[governance] [A2k] Re: [Wsis-pct] IP Justice Comment to IGF on Top PolicyIssuesforAthens

[Taran Rampersad]

There are links within that demonstrate that the phrase 'digital rights' 
is not something that are read only one way.

Seth Johnson wrote:
>>>       
>> Rights which are related to digital things. The creator's rights and the
>> user's rights. The problem is that they are imbalanced right now, I
>> think that we can all agree. Yet we cannot deny that the creator has
>> rights, and we cannot deny that the user has rights. There is a contract
>> between the creator or user, with the exception of public domain (which
>> is that thing dwindling off in the distance, a little past Sonny
>> Bono...). It used to be physical handshakes, now it's electronic
>> handshakes.
>>     
>
>
> There are no rights related to digital things.
>   
Then why are there software licenses in the first place? Clearly, 
proprietary licenses work - in my opinion solely -in the interest of a 
copyright holder's rights. And FLOS licenses try to allow for more 
rights with the user.

Some people call these 'rights' 'freedoms', as in the GPL.
> Copyright is not a contract between authors and the recipients of
> their works.
>   
The use of copyrighted works is a contract. So I was unclear. I'm sorry.
>>> Now, this is one of the things I knew were being packed into the
>>> phrase "digital rights management" -- it could be parsed as
>>> either "rights management" that is "digital" or as "management"
>>> of "digital rights."
>>>
>>>       
>> Exactly. It was phrased that way to make it nice, friendly and something
>> people wouldn't complain too much about because they think - they
>> believe - that the present implementation defends the user's rights.
>>     
>
>
> Hardly anyone thinks that.  They mostly think that the "rights"
> being "managed" are the author's.  Only the author doesn't
> actually have the rights that "digital rights management" tries
> to give them.
>   
Well, there's the author and there's the person who owns the copyright. 
The creator isn't necessarily the person or entity who owns the copyright.
> And you're avoiding the point.  People aren't stupid enough when
> they read the phrase "digital rights management" to think they
> have "digital rights" -- they mostly have incorrect notions of
> the "rights" they have as authors; they don't think they have
> "digital rights" because they think either statutory or other
> kinds of "rights" in themselves apply in the first place -- they
> think that "digital rights management" lets them "manage" their
> "rights" in the "digital" domain; they don't jump to the
> conclusion that they have something called "digital rights" just
> as a matter of reading comprehension.
>   
Umm. I think you misunderstood, or I was not clear. I didn't say that 
people would think that they do have rights because of all of that.

********And honestly, everyone is sidestepping the main point that 
started this: Next year, people who advocate DRM may be calling it Bob. 
Attacking DRM in a software license might work next year, but shall we 
draft everything all over again when they call it Bob? Labeling it DRM 
and forgetting about it won't work. It will be back. It's got a nice tag 
now for what is undoubtedly
> You're the first one I've found to try to argue for "digital
> rights" per se on no other basis than the existence of this
> neologism.
>   
I didn't create a new word, and I certainly didn't create the phrase. 
And I'm not arguing for or against it. I'm saying that it could exist. 
In some ways, it does exist.

However, the phrase can be interpreted many ways. What I have been 
trying to point out is exactly that. 'Free Software' is much the same. 
Some people think that it means no cost, some don't. Not everyone 
understands the difference.
>> Perception is a powerful thing. The phrase is not broken out by either
>> side - the people who are for or against. What really are the Digital
>> Rights of people? Of creators? Of users?
>>     
>
>
> There are no valid "digital rights."
So, people don't deserve to be treated equally on the internet? What 
about security? The ability to discuss things openly without being 
persecuted? The right to freedom of speech? All within a subset of 
computers, this could be seen as 'digital rights'.

What is digital activism? What is the Digital Divide? Why not Digital 
Rights? Or would people be more comfortable with Digital Freedoms? Come 
to think of it, they might call what is being implemented as DRM as 
Digital Freedom Management next year after DRM is clad in the GPL v3. 
And then people will say, "wow, we never saw that coming!"
>   Describe a "digital right"
> -- in particular, describe how "digital rights" would work under
> copyright.
>   
Why does it have to be just copyright for you? Why can't digital rights 
be 'freedoms'? I'm not telling you what digital rights are And bear in 
mind, that the context of the original discussion was related to the GPL 
v3 as related to the Internet Governance Forum, which certainly has a 
broader context than the tendril of this discussion about a 'basis of 
neologism'.
>> What is a digital signature? That's much easier, and sheds some light on
>> things. Signature is not confusing to people. 'Rights' is because not
>> only does the average person stutter when questioned what their rights
>> are, they also tend to think of rights as centered around themselves.
>>
>> When I think of digital rights, I think of my rights in a digital world.
>>     
>>> You represent the first empirical instance I have encountered of
>>> someone who actually expressed a belief in such a thing.
>>>       
Maybe not. I decided to Google

http://www.digitalrights.dk/
http://ukcdr.org/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4617176.stm
http://www.digitalrights.ie/
http://www.digital-rights.net/

There's 5. If you really decide to look, you'll find that the phrase 
'digital rights' shows up a lot and has different meanings to different 
people.

>
>
> No.  Simply cease encouraging people to confuse these areas,
> using terms that are explicitly designed to get people to confuse
> these areas.
>   
I didn't start the fire, Seth. I'm just telling everyone that there is a 
fire.
>> The right to be treated
>> equally. The right to be allowed to use what you have as you wish, as
>> long as it doesn't adversely affect others. So on, so forth.
>>     
>
>
> I can use copyrighted works in ways that might be disadvantageous
> to the author.  The author only has a few rights.  None of them
> "digital rights."
>   
Oh, enough about copyright already. Copyright isn't the only part of 
this, as the links should demonstrate to you.
>
>   
>>> So, go ahead: tell me what a "digital right" is, and try to make
>>> it palatable, okay?
>>>
>>>       
>> I tried.
>>     
>
>
> No you didn't.  You haven't described a "digital right."
>   
Actually, I did. I suppose the links will help you understand better, 
and perhaps understanding the context related to IGF might help as well. 
Civil Society isn't just a bunch of geeks with compilers and software 
licenses.
>
>   
>> I'll keep trying.
>>     
>
>
> Please do.
>   

>> At the end of the day, we use 'free' for Free
>> Software even though the word has been and continues to be abused by
>> marketers ('free of what? Lice?'). but we're willing to toss a phrase on
>> the bonfire because it's ambiguous. Meanwhile, 'Open Source' has become
>> about as ambiguous.
>>     
>
>
> "Free software" has only had one ambiguity, under the English
> vernacular, for the unacquainted.  "Open Source" started out
> ambiguous in innumerable ways, and is not necessarily any more
> ambiguous now than it was from the beginning.
>
>   
That's an opinion, just like mine that you're refuting. We'll go nowhere 
down that path. Check those links and consider the larger context. 
People don't always think like we do. It would have been a lot easier 
for me to not have even started this discussion, and le everything 
slide, but here I am... saying that not everyone sees the world the 
same, uses words in the same way, or uses phrases in the same way. 
English doesn't have standards, or an agency that looks after the 
language ('The Language Instinct', Stephen Pinker). The French have that 
beaten. On a global level, there are different cultures, different ways 
of looking at things, and if we really want stuff to work outside of a 
context of a relatively small subset of the planet's population, we 
should describe what we are against instead of what it is called.

A simple thing like, "any software that infringes the rights of the 
user, or forces them to use a computer in *insert manner here*" says a 
lot more than a clause on DRM. Sure, the WTO might have TRIPs agreements 
with everyone, but that doesn't mean that all laws and word definitions 
are the same. For example, by the copyright act in Trinidad and Tobago, 
a database is copyright the owner. Thus DRM as implemented could have 
very nasty implications for users... and this is just one country. 
While, in the context of copyright (where this conversation has been 
fixated, though it is a larger topic) DRM has become a catchprase for 
something people love or hate, 'Digital Rights' is something a lot of 
nations could be said to be working toward. And that's not even the 
point that I started off with.

In a software license, just calling it DRM means next year when they 
call it Bob or Sally, it will no longer cover what it is that the GPLv3 
doesn't want to support. So why not define exactly what it is about 
DRM's implementation that the GPLv3 will not support and be done with it?

And, in a broader context, many people are working on things that could 
be considered 'digital rights', even within the U.S. itself. Not 
everyone has access to a computer. Not everyone has access to the 
internet. And perhaps because they don't have these things, you don't 
hear about them... in my circles, I do.

-- 
Taran Rampersad
Presently in: San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago
cnd at knowprose.com

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