In an interview with the Adobe Edge Newsletter editors, Tim O’Reilly submits his thoughts on DRM, and a few other topics related to the digital information landscape. His position on DRM was summed up by a quote he read on a blog comment:

DRM is like taking your cat to the vet. It’s not like taking a dog to the vet. When you take a dog to the vet you hold him tight, and when you take a cat you better hold him loosely or he’ll claw you.

This quote came from a conversation comparing Apple’s DRM vs. Sony’s DRM. Apple’s Fairplay is one of the loosest in the industry, allowing for unlimited deployment to iPods, and up to 5 computers authorized to play the protected tracks. Sony has done much in recent history to severly restrict it’s users and what they can do with content bought from them.

Read the story in full for more elucidating comments by one of the greatest thinkers in the digital era. For non-techies, Tim O’Reilly owns O’Reilly Media, one of the few technology book publishers that consistently takes new technologies and makes the information to use them readily available and easily understood. If you’re a digg user, digg this story.

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