Librarians from the British Library and from a UK-wide librarians' alliance have given a report to the British government describing how DRM technologies — which indiscriminately restrict how the legitimate owners of electronic works can use their property — undermines their mission to be "custodians of human memory."
In written evidence, the Libraries and Archives Copyright Alliance (Laca) said there were "widespread concerns in the library, archive and information community" about the potentially harmful effects of DRMs.
"We have grave concerns about the potential use of DRMs by rightholders to override existing copyright exceptions," its statement said.
In the long term, the restrictions would not expire when a work went out of copyright, it said, and it may be impossible to trace the rights holders by that time.
"It is probable that no key would still exist to unlock the DRMs," Laca said. "For libraries this is serious.
"As custodians of human memory, a number would keep digital works in perpetuity and may need to be able to transfer them to other formats in order to preserve them and make the content fully accessible and usable once out of copyright."
(via /.)
