DRM of the mirror universe

Jani Nurminen jnurmine at lut.fi
Tue Apr 13 16:05:10 EDT 2004


Hello,

I had this idea about reversing the roles of the actors in a typical DRM
system, and thinking about where it might lead. I hope the idea will
stimulate some discussion: is the idea dead on arrival? Does it have
merit? Is it feasible? Is there something like this being built today?

Here goes... The main idea is this: the ordinary consumer (you or me)
becomes the "content provider". The content provider (the corporation)
becomes "the consumer". Thus, we have now reversed the roles.

But what content could the consumer-become-content-provider, the
ordinary person, you or me (let's call this actor the "user"), produce?
What could be interesting and rare for the corporation but found in
abundance from the user? One answer is personal data. 

Upon request by some corporation, the user decides to accept the
request. The user creates a DRM-protected file containing the personal
data the user wishes to reveal. When proper DRM technology is being used
(the same technology used to protect e.g. movies), the user can be sure
that the corporation is not able to 
  * use the personal data after the license period (e.g. 2 hours) has
expired
  * share the personal data with third party companies without
permission
  * do other non-authorized nasty stuff with the personal data 

Using the "evil" DRM technology a very "good" (good and evil is
subjective!) purpose can be achieved: the preservation of the user's
privacy. The user gets to decide who can receive and use the information
in the first place. The user can disallow use by companies the user
considers not to be trustworthy, or who he considers to be immoral, or
annoying, or who have the most idiotic advertisements. 

This kind of application of DRM would probably guarantee privacy of the
personal data of each individual person, while at the same time allow
companies access to that data with the consent of the user. To me this
seems like best of both worlds.

The role-reversal idea could help in achieving balance between the
concerns of the corporation and the concerns of the consumer, and
benefit all parties involved. At the very least, the idea can offer
possibilities for stimulating and interesting discussion. 

(Note: I wrote this originally as a blog article, and it's mostly copy +
paste from there with minor editing.. and some attitude removed :-) )

-- 
GPG 0x6EE92B3E - http://www.lut.fi/~jnurmine/

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