"Digital Rights Management"

Presented by Seth Schoen, Staff Technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, San Francisco CA USA

Date: Wednesday, 15 March 2006
Time: 6:30pm - refreshments, 7:00pm - talk
Location: Hewlett Packard (see directions), Pruneridge and Wolfe, Cupertino, Bldg. 48, Oak Room.
Cost: Free and open to all who wish to attend, but membership is only $10/year.

Topic

This presentation will give an overview of several current controversies involving "digital rights management" (DRM) technologies, especially as they have been applied to movies and music. Issues to be covered include:

The DMCA: a brief overview of the law that stands behind DRM systems.
The Sony-BMG rootkit debacle: how does CD copy-protection work, and its impact on computer security and fair use.
Status report in the DVD wars: what's legal, what are people doing anyway, what Hollywood wants.
Next generation video formats: new DRM systems are arriving in cable boxes, high-def DVD, and online services.

About the Speaker

Seth Schoen, shown below, has served for over four years as a Staff Technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a member-supported non-profit advocacy and litigation organization based in San Francisco. In this role, he helps to bridge the technology and legal worlds to support on-line freedom and privacy.

He previously served as a Senior Linux Consultant at Linuxcare, Inc., and is writing a book on trusted computing.

EFF is a nonprofit group of passionate people lawyers, technologists, volunteers, and visionaries working to protect your digital rights.