By Brad King, Assistant Professor, Ball State University

Within the last year, large and small newspaper organizations have moved previously free content behind subscription walls that require readers to pay for access. The new model is fraught with peril, mostly notably the drop in online circulation as content becomes inaccessible through traditional search.

More concerning, though, may be the Associated Press’ decision to create a News Registry, which is a fancy name for a digital rights management (DRM) wrapper around its stories, which would allow content publishers the ability to determine how, when and where those stories — or parts of those stories — are replicated across the Web.

Which seems like a noble cause.

There is just one problem: DRM wrappers have, by and large, failed in the digital age because they create an “ease-of-use” problem for consumers. In order to work, DRM restricts different activities. It may, for example, prevent you from playing a CD on certain types of computers. Which is fine if you are technologically savvy enough to figure out which devices. Most people aren’t. [Read more...]