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But DRM can't solve it
Think again. Ms Haga wants to protect a free product, so it isn't sales revenue she wants to protect. She wants only certain classes of citizens to be able to read the solutions to the problems.

I've got a few issues with that, not least of which is how do you make such information available to one class of citizen but not another?

Ms Haga's real problem is teachers using textbooks to assess their students rather than setting independent exams.

DRM can't possibly solve Ms Haga's problem. Anything that a human can read can be copied, you don't have to crack the encryption, you can just transcribe the content. Even if Thomson Learning stop publishing the answers, someone can just publish their own - it's been happening for as long as there have been published text books (and answers).

When I went to school, the answers were in the back of the book and were used for tutorials only. Lazy students who used the answers and didn't do the working were caught out at exam time.

Ms H wants DRM to guarantee who can and who can't read her product. Sorry, it can't do that and never will unless someone works out how to encode eyesight.
Posted by: Fred Fredrickson   Posted on: 08/18/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use
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Phantasms  Yagotta B. Kidding | 08/18/04
Thanks for that.  Yen_z | 08/18/04
Oh no!!!  Flablooie | 08/18/04
How does that address the stated problem.  No_Ax_to_Grind | 08/18/04
But DRM can't solve it  Fred Fredrickson | 08/18/04
There is no problem  Patrick Jones | 08/19/04
So they are just imagining these problems?  No_Ax_to_Grind | 08/19/04
What's your point?  voska | 08/19/04
They're manufacturing the problem, not imagining it.  Letophoro | 08/19/04
Got it backwards in Canada  voska | 08/19/04
Sources  Letophoro | 08/19/04
And ZDNET is incorrect  voska | 08/19/04
It will be interesting if it ever goes to court  voska | 08/19/04
Additional sources  Letophoro | 08/19/04
Yes  Patrick Jones | 08/19/04
So this is different from  Hanover Phist | 08/19/04
Problem, Unmentioned and unsolved  Update victim | 08/18/04
Microsoft rep says DRM can go too far...  Anton Philidor | 08/18/04
MS is really not in that business  j.m.galvin | 08/19/04
Looks like ZDNet took the day off.  No_Ax_to_Grind | 08/19/04
Additional sources.  Letophoro | 08/19/04
Oops, wrong location.  Letophoro | 08/19/04

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