Wow, this is pretty scary. The original post:

"He says that all mobile phones sold in Japan now have some kind of DRM built in. All content (ring tones etc.) is locked to the device it was downloaded first. If you buy a new phone, there is no way to transfer your files from your old one." [Lenz Blog]

The follow-up:

"The paper does point to one way in which even unencrypted content's acquirability might be irrelevant. Many of the phones limit the file types you can play and send to friends. Imagine a phone that can only play encrypted formats. You could download all the MP3s off P2P that you want, but none of them would be usable." [A Copyfighter's Musings]

How do you feel about that? How would a library circulate a digital music or video file in that environment?

I don't know how Japanese libraries work, so I'm curious to know how they are faring in this new no-right-of-first-sale, no-traditional-fair-use-rights digital world. Are libraries already out of the digital loop? Does anyone have a sense of how all of this is playing out over there?