key system like that that could possibly work.

But you already are required to deposit your books (or other copyrighted works) with the British Library upon publication and many other countries do the same thing.

https://bookisbn.org.uk/legal-deposit/

The US should probably do the same thing, but the amount of American works that aren't covered by the British Library are probably minimal.

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space_fountain 493 days ago
The us does have the same thing https://www.copyright.gov/mandatory/
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