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Just in case you've been living in a cave for the past five years, DRM is the technology which allows copyright owners or their agents to control the use, duplication and sometimes the distribution of copyrighted material such as music, movies, e-books or whatever.

Many consumers are outraged that DRM has the potential to restrict their use of the CDs, DVDs or other electronic media they might buy -- but do these angry people really have a case?

Let me play devil's advocate for a moment.

Back in the olden days, when TV only cam in two colors (black and white), nobody seemed particularly outraged that they couldn't make copies of their favourite programs.

Likewise, when large (and very expensive) reel to reel tape decks were the only option for audio recording, nobody seemed to worried that there was no easy way to "back up" their favourite, and very fragile, 33 rpm LP or 45 rpm pop single.

In those days, music and movie publishers had almost total control over the copying of their products -- but consumers didn't bitch and moan.

Move forwards to the early 1960s and the arrival of the "Compact Cassette".

This little miracle, combined with burgeoning solid-state designs, brought compact, affordable audio recording to the average punter.

Now it was a simple job to tape your favourite pop single from a radio broadcast, or to hook your cassette recorder up to your "record player" and dub an entire LP onto a tape.

A couple of decades later, the same thing happened with video. Thanks to the likes of Sony and a few other consumer-electronics companies, the cost of video-recording was reduced to the point that regular folks could afford their own VCR.

And now, another couple of decades later, we have the digital era. These days even school kids can make bit-perfect copies of their favourite music or movie disks in just a few minutes.

The music and movie industries now claim that their very livelihoods are under threat from unfettered copying on the part of customers. They tell us that unless strong DRM is used to control the distribution of their products, everyone will suffer.

So should we see this attempt to cast us back fifty years to a time before the Compact Cassette, the VCR, and the CD burner as a bad thing?

Why not look at the positive side of DRM...

Imagine the opportunities it opens up for small, start-up content creators who can't afford the huge costs of protecting their intellectual property by way of suing for copyright infringement.

You, me, or just about anyone who has a book, music, video, or other original material will soon be guaranteed to receive every cent to which they're legally entitled to when that material is sold or copied.

Surely this will encourage the production of newer and quite possibly better music, movies and other creative efforts by the "little guys".

Could ubiquitous DRM see a sudden boom in the amount of this independent content creation as masses of young film-makers, musicians and authors decide to chance their arm?

Might the public actually acquire a taste for this fresh and exciting content in preference to the formulaic dross that oozes out of Hollywood and the mainstream recording studios?

Perhaps it's not hard to imagine that, by forcing DRM down our throats, the music and movie industries may in fact be cutting their own.

If any Aardvark readers want to share opinion on today's column or add something, you're invited to chip in and have your say in The Aardvark Forums or, if you prefer, you can contact me directly.

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