There are a couple DRM articles I’ve read recently that deserve a write-up.

First, David Weinberger published an excellent piece in Wired in which he argues that “society is based on bending the rules.” Titled “Copy Protection Is A Crime,” the article contends that making exceptions to accepted rules is one of the most important components of human society.

Fairness means knowing when to make exceptions. After all, applying rules equally is easy. Any bureaucrat can do it. It’s far harder to know when to bend or even ignore the rules. That requires being sensitive to individual needs, understanding the larger context, balancing competing values, and forgiving transgressions when appropriate.

But in the digital world - the global marketplace of ideas made real - we’re on the verge of handing amorphous, context-dependent decisions to hard-coded software incapable of applying the snicker test. This is a problem, and not one that more and better programming can fix. That would just add more rules. What we really need is to recognize that the world - online and off - is necessarily imperfect, and that it’s important it stay that way.

As we move away from a system of control that allows us to break its rules to one in which technology rigidly and unrelentingly prevents such flexibility, it is important to first ask whether this type of perfect control is desirable. It is still a matter of opinion whether technology can offer copyright holders this unbreakable lock… but even if it could, it is not in the best interests of our society to rescind our decision-making authority to machines.

In related news, Apple’s iTunes Music Store has been used by enterprising software developers as a platform for Napster-like file-sharing. In a May 14th weblog post, Jason Kottke asks whether Apple is being stupid or courageous. His answer?

Apple had to know what they were doing with iTunes. Their engineers aren’t stupid. They left the whole thing wide open and had to know how trivial it would be for developers to figure out the protocol and write apps to download the music directly. Maybe Apple is taking a stand here, saying that this type of software is not illegal and that it is individual users who choose to break the law. Apple knows that it’s in our nature to want to share music, photos, and movies with each other and is building applications (social software?) to support that behavior. Apple wants to make a business out of this and maybe they’re daring the RIAA to sue them over it. Or daring the RIAA not to sue them. After all, Apple and the record companies are all buddy-buddy now with the iTunes Music Store…are they willing to sue Apple right after getting Jobs on the cover of Fortune with Sheryl Crow? If Apple is in fact taking a stand here, I say, go Apple!

It is equally plausible that Apple simply failed to take the needed steps to prevent applications like ShareiTunes and SpyMac from copying streamed songs. But if Apple really is capitalizing on its standing with the RIAA to do some good, it will go down as one of the turning points in the ongoing battle to protect consumer rights from the music industry’s onslaught. Kudos, Apple!

Finally, Leo Laporte has a very positive writeup of the iTunes service on The Screen Saver’s website. Leo’s piece is brief but it links to a comprehensive review by James Kim, one of my favorite TechTV personalities. If you haven’t had enough iTunes coverage yet, give these two articles a read.