A blog post from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation defended its practice of forcing Canadians to use American DRM software like Windows Media Player to watch the programming they pay for with their tax dollars, making the preposterous claim that if it didn't use DRM it would be sued. Canadian Internet law scholar Michael Geist takes apart the post and shows how the CBC could deliver more value to the people who pay for it by abandoning DRM.
First, there are many other public broadcasters who not only reject DRM, but have adopted open licenses (RadioBras in Brazil makes all of its content available under Creative Commons licenses). Second, there is no legal requirement to use DRM under Canadian law. If certain rights holders demand DRM use, the CBC has an alternative. It can reject those demands and choose instead to use only music that rights holders permit to be broadcast without DRM.
There is no shortage of such music. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of Creative Commons licensed songs and the thousands of classical music recordings in the public domain, the majority of Canadian independent labels reject the use of the DRM. Those labels are responsible for 90 percent of new Canadian music, so it seems to me that the CBC will have lots of Canadian content to choose from in its broadcasts and streams. Most of the music that may require DRM protection is likely that from foreign labels promoting foreign artists. While it would be great to include them in CBC broadcasts, Canada's public broadcaster should be rejecting DRM and moving toward as open a platform as possible. The inclusion of greater Canadian content and the ability to truly meet its mandate to be as accessible as possible to all Canadians make this the obvious path to take.
(Thanks, Michael!)
