Filed under: Features

Each week Mark Methenitis contributes Law of the Game on Joystiq (“LGJ”), a column on legal issues as they relate to video games:

GamePolitics is reporting that the Federal Trade Commission is ready to look into “consumer protection” related to digital rights management tools. To many people, this may seem like a great idea. In general, it’s not. It would be nice to give consumers some protection from some of the most draconian or horribly flawed DRM systems that have been put into use. On the other hand, those of us who have been around the “government regulation” block know that these protections rarely solve the problem they set out to resolve, and in turn, generally put more hurdles in the way of those who want to get a product into the marketplace, which raises the cost of production and usually the consumer price, too.

Consumer protection regulations do just what they sound like: they protect consumers. There are hundreds of these regulations at both the state and federal level in the U.S., and most are targeted at an industry level. There are consumer protections related to everything from debt collecting to auto repair to purchasing a franchised business. Many of these laws were enacted in response to a perceived or actual abuse by producers toward consumers. So, the government set out to level the playing field and to give consumers a way to deal with their grievances. All in all, the intent was good.

Continue reading LGJ: Here comes the FTC

LGJ: Here comes the FTC originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink | Email this | Comments