DRM, the rights of the consumer ... and the UN: Page 2 of 2

The need for law reform
 
Before courts or regulators can act, strong laws need to be in place to restrain technology companies from abusing consumer rights. With the rapid advancement of technology therefore comes the need for law reform at the national level, and sometimes even at the global level, to improve protection for digital consumers.
 
And that, finally, brings us back to Geneva.
 
The United Nations is considering a proposal to update its Guidelines for Consumer Protection, to bring them up to the task of protecting consumers in the digital age. (The amendments also deal with other topics that have emerged since the Guidelines were last revised in 1999, but I won't deal with those other areas here.)
 
Amongst the changes for which we are advocating are:
 

• Ensuring that equivalent consumer protection mechanisms apply no matter whether products or services are delivered online or offline, and whether or not they are supplied in a digital format, so that for example the consumers of digital content products such as e-books are treated on a level footing with consumers of equivalent analogue products such as printed books.

• Requiring that suppliers of such digital content products inform consumers of the effect of any applicable technical protection measures (another term for digital locks) or interoperability limitations that could impede the consumer from using them, and not allowing such technological mechanisms to unreasonably limit the ways in which consumers can use such products.

• Prohibiting suppliers from using unnecessarily long and complex standard contractual terms of service to take away consumers’ rights, and ensuring that consumers maintain control over content that is hosted for them online, without sacrificing their privacy.

It will not be easy to push these amendments through – there are certain countries (most notably a certain world superpower) that have already signalled their opposition.
 
Yet change is possible. Last month, for the first time ever, a new global instrument was agreed by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) that would allow blind and visually impaired consumers to break digital locks in certain cases in order to produce accessible copies of works, where the publishers had failed to do so.
 
Restoring balance in the relationship
 
Our objective in advocating for these amendments is not to prevent copyright owners from enforcing their rights, since those rights, properly balanced with the rights of consumers, are legitimate. But as a form of government-sanctioned monopoly, they also carry an inherent potential for abuse.
 
So whilst we don't oppose copyright as an institution, the consumer movement does call for the regulation of the abuses that it gives rise to, such as the use of digital locks to prevent consumers from exercising their fair use or fair dealing rights, and the insidious move from an ‘ownership’ to a ‘rental’ model of content distribution, with correspondingly fewer consumer rights.
 
It's important to note that the Guidelines aren't binding – but they are influential, and we hope will become increasingly so.
 
We also don't expect that those amendments will be accepted right away. At best, it will take another year until some of our proposals are accepted.
 
But they are a good source of guidance to regulators on how they can return balance to the relationship between content creators and consumers.
 
Dr Jeremy Malcolm is an Internet and Open Source lawyer, consumer advocate and geek. He is also a senior policy officer at Consumers International and can be found on Twitter and LinkedIn.
 
Previous Instalments of Digital Consumers:
 
How the PRISM surveillance scandal affects Asia
 
Online advocacy, slacktivism and making a real difference
 
Consumers, domains and astroturfing
 
How the Trans-Pacific Partnership threatens online rights and freedoms
 
Internet freedom in a world of states
 
Copyright enforcement is killing people                                                                                
 
WCIT: Freemasons, Internet memes and salt
 
 
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