Protect consumers' digital rights, British MPs urged

A U.K. consumer rights watchdog has urged new laws to protect consumers' digital rights.

The National Consumer Council told a parliamentary inquiry into digital rights management that companies are already eroding consumer rights.

The inquiry is studying technologies that limit what people can do with CDs, DVDs and downloaded recordings.

Consumers cannot make compilations for their own use or move recordings from one device to another because of anti-piracy technology installed by recording companies and film distributors,theNCCsaid.

"The NCC believes that the use of DRM (digital rights management) can and is already constraining the legitimate consumer use of digital content. It is also undermining consumers' existing rights under consumer protection and data protection laws," it said in its brief to British MPs.

The British group is backing efforts by the European Consumer Organization to protect consumer digital rights. U.S. rights groupsalso are getting noticein their opposition to the way industry players are manipulating digital media.

The EU group began a campaign in November 2005 to protect consumer rights in the digital environment, including the right to privacy and the right not to be criminalized.

Earlier this month Apple came under scrutiny over the latest version of its iTunes music download software. The software scans a user's existing downloads and recommends new songs to buy, a practice many see as an invasion of privacy.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a U.S. digital rights group, has asked Apple to disclose to consumers upfront that their privacy is being invaded.

Digital rights are being left to industry self-regulation, the U.K.consumer watchdog said. The result is that industries are devising more ingenious ways to limit how people can use recordings.

"Whilst we recognize the value of intellectual property rights, we have little confidence in self-regulation by the industry," said Jill Johnstone, NCC director of policy.

The watchdog group raised the case ofSony BMG, which installed software on its CDs last year in an effort to stop piracy.

The software installed itself on users' PCs and made them vulnerable to viruses. A patch intended to fix the problem turned out to cause more damage.

Sony BMG was sued by U.S. digital rights groups. It was forced to recall the CDs and offer refunds to consumers who suffered.

The NCC pointed out that this kind of technology has little effect on organized criminal groups who pirate CDs and films.

"Given the resources available to many criminal gangs, the ability of DRM to halt these activities is minimal," the submission stated.

"However, the use of DRM can and is constraining legitimate consumer use of products and consumer rights under consumer protection and data protection law."