Francis Fukuyama wrote in 1989 "What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalisation of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."

We still have discussions about if some fields should stay in the public sphere (security, justice...), the legitimacy of some democratic elections are questioned on the verge, but the universality accepted physically optimum solution is the liberal democracy, the discussion is about dosage, but the recipe is agreed.

The field of possibles has been reduced to a tiny ideological space. As Chomsky wrote it: "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate."

Today, I'm afraid this process of horrible reduction is applying to digital content end copyright.

If you haven't seen it already, see this presentation of Lessig at the open source conference a few years ago.

Listen to the passage about fair use, read around the very lively debate about what is fair use, how many bytes fair use allows me to copy... but what happened to the unregulated use ? It has been left out of the spectrum of acceptable opinions. Do you see the same pattern that has happened to the political (as in organizing the society) opinions is the same about the copyright ?

There is no doubt that copyright limits the usage (it's its purpose), there is no doubt that applying this copyright to digital media extends the initial idea of this protection.
On computers, there isn't much difference between using, lending, backuping and pirating, you are basically moving bytes around, no matter what you do.

As questioning the universal validity of copyright is becoming accepted as absurd as questioning the liberal universal ideology, we have moved to the next step: giving control to the computer so it knows about what bytes it should or shouldn't move, that's Digital Right Management.

As a teen, I would have found completely insane to buy a vinyl or CD and not being to play it on any of my player, no matter the brand or to take it with me to see a friend and listen it at his home on his player.Then, what about a song bought on itune ? Can I play it on a non apple designed player ? Can I play it on the ipod of a friend ?

But the control of what the computer you bought decides on your behalf what you are allowed to do with it is getting bigger.

With Vista for instance, buying a new screen can reduce what you are allowed to see. Even see movies that you have bought as davis Freeberg discovered. The blogoshpere has had a very lively debate about it. Very few questioned the fact that the software you bought that runs on the hardware you bought decides on the behalf of the copyright holders what you are allowed to see under which condition.

I've read a lot of articles about the death of the DRM, because most of the majors in the music industry have accepted in various situation to sell MP3s, ie. a format that doesn't include any DRM that stops you to read it the way you want. I welcome that but I don't think that's the main issue. For instance, a hard disk you bought might decide to stop you reading ANY MP3, no matter if you bought it legally or if the copyright owner has accepted to let you listen to it (eg Creative Common licensed songs) or if the music is public domain, because it could be a copyrighted content that you don't have the right on.
Does it sounds science fiction ? Well, I let you decide how far away this hypothesis is, but read this article about western digital SANs first.

The main issue is that it has become the norm that an digital device you bought does decide to stop you doing things because it has decided to enforce some rights. It has become the only acceptable choice.

I suspect they will be a lot of very lively debates about what rights should be enforced, and how, but every other opinion that a 'stuff' you bought is going to do what you want without any restriction is left out of the field of acceptable opinions.I don't know if history repeats itself. I don't know if it's the end of history again, but I blame the generation of my parents to have let the spectrum of political acceptable opinions shrink so much.

I'm afraid we are doing the same about what we can do about digital content.

I would be ashamed if my children are in a situation where they find normal no to be able to lend a digital book to a friend, where they find normal they can't listen together to a music one of them bought. A world where they find normal the digital tools they own decides how they can be used.

No matter what are our opinions, we should let them all on the table, try not to discard them, no matter how extreme they seems to be. I would like to allow them to be able to consider a world where they can access any creation, where knowledge is still available, when you can access art even if you're poor. I don't want to end the history again.

I don't want to restrict the field of possibles one more time.

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"Objets inanimés avez vous donc une âme?" Lamartine