Which Freedom Is More Important, That of the User or the Work?
August 6, 2008 – 4:26 pm by Thomas GideonMatthew Wayne Selznick poses a question that I have run into once or twice before. Which is the greater freedom, using unencumbered formats that might not be supported by some devices or deal with the tarball of DRM to work with all potential devices that may be able to help consume your content?
To be clear, he is not asking whether he should push restricted content only versus open content only, which mitigates the sting of the additional DRM formats somewhat be offering them along side open formats. For an artist trying to build recognition and an audience, though, it is a question of what better serves that end. MWS is a huge open media advocate but he is still trying to share his art and perhaps benefit from doing so along the way. (Recall that when Brave Men Run launched, he published it among other ways as an electronic book with a CC developing nations license, one of the only works I’ve personally seen to do so.)
I think what it boils down to is which freedom is more important. If the freedom of the work is more important, then a conditioned license that ensures it spreads as freely as possible is the clear answer. If the freedom of the user is more important then offering the easiest formats for the user is the way to go. That means, counter intuitively, you may be faced with the possibility of publishing your work in DRM-crippled format if a large part of your potential audience has bought such.
I acknowledge that this is an odd statement but bear with me. If a user wants to remix and redistribute, then, yes, DRM of course limits that freedom. But if we are talking about freedom of access, setting aside reuse for the moment, and using the specific case MWS discusses of devices that only support DRM formats, then you are talking about a situation of zero or sum freedom. I acknowledge that the question of more or less freedom is still relevant and soon follows on that initial point. That’s not the conundrum with which this author is faced, however. Plus, per my earlier point, for re-use he is not withholding open formats and licenses at all, quite the contrary.
I am not sure with which freedom the goal of being commercially successful best aligns. It may even be orthogonal or contingent on exactly who your audience is.
Thankfully, someone already pointed out on MWS’ post in the comments that the two devices that had him in this conundrum have adequate support for PDF. With a bit of elbow grease, then, he may be able to avoid the choice between these freedoms. I still think the question is a valid, and well posed, one. I am not sure I know the final answer, or if there even is one. I am thankful to Mike Linksvayer for helping me uncover this weird paradox of freedoms when discussing the ad hoc DRM on the Zune media player.
Technorati Tags: DRM, ebooks, free
2 Responses to “Which Freedom Is More Important, That of the User or the Work?”
“zero or sum freedom”
Typo or intentional, a brilliant phrase!
Mike
By Mike Linksvayer on Aug 7, 2008
That was a typo but now I am loathe to correct it. I am curious as to what you suppose the sum refers? I had meant for my point to be that MWS was trying to make an either or choice, so the phrase should have been “zero or some”. I’ll admit I was thinking of zero sum versus non-zero sum but couldn’t quite think of how to apply and phrase it. That originally though must have escaped as the typo.
By Thomas Gideon on Aug 7, 2008