Digital rights management

Digital Rights Management (generally abbreviated to DRM) is an generic term that refers to any of several technologies used by publishers or copyright owners to control access to and usage of digital data or hardware, and to restrictions associated with a specific instance of a digital work or device. The term is often confused with copy protection and technical protection measures; these two terms refer to technologies that control or restrict the use and access of digital content on electronic devices with such technologies installed, acting as components of a DRM design.

Digital Rights Management is a controversial topic. Advocates argue DRM is necessary for copyright holders to prevent unauthorized duplication of their work to ensure continued revenue streams. Some critics of the technology, including the Free Software Foundation, suggest that the use of the word "Rights" is misleading and suggest that people instead use the term Digital Restrictions Management. The position put forth is that copyright holders are attempting to restrict use of copyrighted material in ways not granted by statutory or common law applying to copyright. Others, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation consider some DRM schemes to be anti-competitive, citing the iTunes Store as an example.

At the current time music tracks downloaded from Itunes can currently only be played on the ipod range of music's players. Similarly music downloaded for the Microsoft Zen can't be played on the Apple ipod.

The Itunes stores use of DRM is currently in the press with the head of Apple computers calling for drm to be removed from music downloaded from the Itunes store. (see bbc news article for further information)

Enterprise Digital Rights Management (E-DRM or ERM) refers to the use of DRM technology to control access to corporate documents (Microsoft Word, PDF, TIFF, AutoCAD files, etc), rather than consumer playable media. The technology usually requires a Policy Server to authenticate users' rights to access certain documents but more recently software that does not require this has been created. EDRM vendors include Microsoft, Adobe Systems, EMC Corporation and several smaller companies. There are open source implementations as well. EDRM is generally intended to apply to trade secrets, which are different from copyrighted material (though there is sometimes an overlap as some material is both copyrighted and a trade secret — e.g., the source code for some proprietary software), and for whom the primary issue is industrial or corporate espionage or inadvertent release. In most jurisdictions, there is no notion of fair use for trade secrets as there is for copyrighted material. trade secrecy confidentiality measures are somewhat less controversial than DRM applied to copyrighted works sold to the public in many copies (e.g., audio or video recordings, texts).

DRM vendors and publishers coined the term "digital rights management" to refer to the preventive schemes discussed here; it is limited to digital media because of their special characteristics, especially exact copy ability. There is a long history of objection on the part of copyright holders (in modern times often music distributors or broadcasting companies) to copying technology of any kind. Examples have included player piano rolls (early in the 20th century), audio tape recording (after WWII), video tape recording (e.g., in the famous Betamax case in the US), etc. Digital copying raised concerns to a higher pitch. While analog media loses quality with each copy generation, and often even during normal use, digital media files may be copied an unlimited number of times without degradation in the quality of subsequent copies. Digital Audio Tape, thought by many observers of the time to be a probable replacement / improvement for the audio cassette, was a market failure in part due to opposition on grounds of the potential for unauthorized copying. The advent of personal computers, the easiness to rip media files from a CD or from radio broadcast combined with the Internet and popular file sharing tools, have made unauthorized sharing of digital files (often referred to as digital piracy) possible and profitable.

This above article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Digital Rights Management

There are many different types of DRM currently in use and there are strong arguments for and against it's existence. Some of these are seen by many as very restrictive. An example of this is the inabaility for a computer to play a purchased dvd film or audio cd. As computers are more and more being used as complete home entertainment systems the argument is why should I be restricted to playing the media on my hi-fi or dvd player?

The most discussed or contraversial types of drm management are currently the types used on media be it audio or video content.

The general argument for drm management is that if it didn't exist people would copy the material and therefore effectively steal possible revenue from the company or author who produced the media.

There are several arguments put forward for relaxation of the restrictions of digital rights management. The main ones seem to be:-

1. Backup copies - If I have purchased the media I should have the right to make a backup copy of it in case the original is damaged so as to protect my investment.

2. I want to play the media on different devices - If for example I have purchased a dvd movie or audio cd I want to play it on my home computer.

3. I wany to burn the audio tracks I have purchased from an online store to cd to use in the car - As the cost of individual audio tracks downloaded from online stores are as expensive, if not more expensive, pro rata as buying the audio cd in a record shop then why can I not use it in as many devices as I wish.

There are a plethora of programs available to circumvent most types of digital rights management that are currently used. The legality of using these programs is legally questionable.

Several organisations have been setup to argue against the use of digital rights management. One of the highest profile companies is the electronic frontier foundation

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