Tony Blair has posted his response to the Let’s Ban DRM petition that’s been running on the Number 10 site. Here’s what he has to say (my italics):

Digital rights issues have been gaining increasing prominence as innovation accelerates, more and more digital media products and services come onto the market and the consumer wants to get access to digital content over different platforms. Many content providers have been embedding access and management tools to protect their rights and, for example, prevent illegal copying. We believe that they should be able to continue to protect their content in this way. However, DRM does not only act as a policeman through technical protection measures, it also enables content companies to offer the consumer unprecedented choice in terms of how they consume content, and the corresponding price they wish to pay.

Bullshit. I wonder, can the PM name even one instance when the use of DRM has benefited consumers? We’ve come to expect this doublespeak nonsense from the entertainment industry but it’s disappointing that the government swallows the industry’s line on DRM so uncritically.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 19th, 2007 at 6:46 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.