Ed Felten has a post that touches on the darknet–or more properly darknets, is a private virtual network where users only connect to people they trust. His point is that digital rights management systems (DRMs) are being developed in the shadow of competition with the darknet. Here’s a taste:
The Darknet is a permanent backdrop for any real-world system [of DRM\. The major players know this — after all, it was a team at Microsoft Research that helped to launch the Darknet idea. The big players will, in the long run, be smart enough not to drive users into the arms of the Darknet. They will compete with the Darknet, and with each other, and will end up producing systems that most consumers think are fine. Yes, consumers will (still) chafe at the restrictions on DRM-protected systems ten or twenty years from now. But on the whole, they will find that these systems are attractive, and worth investing in.