Digital Rights Wrong for Accessibility
Are you familiar with Digital Rights Management? Otherwise known as DRM, it’s all about protecting copyrighted works from being unlawfully copied. Whether you agree with the law is another matter - much of this will be enforced however much you protest (and if you do want to protest, you can start by checking out the Electronic Frontier Foundation).
Among the many problems with ever more restrictive copyright laws are the issues that it can present for accessibility. Joe Clark has looked into the subject and presents his findings in a piece entitled "Accessibility implications of digital rights management". This is not a piece covering web accessibility, however - it is primarily looking at the implications for captioning, television set-top boxes and so on. Regardless, the issues raised are important and should send out a warning to anyone in this field who may be thinking that increased copyright protection is for ‘the good of the people’.