Finding common ground in the copyright wars

DRUMS: In search of a file-sharing solution is a work in progress, by Scott Matthews (and friends). It's a thoughtful, well-done first step in the attempt to find a reasonable middle ground in the copyright wars.

DRUMS stands for Digital Rights Uniform Metadata Service, a central database that would contain such data as author names, work titles, publication dates, types of work, file checksums, flags indicating which rights remain reserved and which rights have been granted, and so on. Distributed throughout the Net, the DRUMS databases could then be queried via a simple and standard protocol. Scott explains further:

Imagine that an author adds new works to the DRUMS database via their authorized provider, and marks them as free for non-commercial use. Once the root DRUMS database has been propagated out across the Internet, a Web site might query it for recent additions that are marked free for non-commercial use. The results could be presented as a playlist to a DJ who reviews them and picks favorites, which then get published into an RSS/BitTorrent feed.

It sounds like Scott has planted the seeds of a useful idea. It will be hard to pull off unless it's widely embraced. Feel free to add your comments to his suggestion by emailing Scott here.