Digital Rights Management

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Digital Rights Management (DRM) mainly refers to the guidelines, methods and tools that outline the appropriate usage of digital content. It plays a major part in the flow of contents. Some of its roles of the DRM system are to organize the raw content for convenient tracking and dispersion, to protect digital content so the transmission cannot be tampered with, to distribute offline content to CDs and DVDs, and to deliver content on-demand over peer-to-peer networks. Therefore a system of rules and regulations are needed to make sure that the DRM is practiced fairly. Many producers of electronic media use this process in an attempt to prevent Digital Piracy of their products. Examples of DRM include country coding on DVDs, authentication keys for software or video games, and cellphones being locked to one service provider. This model is in contrast to the Open Source model.

This illustration show the security protection content producers put on their electronic media to prevent piracy


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History

The Digital Millenium Copyright Act- It was passed to extend intellectual property law to criminalize circumvention of DRM. [1] DRM has since been included in digital movies, TV, e-books, music, video games and documents in an attempt to maintain controlled, paid access to them. Some such materials have been released DRM-free as a show of support to consumers and solidarity to the opponents of DRM.


Functional Architecture

DRM Functional Architecture figure maps the roles of various modules interacting under the three areas: IP Asset Creation, IP Management, and IP Usage.

The DRM systems can be modeled in three areas:

  • IP Asset Creation and Capture Module - To manage the production of content materials so it can be easily traded, which involves declaring rights when content is first created by different digital media content producers.
  • IP Asset Management Module - Repository functions to allow the retrieval of content in potential databases and metadata. Trading functions to allow appointment of licenses to producers who have exchanged concurrence for rights over content material, which includes payments to rights holders.
  • IP Asset Usage Module - Management of content use after it has been traded, which includes supporting restrictions over traded content in certain desktop systems/software.




Implementation

DRM is most commonly implemented through restrictive licensing agreements, which conrtols access to certain materials, or encryption, which encodes the relavent material and requires a key to decode. [2]

Controversy

Corporations and producers claim that DRM is a useful tool in preventing piracy and ensuring legitimate use of artists' work, comparing it to locking a physical store. They are concerned with maintaining their business and the livelihood of themselves and the artists that they represent. Opponents of DRM claim that it prevents legitimate use of materials, such as making a backup copy of something you purchased or lending a video game to a friend. [3] Some opponents of DRM, most notably the Free Software Foundation, say that the term should be Digital Restrictions Management, as it hinders the rights of consumers. [4]

Ethical implications

Main Argument

The primary ethical question associated with DRM is whether those who circumvent it are defending the rights of end users, or attacking the property of producers.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation asserts that DRM is ethically flawed, as ".. in an effort to attract customers, these music services try to obscure the restrictions they impose on you with clever marketing."[5] It is also argued that laws and restrictions pertaining to DRM are fuzzy. It is often difficult to determine what specific actions, such as ripping a copy of a CD that you own to store on your iPod, are illegal. Such confusions lessen a law-abiding person's ability to detect when they've broken the law, and thus reduce feelings of moral obligation. [6]

The main controversy with DRM is that consumers who pay for media have a defined concept of ownership over the physical item and expect complete and total control when ownership of an item is exchanged for money, but the DRM's intention is to protect the intangible content (i.e. music, film, dialogue). In the interests of maintaining profits and possibly a person's source of income, DRM is ethical in that it prevents the unlawful distribution of work to which the consumer does not own the rights.

Radiohead

More and more artists are warming up to the idea that their art, whether it be audio, video, or even source code (e.g. gaming) need not be protected by an ever-aging piece of legislation. For instance, the band Radiohead released their album In Rainbows in 2007 via web available at any cost the buyer wanted - including for free. Not only was their choice to have a variable cost for purchase revolutionary, but releasing content on a platform that was open to pirating proved that DRM may not be needed to ensure a high profit margin for sales.

Pretty Lights

The electronic music DJ, Pretty Lights, offers his music for free on his website. Most of Pretty Lights' music (excepting a few unreleased songs that are available to listen on Youtube) is available for free downloading, without any file-protection preventing copying. When one downloads this music, there is a prompt that asks for a suggested--but not required--donation. [7] Additionally, there is a Pretty Lights record label that offers other artists' music for free, with a suggested donation. The fact that his music is offered for free, without DRM, casts doubt on the notion that DRM is required to ensure that artists make a decent living.

References

  1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Millennium_Copyright_Act
  2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management
  3. http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2009/08/06/tech-digital-locks-drm-tpm-rights-management-protection-measures-copyright-copy-protection.html
  4. http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/drm.html
  5. https://www.eff.org/pages/customer-always-wrong-users-guide-drm-online-music
  6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management
  7. http://www.prettylightsmusic.com/#/home

See Also

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