A System of Logo-Based Disclosure of DRM on Download Products

Abstract

Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies are used in an increasing number of products and industries. In addition to contract law and copyright law, DRM provides a third means - a technological means - of limiting consumers' abilities to use products they buy. Because DRM has a separate enforcement mechanism than contract law, however, notice to consumers of the presence of DRM may yield different requirements than in other areas of law. Even should the law not provide such a notice requirement, however, there are many reasons, including economic, customer relations, and corporate goodwill reasons why companies that use DRM would be best served to provide adequate notice of the presence and implementation of DRM on their products. To date, advanced notice of the presence of DRM has been nearly nonexistent; notice almost always comes in the form of a clause in the End User License Agreement (EULA) provided to customers post-transaction. Providing comprehensive yet effective notice (likely to be acknowledged by the consumer) in advance of the transaction poses many difficulties. Yet actual and comprehensive notice, acknowledged by the end user, is necessary to undermine the economic, legal, and customer relations problems addressed above. This article recommends a uniform logo-based system to disclose the presence and details of DRM to consumers in advance of commercial transactions on downloaded products.