DRM Is Toxic To Culture

The problem with technology-enforced restrictions isn’t that they allow legitimate enforcement of rights; it’s the collateral damage they cause in the process. In my personal opinion the problems are (very concisely) that they:quantise and prejudge discretion,reduce “fair use” to “historic use”,empower a hierarchical agent to remain in the control loop, andcondemn content to become inaccessible.

Insightful analysis of the troubling collateral damages of Digital Rights Management technologies by Simon Phipps. While the short-term disadvantages of DRM may seem obvious, especially from a UX perspective, the long-term implications could be way more damaging in terms of access to our cultural heritage.