Backlash at Digital Rights Management

The BBC is reporting that there is a backlash starting against the music and movie industry’s Digital Rights Management (DRM) terms. These terms have been created by the industry to mitigate against piracy. The UK's National Consumer Council (NCC) is calling for new laws to protect consumers.

The NCC are reported to have said that new laws were required to protect users' rights to use digital music and movies. It also said that the music and film industry’s DRM software was eroding established rights to digital media, as encoding within the digital media (CDs, DVDs) are "constraining the legitimate consumer use of digital content".

Constraints include the legitimate compilation of music for own use, and transfer of content across different digital devices, which are severely restricted. 

The NCC also seems to have little faith that industry self-regulation would protect consumers' rights.

During a parliamentary inquiry, the NCC stated that consumers were faced with
increasing restrictions placed on products and potential security threats to their equipment by record companies and film makers.

See the entire article at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4617176.stm