Comment Number:	539814-00672
Received:	1/28/2009 5:58:06 PM
Organization:	Electronic Privacy Information Center-member
Commenter:	Laura Borst
State:	TX
Agency:	Federal Trade Commission
Rule:	FTC Town Hall to Address Digital Rights Management Technologies - Event Takes Place Wednesday, March 25, 2009, in Seattle
Attachments:

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Comments:

While digital rights management techniques may stop piracy, they also negatively impact upon honest uses by consumers of digital products. One example might be not being able to play a downloaded song on devices other than portable music players. Prohibiting criticism by exploiting trademark law is also bad and could prevent consumers from learning of potential problems with digital products, among other things. Digital rights management could have negative impacts on innovation, as well as honest use of products. This could be bad in the long term for the economy. Such things on Internet-enabled phones may restrict users to one e-mail provider, and in other ways reduce the flexibility of honest use.