Policy Observatory

Often DRM isn't just an infringement of your speech rights under copyright law, but more fundamentally an infringement of your rights as a consumer (you might be prevented not only from lending a book, but even from reading it). That's why a new wave of consumer protection laws around the world are also beginning to address the problems of DRM, by holding purveyors of digital products to the same standards as their physical counterparts. For example, since 2011, Europe has had a Consumer Rights Directive [PDF] that requires vendors of digital products to disclose up-front any DRM restrictions or interoperability issues, in clear and comprehensible language.

Second-hand e-book website Tom Kabinet must go offline within three days unless it can prove it is not allowing illegal downloads to be traded, the appeal court in Amsterdam said on Tuesday.