Under the patronage of the President of the Italian Republic, 200 to 300 stakeholders will meet in Rome to discuss the Future of Digital Economy. In this conference , jointly organised by the OECD and the Italian Minister for Innovation and Technologies, Leonardo Chiariglione will present the DMP approach. DMP DRM can become a liberating technology, because consumers will be able to select (and if necessary build) DRM Tools to protect their traditional rights and media usages in the digital space. I hope that Berlusconi and his allies will understand the message.

I attended the Fifth INDICARE Workshop “Human Factors of DRM” in Budapest and made a presentation titled The Money Factor about some of the DMP ideas and some of my own observations. Referring to my speech Matthias Spielkamp asked me if I can imagine a DRM system that covers all the different cultural and legal requirements of the different countries. I replied that I believe that this is a hypothetical question. As long as nobody can prove that such a system is not possible one could try at least.

I hope that humans will never be so stupid to believe that the decisions made by computers (e.g. DRM systems) can fully replace judgements by copyright lawyers (human beings). But I think it is a reasonable assumption that, as computers more and more influence human beings in their judgement of reality, DRM systems will gradually assist lawyers in their judgement of lawfulness.

Evil DRM systems do exist and are deployed by the industry. Due to open discussions (and an “informed dialogue”) about DRM many people have come to the conclusion that it is possible to design DRM systems that are not necessarily evil. Alapan Arnab is one of the few researchers who can actually present some fresh ideas instead of singing from the same old hymn sheets of the pro- or anti-DRM hardliners. It’s a start. Not more. But better than nothing.

I spent a very pleasant time in Budapest. Thanks to Alapan, Matthias and the INDICARE members.

Finally Google have announced their video store. Of course they have released their own video player featuring their own proprietary DRM system. The Register has published an interesting article asking if “Google DRM is crippling culture as great as it seems?”

I wonder if Google visionaires think that the future of television will rely on a proprietary DRM system used for tying video content with google services? Then consumers will have the choice between Microsoft-TV (Windows Media), Apple-TV (Apple DRM), Google-TV (Google DRM) and for each Service Provider they will need their own media player or set-top box (e.g. google PC, Microsoft handset, Apple i-pod).

In my opinion the Google founders should know better. Their company would not even exist if the visionaries of the internet had based the world wide web on proprietary standards. As soon as someone publishes the first open source DRM system based on open standards, internet users will start to set up their own Pay-TV services on the Web.