Consumer groups from around the Asia-Pacific region are currently meeting in Chiang Rai, Thailand for a conference on The Next Wave of ASEAN Consumer Protection in Telecommunications, at which I presented today on the relationship between consumer protection and Access to Knowledge (A2K). As promised to conference delegates, I am posting the slides from that presentation below, in two open formats.

Access to and use of content

• DRM systems that are capable of being used in excess of what is necessary to protect copyright will not receive the privilege of anti-circumvention protection.

• DRM systems that define social entities such as ‘household’ and ‘families’ in their technology, and that define these entities more narrowly or restrictively than have been defined in local law or custom will not receive the privilege of anti-circumvention protection.

Blocking Access with Digital Locks

In the midst of the on-going campaign by civil society, law professors, IT experts and consumers to resist and reverse the increasing restrictions on fair useⁱ of copyrighted material, a new means of eradicating the unauthorised copying of Internet content is taking shape.