For a course last semester I wrote a (very) brief paper on DRM technologies and what I perceive as the emergence of technology-enabled private authority (TEPA) in cyberspace of a simultaneously multi and non-territorial character.
Regarding DRM, I write:
“From the publishers of digital intellectual property has risen a new need for the protection of their rights which the state cannot effectively satisfy. Therefore, temporary and micro spheres of authority are constituted in each interactive moment when a user complies with the technology-enabled restrictions directly embedded in a digital object by its publisher. Although temporary and ‘micro’, the spatial character of digital networks allows TEPA to be endowed with a multi and non-territorial character to their enforcement measures. Through DRM technologies a copyright-holder can force an end-user to comply with his or her intellectual property rights irrespective of the location of either; also, the DRM technology can be adapted to the particular intellectual property laws governing the multiple locations of end-users. Nevertheless, [...] the physicality of digital networks can easily cross over to the virtual realm with significant implications.”
The paper in its entirety is available here. I am still uneasy about some of the concepts developed there, especially considering that I wrote this in about three hours or less.
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