Shannon Leaper MLIS 7330 Mini-Paper II April 13, 2010 An iTunes user is entitled to download or burn an audio playlist

up to seven times, which seems fair; but the same user is not entitled to burn a video product or a ring tone, leaving some users to cry foul since the user is paying for the same rights to the same type of material. According to Rott (2008), consumers find it difficult to understand where their rights end and illegal use of content begins. Copyright laws are difficult to understand and are becoming more so thanks to the prevalence of digital resources. Understanding copyright laws and Digital Rights Management (DRM) is an important aspect of librarianship, as it is often the librarian who is to interpret these laws for patron use. DRM is an important requirement for use in the libraries digital works. When academic libraries digitize parts of their collection, they should still build in recognition of treaties and other legal rights and link them with the digital content. (Bhner, 2008, p. 601-602) When libraries do so, it is important for them to build in the digital content that identifies the access and usage rights. This is normally done by creating metadata sets which give the details of the license agreement. Bhner (2008) prophesizes, that in the future librarians will no longer manage media, they will manage rights (p. 603). DRM refers to the management of digital material. Bhner (2008) describes the technology publishers and copyright holders use to implement control over how consumers may use digital resources at a users personal computer as a digital rights management system (DRMS). DRMS embeds the functions of DRM which makes it difficult, if not impossible for the consumer to duplicate digital resources, thereby requiring an original purchase each time the item is needed. One of the reasons DRM systems have received a bad reputation is because it allows distribution companies the right to remove digital files from the consumers records if they feel justified in doing so. The recent case in which Amazon removed copies of George Orwells 1984 from their customers Kindles, because of a question of the rights of the outside company that sold Amazon the copy, caused

Shannon Leaper, Mini-Paper II, 2 severe backlash towards Amazon. Amazon apologized and refunded the purchase cost of the book, but incident still made Kindle users aware of the restrictions on their devices. Amazon maintains strict control over what consumers may purchase for their devices. The same goes for many companies in the business of providing digital resources. There is currently a movement to decrease the amount of piracy, a common problem and one of the purposes of attaching DRM software to digital products, by actually relaxing or removing DRM restrictions. The purpose of this relaxation of policy is not only to allow legitimate consumers to purchase a digital file that can be copied for personal use but also to turn pirates into legitimate consumers as well. Since there is no need for piracy, the thought is that there will be less of it. Several companies have begun to offer digital media without or with limited DRM software. In January 2009, Apple announced it had signed agreements with all the major music labels to offer their music in a DRM-free format on its iTunes store (Sinha, Machado & Sellman, 2010, p. 40). However, this does not mean that by reducing DRM controls that DRM does not still exist on purchased products. Quite the contrary, and in fact, use of DRM raises issues concerning privacy as some types of DRM controls have the ability to track an individual consumers use of certain files. The purpose of this tracking may very well be innocent, a means to understand the purchasing habits of groups of individuals or segments of the population, but it does bring to mind the question of an individuals right to privacy concerning their purchases. Although one of the purposes of DRM is to prevent unauthorized individuals from illegally reproducing licensed material and to protect intellectual property, it is equally important recognize the rights of the consumer.

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References Amazon offers to replace copies of Orwell books. Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom, 58(6), 200. Bhner, D. (2008). Digital rights description as part of digital rights management: a challenge for libraries. Library Hi Tech, 26(4), 598-605. Rott, P. (2008). Download of copyright-protected internet content and the role of (consumer) contract law. Journal of Consumer Policy, 31(4), 441-457. Sinha, R. K., Machado, F. S., Sellman, C. (2010). Dont think twice, its all right: music piracy and pricing in a drm-free environment. Journal of Marketing, 74(2), 40-54.