Digital Rights Management vs. Copyright

Many of the ways that we receive information and entertainment today may (probably will) change radically in the not too distant future. Whether the changes will be just a passing fad, enshrined in law, successful, or complete failure will depend on the outcome of the debates that are going on right now in boardrooms and legislatures around the world. I doubt if there is any other topic today (besides the war on Iraq) that has more rhetoric passing around with almost no real information on what the topic might mean to the average person or business in Canada in specific but in the "free" world in general.
Part of the problem might be traced to the the potential for new sources of income for the technology industry.

Part might be traced to the advances in copying techniques.

Part might also be traced to panic on the part of information publishers seeing their income sources potentially disappear (note - publishers, not necessarily creators.)

And part might be traced to ignorance, stupidity or maybe even corruption (or at minimum giving in to pressure from well funded and generous lobbyists) on the part of legislators.

But no matter what the problem stems from, the results will be felt by citizens of the affected countries not only shortly, but potentially forever.

Specific Areas of Concern

This article started life as a single document but has grown enough that I've had to break it apart. What has prompted this is the fact that we're now having to deal with not only copyright, but also software patents - and adding a section on patents will extend this substantially.

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