HBO Sets Distortion Field To Maximum

Filed in archive Companies , DRM , People on May 14, 2007

HBO Chief Technology Officer Bob Zitter, auditioning for a role as Chief Marketing Officer for RIAA, said the term Digital Rights Management (DRM) disparages the industry's good intentions as it connotes restrictions and not new services. Zitter, speaking at the NCTA conference in Las Vegas, proposed instead using the euphemism Digital Consumer Enablement.

Zitter's consumer quashing bravado aside, he neglects the fact that DRM is a phrase ... that the entertainment industry itself created. Indeed DRM has come under attack not from Hollywood, but from digital right advocates who say that DRM should more accurately stand for Digital RESTRICTIONS Management. The only rights it preserves are those of the entertainment industry's, not the consumer's. As we covered earlier, Editor David Berlind at ZDNet called DRM CRAP for Content, Restriction, annulment, and Protection.