What Are Digital Rights?

A few days ago, on an email list and in the context of a 'digital rights management' discussion, someone made the statement that there are no digital rights. My point was that the phrase 'digital rights management' doesn't necessarily have to be the bad thing that it is being implemented nowadays. Digital rights do exist. But to say where they start and end is a difficult thing, especially in the context of what is considered property. In a digital sense, property is commonly thought of as 'intellectual property', which comes with it's own problems. The fact that digital rights and copyright and patent issues are related is a given; however, there is more to it than those complex issues.

In the context of the Digital Divide, one could say that there is a right for equitable internet access - or at least some people believe that there is. Another right might be considered free speech; to be able to write on the internet about what one thinks and believes without fear of persecution - take a look at the Committee To Protect Bloggers as an example.

Digital Rights also transcend the internet - consider the Toronto Declaration that I helped write at the first MobileActive Convergence in September of 2005:

...We affirm that:

• Communications technology is a right derived from the inalienable right of freedom of expression; ...

A right. A right to communicate. There's also privacy, which could be considered a right. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights considers privacy a right within Article 12:

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

'Correspondence' these days includes various communications devices - some related to the internet, and almost all of them digital. And there's more.

Take a look at the mindmap on the left, courtesy the Open Rights Group (click it to bring up a larger view). It's incomplete. There's a lot more, and organizations such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation also advocate these rights, though it does seem more directed toward patent and copyright issues.

The issue of digital rights is important because even as you read this, some human rights are probably being infringed with some use of digital technology - and it's important that the use of digital technology not allow for more abuse. It can. So it's possible and plausible to say that someone without access to technology also has digital rights - in fact, it seems intuitive.

There are some controversies related to human rights, and through the internet and globalization, these controversies rage on new turf.

What I find most interesting about all these issues is that the Human Rights are not 'Legal Entity Rights'. If a human cannot take away the rights of another human, then it would make sense that a legal or political entity would not be able to do so. So at the crux of the digital rights issues are a core issue of whether humans have a more elevated status than a legal entity or a government. Maybe I'll be color coded as a liberal for this, but the value of one human life seems to be higher than the largest legal entity that I can think of. For those who would say otherwise, I have to ask how many human lives a legal entity is worth?

At the end of the day, digital rights translate to human rights on the digital landscape, but on the broader canvas of human life. I may be able to use technology and someone else may not, but if my use of technology infringes upon their rights... isn't that an infringement of their own digital rights, or better their human rights?

Property and Rights. Key issues we probably don't hear too much about, except in the context of 'intellectual property' - but which extend way beyond the multibillion dollar industry of patents and copyrights.

So where do your rights as a human being in a digital age start, and where do they end in a digital age? Forget legalities - what would you consider to be your rights as a human being? What would you consider to be digital rights? And at the end of the day, what rights do you think the next generations of humanity deserve? And who will we go to when these rights are infringed?