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Digital Rights Management (generally abbreviated to DRM) is an umbrella 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, however it should be noted, that the rights in Digital Rights Management refers to user rights such as group policies. Others, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation consider some DRM schemes to be anti-competitive, citing the iTunes Store as an example.

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).

Introduction

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 copyability. 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.

Although technical controls on the reproduction and use of software have been intermittently common since the 1980s, the term DRM has come to primarily mean the use of similar measures to control artistic works or content. Beyond the existing restrictions imposed by copyright law, most DRM schemes are able to enforce additional restrictions at the discretion of the content's publisher, which may or may not be the same entity as the copyright holder.

DRM schemes are built on numerous technologies, such as modifications to digital media player software to use cryptography. Since such implementations can be reverse engineered, they cannot be effective as an inherent part of the design. This fact has resulted in a general move toward Mandatory Access Control systems (as opposed to Discretionary access control) in which use restrictions are enforced by firmware (ie, software permanently embedded in hardware). These software provisions interact with operating systems, media player software, or both. However, some implementations of this DRM type are vulnerable to an additional class of attacks, due to the requirement to run on tamper-resistant hardware. There has been pressure (successful in some places) for legislation and regulation creating new offenses (ie, controlling or prohibiting examination of DRM schemes, or possession of any tools (e.g., software) which might interfere with the operation of a DRM scheme.) An example is the DMCA.

While digital rights management is most commonly used by the entertainment industry (e.g., films and recording), it has found use in other media as well. Many online music stores, such as Apple's iTunes Store, as well as certain e-books producers, have adopted various DRM schemes in recent times. In recent years, a number of television producers have begun demanding implementation of DRM measures to control access to the content of their shows in connection with the popular TiVo system, and its equivalents.

Content Scrambling System

An early example of a DRM system is the Content Scrambling System (CSS) employed by the DVD Forum on movie DVDs since circa 1996. The scheme used a simple encryption algorithm, and required device manufacturers to sign a license agreement restricting the inclusion of certain features in their players, such as a digital output which could be used to extract a high-quality digital copy of the movie. Thus, the only consumer hardware capable of decoding DVD movies was controlled by the DVD Forum, restricting the unauthorized use of DVD media until the release of DeCSS by Jon Lech Johansen in 1999. An unsuccessful variant of this scheme is the now-defunct DIVX format.

DRM Payment gateway combination

In 2003, DNAML (an Australian Company) pioneered the combination of an internal DRM System and Payment Gateway referred to as DNL DRM or Shareware eBooks (see samples). Publishers such as Thomson Education, Harper Collins and Wiley have now adopted the DRM system which allows for an instant cpu lock down post purchase without having to perform multiple tasks prior to activations.

Legal enforcement of DRM

Digital Rights Management systems have generally received some international legal backing by implementation of the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT). Article 11 of the Treaty states that:

"Contracting Parties shall provide adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies against the circumvention of effective technological measures that are used by authors in connection with the exercise of their rights under this Treaty or the Berne Convention and that restrict acts, in respect of their works, which are not authorized by the authors concerned or permitted by law."

Just which DRM scheme, and which additional restrictions over and above copying are covered by this, is not entirely clear. The WIPO provision is in any case implemented differently in different countries and jurisdictions. The legal protection is for 'effective technological measures', which has been read to preclude DRM systems that do not establish copy-prevention.

The WCT has been implemented in most member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization. The American implementation is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), while in Europe the treaty has been implemented by the 2001 European directive on copyright, which requires member states of the European Union to implement legal protections for technological prevention measures. In 2006, the lower house of the French parliament adopted such legislation as part of the controversial DADVSI law, but added that protected DRM techniques should be made interoperable, a move which caused widespread controversy in the United States.

Problems associated with some well-known DRM schemes include:

• DIVX: Proposed as a content-rental only system, DIVX required an active telephone line and modem, and thus inhibited the use of media offline or portably. To relocate a work for which unlimited play had been purchased (called DIVX Silver), it was necessary to carry the DVD player that first played the disk with it, or manually request that another player be authorized to play that disc. Consumers were denied certain fair use rights in countries with such doctrines, such as the ability to create compilations of purchased material and to re-sell their copy. DIVX should not be confused with DivX.

• CSS: Restricts owners' use of purchased content, such as the creation of compilations or full quality reproductions, where such actions would ordinarily be permissible in many countries as fair use or some equivalent. The system also prevents the user from playing encrypted DVDs on any computer platform, although this restriction can be easily circumvented at the risk of prosecution under laws such as the DMCA. CSS is an example of certificate-based encryption.

• Product activation: Restricts a product's functionality until it is registered with a publisher by means of a special identification code, often recording information about the specific computer the software is installed on to prevent its use across multiple machines. Activation schemes may place some users at risk by incorrectly identifying their purchased software as unauthorized. An example of this vulnerability occurred in 2003, when Intuit's use of a defective product activation scheme angered thousands of customers who were denied legitimate use of the product, resulting in a formal apology by Intuit and their cancellation of the system.

• Digital watermarking: Allows hidden data, such as a unique disc ID, to be placed on the media. It is, in this sense, an instance of steganography. The system allows such information as the name and address of the purchaser (acquired, for instance, taken at the point of sale), and entered into a database along with a unique ID for each copy (e.g., disk). In the most common implementation, this scheme does not prevent copying, but ensures that any copies made of the media will be traceable to a particular copy and perhaps to a particular user. However, the scheme relies largely on authenticating the purchaser's identity (e.g., at point of sale), and can be easily circumvented by a customer who provides false information. Any user who can generate such watermarks will also be able to circumvent the system, so there is also a reliance on restrictions in the use of either hardware or software.

Digital Millennium Copyright Act

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a United States copyright law passed unanimously on May 14, 1998, that criminalizes the production and dissemination of technology that allows users to circumvent technical copyright protection methods, rendering all forms of DRM-stripping and circumvention software illegal. On 22 May, 2001, the European Union passed the EU Copyright Directive, an implementation of the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty that addressed many of the same issues as the DMCA.

The DMCA has been largely ineffective in enforcing DRM systems, as software allowing users to circumvent copyright restrictions remains readily available over the Internet. However, the Act has been used to restrict the spread of such software by inhibiting its distribution and development, as in the case of DeCSS.

The arrest of Russian programmer Dmitry Sklyarov in 2001, for alleged infringement of the DMCA, was a highly publicized example of the law's use in preventing development of anti-DRM measures. While working for Elcomsoft in Russia, he developed The Advanced eBook Processor, an application that allowed authorized users to strip usage restriction information from restricted e-books, an activity legal in both Russia and the United States. Paradoxically under the DMCA it is not legal in the United States to provide such a tool. Sklyarov was arrested in the United States after presenting a speech at DEF CON and subsequently spent several months in jail. The DMCA has also been cited as chilling to legitimate users, such as students of cryptanalysis (including Professor Felten and students at Princeton), and security consultants such as Niels Ferguson, who declined to publish information about vulnerabilities he discovered in an Intel secure-computing scheme because of his concern about being arrested under the DMCA when he travels to the US.

Other copyright implications

While DRM systems are ostensibly designed to protect a copyright holder's exclusive right to control copying, after a statutorily-defined period of time any copyrighted work becomes part of the public domain for anyone to use freely. DRM systems currently employed are not time limited in this way, and although it would be possible to create such a system (under compulsory escrow agreements, for example), there is currently no mechanism to remove the copy control systems embedded into works once the copyright term expires and they enter the public domain.

Furthermore, copyright law does not restrict the resale of copyrighted works (provided those copies were made by or with the permission of the copyright holder), so it is perfectly legal to resell a copyrighted work provided a copy is not retained by the seller—a doctrine known as the first-sale doctrine in the US, which applies equally in most other countries under various names. Similarly, some forms of copying are permitted under copyright law, under the doctrine of fair use (US) or fair dealing (many other countries). DRM technology restricts or prevents the purchaser of copyrighted material from exercising their legal rights in these respects.

Moreover, the scope of legal rights cannot, in principle, be fully encoded in technical access/copying restrictions. For example, a photograph generally falls under the copyright of its photographer, and may not be reproduced in an unlimited way by other persons. A photographer wishing to enforce her copyright might employ a DRM scheme to a digital version of the photograph (Corbis is claimed to have done so for the images it licenses) that indicate "may not be copied." However, the photographer might subsequently sign an agreement with another party authorizing such duplication (the reason for doing so is irrelevant to this example). Under law, the moment such an agreement is signed, copying (under the new terms) becomes legal; but the DRM software will not (has not so far, in any case) be adjustable to reflect the new legal reality established by those whose choice it is.

An oft-cited example of DRM overreach is Adobe Systems' release in 2000 of a public domain work, Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland, with DRM controls asserting that "this book cannot be read aloud" and so disabling use of the text-to-speech feature normally available in Adobe's eBook Reader.

DRM has been used by organizations such as the British Library in its secure electronic delivery service to permit worldwide access to substantial numbers of rare (and in many cases unique) documents which, for legal reasons, were previously only available to authorized individuals actually visiting the Library's document centre at Boston Spa in England. This is an interesting case, one in which DRM has actually increased public access to restricted material rather than diminished it.

An example of a DRM system is one that is currently being used on books from multiple publishers by VitalSource Technologies, Inc. (purchased by Ingram Industries in the summer of 2006). Books using this system (called VitalBooks) are used by many American Dental Schools (e.g., New York University College of Dentistry) and are included on many educational computers sold by IBM/Lenovo, Apple Computer, and other computer makers. The textbooks are delivered by pre-installing them on the hard drive, via download, or on DVD (or some other media) which students purchase instead of printed versions (some schools require use of the electronic books as part of their instructional system). The VitalBook titles are readable only on a computer the user has authorized, and can be transferred to other systems. The titles are owned by the user and fully functional with printing and copy/paste capabilities, and some other specific features.

DRM advocates

Some DRM advocates have taken the position, that the operational contexts and design goals of DRM, security, software engineering and cryptography are sufficiently well understood that it is already possible to achieve the desired ends without causing unrelated problems for users or their computers.

Others have taken the position that creators of digital works should have the power to control the distribution or replication of copies of their works, and to assign limited control over such copies. Without this power, they argue, there will be a chilling effect on creative efforts in the digital space. This has been and remains the underlying argument for copyright. DRM is one means by which creators of digital works may obtain this power.

A similar view states that DRM's advent is the first time large-scale digital distribution has been reasonably achievable, which proponents claim to be a benefit both to content creators and their customers that far outweighs any problems that arise. This argument cannot be applied to some physical media, however, as such media are in many respects similar to traditional (analog) media.

Furthermore, advocates of DRM believe that its opponents advocate the rights of hardware and media owners, but at the expense of the privileges of artists and those who have acquired copyright in their creations. On this account, consumers of hardware and media voluntarily and knowingly agree to the grant of limited use of the content exhibited using their physical media.

DRM opponents

Many organizations, prominent individuals, and computer scientists are opposed to DRM. Two notable DRM critics are John Walker, as expressed for instance, in his article The Digital Imprimatur: How big brother and big media can put the Internet genie back in the bottle, and Richard Stallman notably in his article The Right to Read and in other public statements "DRM is an example of a malicious feature - a feature designed to hurt the user of the software, and therefore, it's something for which there can never be toleration". Professor Ross Anderson of Cambridge University heads a British organization which opposes DRM and similar efforts in the UK and elsewhere.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and similar civil rights organizations, including FreeCulture.org, http://boycott-riaa.com and http://www.ihatedrm.com, also hold positions which are characterized as opposed to DRM.

The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure criticizes DRM's impact as a trade barrier from a free market perspective.

To date, the first two draft versions of the GNU General Public License version 3 released by the Free Software Foundation, prohibit using DRM to restrict free redistribution and modification of works covered by the license, and has a clause stating that the license's provisions shall be interpreted as disfavoring use of DRM. Also, in May 2006, the FSF launched a "Defective by Design" campaign against DRM.

Free Creations has published a license against DRM: Against DRM 2.0.

Creative Commons provides licensing options encouraging the expansion of and building upon creative work without the use of DRM.

In France, in order to inform consumers about DRM, the citizen group StopDRM is regularly organizing protests in general stores (like Virgin or La Fnac) in different cities.

As already noted, many DRM opponents consider Digital Rights Management to be a misnomer. They argue that DRM manages rights (or access) the same way prison manages freedom. A common alternative is Digital Restrictions Management. Alternatively, ZDNet Executive Editor David Berlind suggests the term Content Restriction, Annulment and Protection or CRAP for short.

The use of DRM may also be a barrier to future historians, since technologies designed to permit data to be read only on particular machines may well make future data recovery impossible - see Digital Revolution. This argument connects the issue of DRM with that of asset management and archive technology.

DRM opponents argue that the presence of DRM infringes private property rights and restricts a range of heretofore normal and legal user activities. A DRM component would control a device a user owns (such as an MP3 player) by restricting how it may act with regards to certain content, overriding some of the user's wishes (for example, preventing the user from burning a copyrighted song). An example of this effect may be seen in Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system in which content is disabled or degraded depending on the DRM scheme's evaluation of whether the hardware and its use are 'secure'. All forms of DRM depend on the DRM enabled device (e.g., computer, DVD player, TV) imposing restrictions that cannot be disabled or modified by the user.

On February 6, 2007, in an open letter posted on the Apple website entitled Thoughts On Music, Steve Jobs called for the abolishment of DRM in digital music, effectively counting himself among DRM's detractors. As the CEO of the largest online music distributor in the world, Mr. Jobs' statement could have huge implications for the future of the music industry, especially the "Big Four:" Universal, Sony BMG, EMI and Warner (whom he explicitly charges with the responsibility of discarding the technology).

Tools have been created to strip Windows Media of DRM restrictions. An example being FairUse4WM

Ken Fisher points to evidence that DRM has little to do with piracy; he cites evidence suggesting that its "sole purpose is to maximize revenues by minimizing your rights so that they can sell them back to you."

DRM and audio CDs

In 2002 Bertelsmann (the record companies BMG, Arista and RCA) were the first to use DRM on audio CDs. Initially this was done on promotional CDs; later all CDs from these companies included DRM. Other record companies also started using DRM as well.

However, these CDs could not be played on all devices that were supposed to do so, including some car CD players. Many people could no longer play the CDs on their computers. Computers running Windows would sometimes crash when people attempted to play such CDs, and many of the CDs could not be played on people's computers at all. Later on all CDs from those companies were DRM'ed to deter playing on computers at all. In 2005, Sony BMG's DRM technology installed software without notification or confirmation, and installed a rootkit on the computer. This created security vulnerabilities others could exploit, and in the end Sony had to recall millions of CDs.

Consumer rights organizations complained that people could not exercise their legal rights, such as copying CDs for their own private use (including backups and personal re-mixes).

It also did not prevent copying. The DRM software had to be renewed constantly to fight cracking, yet this basic goal never succeeded. For example, the Sony DRM technology created vulnerabilities in consumer's computers, yet could be trivially bypassed by holding down the "shift" key while inserting the CD, or disabling autorun. And of course, the audio could be played and re-recorded, completely bypassing all of the DRM.

By January 2007 EMI stopped publishing audio CDs with DRM, stating that "the costs of DRM do not measure up to the results". EMI was the last publisher to do so; audio CDs with DRM are no longer released by any major publisher.

DRM and Internet music

Most internet music stores employ DRM to restrict the usage of music purchased and downloaded online. There are many options for consumers buying digital music over the internet, in terms of both stores and purchase options. Two examples of music stores and their functionality follow:

• The iTunes Store, formerly the iTunes Music Store, the industry leader, allows users to purchase a track online for under a dollar, to burn that song to CD an unlimited number of times, and transfer it to an unlimited number of iPods. The purchased music files are encoded as AAC, a format supported by iPods, and DRM is applied through FairPlay. Many music devices are not compatible with the AAC format, and only the iPod itself can play FairPlay-encoded files. Apple also reserves the right to alter its DRM restrictions on the music a user has downloaded at any time. For example, Apple recently decided to restrict the number of times a user can copy a playlist from ten to seven. Songs can be played on only five computers at a time, and users cannot edit or sample the songs they purchased (though copies can be used and edited in Apple's iMovie). Despite these restrictions, the iTS DRM is often seen as lenient. Previously, it was possible to bypass the DRM through programs such as Hymn but Apple has altered its systems to close such loopholes. Apple provides iTunes software for copying the downloaded music to iPods in AAC format or to conventional music CD (CDDA format). No copy restrictions are recorded onto the CD - a limitation of the medium - and many programs can read and convert music from CD to other music formats, such as MP3 used by competing digital music players.
• Napster music store, which offers a subscription based approach to DRM alongside permanent purchases. Users of the subscription service can download and stream an unlimited amount of music encoded to Windows Media Audio (WMA) while subscribed to the service. But as soon as the user misses a payment the service renders all music downloaded unusable. Napster also charges users who wish to use the music on their portable device an additional $5 per month. Furthermore, Napster requires users to pay an additional $.99 per each track to burn a track to CD or to listen to the track after the subscription expires. Songs bought through Napster can be played on players carrying the Microsoft PlaysForSure logo (which, notably, do not include iPod players or Microsoft's own Zune).

For a more complete list, see the Online music stores category.

The various services are currently not interoperable, though those that use the same DRM scheme (for instance the various Windows Media DRM stores, which include Napster) all provide songs that can be played side by side through the same program. Almost all stores require client software of some sort to be downloaded, and some also need plug-ins. Several colleges and universities, such as Princeton University, have made arrangements with assorted Internet music suppliers to provide access (typically DRM-restricted) to music files for their students, to less than universal popularity, sometimes making payments from student activity fee funds. One of the problems is that the music becomes unplayable after leaving school, unless the student continues to pay individually. Another is that few of these vendors are compatible with the most common portable music player, the Apple iPod.

Although DRM is prevalent for Internet music, some Online music stores such as eMusic, Audio Lunchbox, and Anthology recordings do not use DRM. Major labels have begun releasing more online music without DRM. Eric Bangeman suggests in Ars Technica that this is because the record labels are "slowly beginning to realize that they can't have DRMed music and complete control over the online music market at the same time... One way to break the cycle is to sell music that is playable on any digital audio player. eMusic does exactly that, and their surprisingly extensive catalog of non-DRMed music has vaulted it into the number two online music store position behind the iTunes Store." Apple's Steve Jobs has called on the music industry to eliminate DRM.

Controversies, consequences, and examples

Several DRM schemes have been implemented. Many see them as "abuse" of copyright, while DRM proponents have seen them as a "reasonable balance of consumer concerns and artist rights."

Examples include:

• Inclusion of commercials on the "unskippable track" on DVDs reserved for the copyright notice;
• Using the DMCA to restrict access to items that do not qualify for copyright, such as garage door openers and printer ink cartridges;
• Adding restrictions on text-to-speech conversion in the EULA of e-books;
• BBC IMP trial for downloads of DRM-encrypted audio and video files; uses the Kontiki peer to peer file distribution system. Allows no user control of the background up and downloading, leading to considerable slowing of user PCs and potential exhaustion of allowed data transfers without warning due to the nature of peer to peer type operations, with only the option to shut down the user's computer or disconnect from the Internet. BBC content is time-limited and will only play on the machine to which it was downloaded or an officially authenticated device participating in Microsoft's DRM scheme.
• Sky's 'Sky By Broadband' scheme also uses Kontiki with similar results.
• Using Copy Control schemes to thwart the existing statutory and common law exceptions to copyright holder control (such as fair use), as for instance in regional coding of media (such as in DVDs);
• The possibility of dominant DRM-inclusive recording and playback technology being used uncritically by users unaware of the dangers and consequences thereof, and potentially later locking them out of their own creations, as with SCMS in consumer-grade DAT equipment;
• Preventing academic publication and distribution of information relating to flaws in computer security in the absence of the permission of the creators of said technologies;
• Silencing individuals who have found serious flaws in software used in electronic voting.
• Restriction of medical records and personal financial information using DRM to protect consumer rights. Insurers, lawyers and loan companies have strongly objected to the use of these technologies to prevent patient, hospital and practitioner records being more freely accessible due to copy and forward restriction applied to patient or customer records.
• As of 2005, in some American dental schools, students are required to purchase textbooks on DVD. The DVDs are readable only on an authorized computer and only for a limited time, after which the DVD expires and the information in the "DVD book" becomes unreadable. Some of these books are not available on paper at all.
• Stopping or making archival of the content, even allowed such like in libraries, hard or impossible to do due to practical and technical reasons - especially when considering that the content should still be accessible even if the publisher disappears (bankruptcies etc).
• TiVo 7.2 OS adds content access restrictions, blocks transfers, and auto-deletes some shows
• The Sony BMG DRM scandal, which has generated lawsuits and negative publicity for Sony BMG.
• Aesthetic objections to onscreen DRM threats interfering with relaxing and watching a movie.
• The Swedish Pirate Party wants to outlaw most forms of DRM.
• The legal inability to disable DRM restrictions, even if they "threaten critical infrastructure and potentially endanger lives"
• Many DRM systems restrict playback to a single device and some providers have not offered to renew this licence when the device is upgraded.
• The Playstation 2 version of Ape Escape: Pumped & Primed creates copy-restricted game saves which cannot be transferred between memory cards. This is the first known instance where a publisher has enforced DRM on private data, rather than just data copyrighted by the publisher.
• The PlayStation 2 CD-ROM format games contain DRM technology and cannot be copied with normal copying software. However, the DVD-ROM format games don't contain this technology.
• The Xbox 360 games has an 'advanced security code' which prevents copying of the games.
• The Microsoft Zune will apply a 3-day-or-3-play restriction to wirelessly shared songs regardless of potential copyright violations, or more specifically the lack thereof. This is considered violation of Creative Commons licenses by Creative Commons advocates.

Table of DRM Technologies and Associated Devices

Copyright Law vs. Particular DRM Techniques

Copyright law has been defined in terms of general definitions of infringement in any concrete medium. This classic approach focused such law on whether or not there is infringement, rather than focus on particular engineering techniques. Legislators have in several instances chosen not to prohibit new technologies (for example, piano rolls, radio broadcasting, and audio tape recording have not been prohibited, and in fact endorsed by inclusion in copyright legislation or the Courts in the U.S.). Critics of DRM assert that detecting and prosecuting infringement within the social and legal system avoids a legacy of outlawing generic, universal, popular, widespread, useful, and possibly uncontrollable in any case, engineering techniques in response to specific misuses.

European Dialogues on DRM concerns

In Europe, there are several dialog activities that are uncharacterized by its consensus-building intention:

• Workshop on Digital Rights Management of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), January 2001.
• Participative preparation of the European Committee for Standardization/Information Society Standardisation System (CEN/ISSS) DRM Report, 2003 (finished).
• DRM Workshops of DG Information Society, European Commission (finished), and the work of the DRM working groups (finished), as well as the work of the High Level Group on DRM (ongoing).
• Consultation process of the European Commission, DG Internal Market, on the Communication COM(2004)261 by the European Commission on "Management of Copyright and Related Rights" (closed).
• The INDICARE project is an ongoing dialogue on consumer acceptability of DRM solutions in Europe. It is an open and neutral platform for exchange of facts and opinions, mainly based on articles by authors from science and practice.
• The AXMEDIS project is a European Commission Integrated Project of the FP6. The main goal of AXMEDIS is atomating the content production, copy-prevention and distribution, reducing the related costs and supporting DRM at both B2B and B2C areas harmonising them.

The European Community was expected to produce a recommendation on DRM in 2006, phasing out the use of levies (compensation to rights holders charged on media sales for lost revenue due to unauthorized copying) given the advances in DRM/TPM technology. However, opposition from the member states, particularly France, have now made it unlikely that the recommendation will be adopted.

See also

Related concepts

• Copyleft
• Copyright
• Copy prevention
• Data room
• Glossary of legal terms in technology
• ODRL
• Smart contracts
• Smart Cow Problem
• Street Performer Protocol
• Tivoization
• Trusted Computing
• Voluntary Collective Licensing
• XrML

Lobbying organizations

• Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic
• European Information, Communications and Consumer Electronics Technology Industry Associations
• Trusted Computing Group
• Motion Picture Association of America
• Recording Industry Association of America
• Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Open Rights Group
• Open Mobile Alliance
• Defective by Design, a campaign of the Free Software Foundation
• The Pirate Party, a Swedish political party fronting free culture and free knowledge
• Free Software Foundation Europe

References

1. Christopher Levy (February 3 2003). "Making Money with Streaming Media". streamingmedia.com. Retrieved 2006-08-28. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
2. "Digital Restrictions Management and Treacherous Computing". Retrieved 2006-08-04.
3. "FairPlay: Another Anticompetitive Use of DRM". Retrieved 2006-08-01.
4. Bangeman, Eric (2006-10-28). "TiVo tightens the DRM vise". Retrieved 2006-08-11.
5. Walker, John (September 13, 2003). "The Digital Imprimatur: How big brother and big media can put the Internet genie back in the bottle".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: year (link)
6. O'Riordan, Ciaran (January 16 2006). "Transcript of Opening session of first international GPLv3 conference". {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
7. "Frequently Asked Questions - CcWiki". 2006-11-09. Retrieved 2006-11-22.
8. "A lot of CRAP". Retrieved 2006-09-07.
9. "Engadget FairUse4WM strips Windows Media DRM!". Retrieved 2006-08-25.
10. Fisher, Ken. Privately, Hollywood admits DRM isn't about piracy. January 15, 2007.
11. Marechal, Sander, DRM on audio CDs abolished, January 9, 2007.
12. Nick Timeraos (July 6 2006). "Free, Legal and Ignored". WSJ.com (Wall Street Journal). Retrieved 2006-11-27. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
13. Testing DRM-free waters: EMI selling a few MP3s through Yahoo Music by Eric Bangeman, Ars Technica, December 6, 2006.
14. Steve Jobs, Thoughts on Music
15. "Online Policy Group v. Diebold, Inc". Electronic Frontier Foundation. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
16. Felten, Ed (March 8, 2006). "RIAA Says Future DRM Might "Threaten Critical Infrastructure and Potentially Endanger Lives"".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: year (link)
17. James Grimmelmann (2006-09-17). "The Zune, the Creative Commons, and the DRM". The Laboratorium. Retrieved 2007-01-31.

Further reading

• Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture, published by Basic Books in 2004, is available for free download in PDF format. The book is a legal and social history of copyright. Lessig is well known, in part, for arguing recent landmark cases on copyright law. A Professor of law at Stanford University, Lessig writes for an educated lay audience, including for non-lawyers. He is, for the most part, an opponent of DRM techologies.
• Eberhard Becker, Willms Buhse, Dirk Günnewig, Niels Rump: Digital Rights Management - Technological, Economic, Legal and Political Aspects. An 800 page compendium from 60 different authors on DRM.
• Fetscherin, M., Implications of Digital Rights Management on the Demand for Digital Content, provides an excellent view on DRM from a consumers perspective.
• Bound by Law, by James Boyle et al, at Duke University Law School (http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/comics/zoomcomic.html), a comic book treatment of the US Fair Use doctrine (with some relevance to other jurisdictions, for example in the Commonwealth usually called Fair Dealing). that is license fee free, under stature and common law precedent, use of copyrighted material without permission from the copyright holder.
• DRM on Open Platforms - A paper by Hagai Bar-El and Yoav Weiss on ways to partially close open platforms to make them suitable for DRM implementations. It has been released under a Creative commons by NC-SA license.
• The Pig and the Box, a book with colorful illustrations and having a coloring book version, by 'MCM'. It describes DRM in terms suited to kids, written in reaction to a Canadian entertainment industry copyright education initiative, aimed at children.
• Present State and Emerging Scenarios of Digital Rights Management Systems - A paper by Marc Fetscherin which provides an overview of the various components of DRM, pro and cons and future outlook of how, where, when such systems might be used.
• DRM is Like Paying for Ice - Richard Menta article on MP3 Newswire discusses how DRM is implemented in ways to control consumers, but is undermining perceived product value in the process.

External links

• DRM Search Engine - Indexed repository of DRM technical documents, download available for public documents only.
• Windows Media DRM FAQ from Microsoft
• Authena - an open source DRM scheme.
• Current Developments in the Field of Digital Rights Management from World Intellectual Property Organisation, Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights. SCCR/10/2. August 2003.
• Digital Rights Management from CEN/ISSS (European Committee for Standardization / Information Society Standardization System). Contains a range of possible definitions for DRM from various stakeholders. 30 September 2003
• Defectivebydesign.org, FSF campaign against DRM.
• Fasoo, The Global E-DRM (Enterprise DRM) Leader.
• The Digital Imprimatur - How big brother and big media can put the Internet genie back in the bottle. See also: The Digital Imprimatur.
• The Right to Read by Richard Stallman.
• Music Downloads: Pirates- or Customers?. Silverthorne, Sean. Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, 2004.
• OpenIPMP - an open source DRM project with cross-platform software.
• Advanced Peer-Based Technology Business Models. Ghosemajumder, Shuman. MIT Sloan School of Management, 2002. DRM-free model for distributing digital music.
• Microsoft Research DRM talk by Cory Doctorow June 17, 2004
• Digital rights management: When a standard isn't, information from IBM.
• A Special Guide to DRM and Software Activation Tools: Protect Data, Enforce Licenses, information about DRM for software
• DRM.info collaboration against DRM
• DRM Watch - Web site with news and commentary about DRM.
• Libraries fear digital lockdown - BBC News Article.
• "Lessons from the Sony CD DRM Episode" (PDF format), by J. Alex Halderman and Edward Felten, February 14, 2006.
• Steve Jobs - Thoughts on Music

• Business law
• Copyright law
• Cryptography law
• Digital rights management