[FC-discuss] Anil Dash: DRM and Friends

[Adi Kamdar]

Interesting...
http://dashes.com/anil/2009/01/drm-and-friends.html

 This one's been kicking around in my head for a while, and maybe you can
all help me understand it. With any contemporary social networking site, I
can control who has access to the things I share, and I can update or change
or revoke the relationships that enable that access at any time.

For example, I can share a photo on Flickr with just my friends, or a post
on Vox with just my family, or display my profile on Facebook to just my
contacts. And then, if somebody ceases to be my friend, I can change their
status and they no longer have access to that information. It's a
unliateral, technologically enforced restriction, and circumventing the
restriction would be tantamount to hacking and likely to get you banned from
any of these services.

So, with all of that being said, how are privacy settings on social networks
different than DRM restrictions placed on media content files from
companies? Is it because I'm not a corporation? Is it because the DRM
technology
is provided by Flickr or Facebook instead of by Apple's iTunes or
Microsoft's WIndows Media? Is it because I only (theoretically) grant
permissions to dozens or hundreds of people, instead of millions?

This is a genuine question, because it's something I'm not sure I know how
to articulate. I can certainly identify the difference in *intent*, but I am
not sure I can explain the difference in *definition*. Feel free to comment
here, or post a link or reply to @anildash on Twitter and I'll collect the
best explanations I get.

-Adi
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