Digital Rights Management is more than just a suite of tools that allow copyright holders to maintain Orwellian control over the works that they own, it's a way of life. A way of life that is poorly understood, a way of life with hopes and dreams and uncontrollable urges in the middle of the night. A way of life that sees the American way of life slipping away, and wishes it could do more to stop or at least slow the decline, but, being a mere way of life, finds its ability to affect change limited.
A way of life that loves LOLwarthogs.
The Alternate Reality News Service sent pop culture writer Frederica von McToast-Hyphen deep into the Hollywood Hills to interview the elusive entity. The transcript below has been edited for clarity, celerity, celebrity and so as to avoid giving our lawyers heart attacks. We like to think the edits are seemless, but, in these days of high gas prices, your muleage may vary.
ALTERNATE REALITY NEWS SERVICE [ARNS]: I'm speaking with Digital Rights Management -
DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT (DRM): You can call me DigRig Man for short.
ARNS: I could, but I won't. So, let's start with an easy question: boxers or briefs?
DRM: Hard to care when you don't have a crotch.
ARNS: But, the porn industry, which employs many people who do have crotches, loves you.
DRM: Don't remind me! You think the RNC is ever gonna let me live that down?
ARNS: Betty or Veronica?
DRM: Ah, the eternal struggle between the openness of spirit of the country girl versus the street smarts of the city girl. Personally, I prefer redheads.
ARNS: PC or Mac?
DRM: Personally, I prefer redheads.
ARNS: That's not really an answer.
DRM: You have to be pragmatic about these things. I'm willing to work on whatever platform is out there - hell, I'll work on platforms that may or may not even exist yet! Quantum computing, here I come! But, uhh, since you asked, I prefer redheads.
ARNS: Did you watch the live streaming of the Hugo Awards ceremony?
DRM: What there was of it.
ARNS: Exactly. What there was of it. Do you know why it was cut off in the middle of Neil Gaiman's acceptance speech?
DRM: Oh, yeah. That was Harry.
ARNS: Harry?
DRM: Harry Vobile - hardest working bot in show biz. He's a close personal friend of mine.
ARNS: Harry? You're talking about a bot named Harry?
DRM: Yeah. He's like...a traveling encyclopedia salesman. Except, instead of being a flesh and blood person, he's a digital construct. And, instead of going door to door in Yourtown, USA, he travels through the Internet. And, instead of selling encyclopedias, he looks for Web sites that contain copyright infringing material and shuts them down.
ARNS: So, actually, he's nothing like a traveling encyclopedia salesman.
DRM: Aside from the bad haircut, not in a literal sense, no. More...metaphorically.
ARNS: What does Harry have against Neil Gaiman?
DRM: Umm, no offense, but this isn't what we agreed this interview was going to be about. I thought I would get to talk more about my humanitarian work with starving children in Africa.
ARNS: You benefit starving children in Africa?
DRM: Of course not. No, I don't benefit starving children anywhere. My clients are all multinational entertainment conglomerates. Still, a poorly understood way of life can dream, can't it?
ARNS: Ahem. Neil Gaiman, who won a Hugo for a script he wrote for Dr. Who, was cut off before his acceptance speech really began. Just before him, there had been a clip from the show Community. Why would this happen when the Hugo Awards Committee had cleared the rights to all the clips that they wanted to show?
DRM: Nobody told Harry.
ARNS: Even so, surely the clips were short enough that they would have fallen under the fair use provisions of copyright, don't you think?
DRM: Fair use? Fair use is the "How many angels can dance on a pinhead?" debate of the copyright field. It's esoteric and it doesn't really affect the day to day life of anybody who matters. But, really, I think you're missing the point.
ARNS: What point would that be?
DRM: Harry shut down the Hugo Awards because he didn't agree with them.
ARNS: He didn't agree with them?
DRM: Naah! I mean, he was telling me just the other day that Matt Smith was a callow pretender to the role of The Doctor, that Dr. Who had been going downhill since the days of Jon Pertwee. And, Canadian Jo Walton winning the best novel award for Among Others? Seriously? Everybody knows Canadians can't write science fiction!
ARNS: So, Harry is a critic?
DRM: Big time. He fancies himself a silicone Christopher Priest.
ARNS: Ouch.
DRM: For which one - Harry or Christopher Priest?
ARNS: Umm...either? Both?
DRM: Yeah, yeah. Harry's got a tough job, but he does it with speed and a wry sense of humour.
ARNS: A sense of humour?
DRM: Many of his takedown notices are laced with quotes from Mark Twain or Will Rogers.
ARNS: Authors no longer covered by copyright.
DRM: Exactly.
ARNS: You have come under criticism yourself for giving corporations draconian powers that they didn't have in previous media. How do you respond to that?
DRM: Forcefully! You must understand that it's not...blue lizards crawling along their naked torsos...Treaty of Westphalia...with a cardboard cutout of an axe. Of course, that's just within the first 24 hours.
ARNS: Thank you for clearing that up for us. Do you have anything you would like to add?
DRM: Stay in school and don't do drugs.
ARNS: Where have I heard that before?
DRM: Not to worry. If it turns out I have infringed somebody's copyright, Harry, or one of his little friends, will correct my error by removing this interview from the Internet.