EFF on DRM and Development
The Electronic Frontier Foundation has published a detailed and devastating argument against the use of DRM -- "digital rights management" -- technologies, with a section on problems for the developing world. DRM is used to limit how end-users can make use of digital files, whether music, movies or other media. DRM is meant to "protect" the files from improper use, as defined by the owners (which may or may not be the creators) of the original work in question. While there's no question that artists should be compensated for their work, DRM has numerous failings, both as a technology and as a social institution.
The document, Digital Rights Management: A failure in the developed world, a danger to the developing world, is available both as HTML and as a PDF. The argument it makes in opposition to DRM in the developing world is straightforward: