The Inquirer: Protection management, copy control

Published by Colin on 7th March 2005.

Cory Doctorow points to an article about yet another acronym: CPCM, the European version of the United States’ broadcast flag and just as potentially troubling. It defines what a consumer can or can’t do with copyrighted content on his equipment, if it can be stored, copied, shared and how many times. It looks, at first glance, to be even more restrictive than its American cousin.

I get the impression that, once again, hackers will eventually defeat the system (they’re already pulling some pretty remarkable tricks on the dreambox) and that the non-tech-savy common citizens will be the ones who get hurt when the DVD they just bought won’t play on the TV in the kids’ room.

And how long before we get our very own EFF build-ins?