What is DRM, Why should we care?

Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a collection of technologies used to control the use of digital media like music, movies, television, and text. DRM decides and controls who is allowed to read or play a file, copy it, print it, email it, download it to a portable player, burn it to CD, and so on.

At the present time, DRM is most commonly used by the entertainment industry (e.g. film and recording), it has found use in other situations as well. Many online music stores, such as Apple's iTunes Store, as well as certain e-book publishers, have imposed DRM on their customers. In recent years, a number of television producers have imposed DRM mandates on consumer electronic devices, to control access to the freely-broadcast content of their shows, in connection with the popularity of time-shifting digital video recorder systems.

DRM vs film: The well known AACS (Advanced Access Content System), is a DRM system for HD DVD and Blu-Ray Discs developed by the AACS Licensing Administrator, LLC (AACS LA), a consortium that consists of Disney, Intel, Microsoft, Panasonic, EMI, Warner Brothers, IBM, Universal Music Group, Toshiba and Sony.

DRM vs recording: Many online music stores employ DRM to restrict usage of music purchased and downloaded online. The iTunes Store allows users to purchase a track online combined with Apple's FairPlay DRM system. ALthough on Jan 6, 2009 Apple announced at their keynote that iTunes plus will offer completely DRM free music from April, consumers' previously purchased DRM protected songs or albums still need extra fee to upgrade for DRM-free. Microsoft's Zune Marketplace, from which part of the music is offered in DRM-restricted WMA format. Zune supports the Windows Media DRM (WMDRM) digital rights management system, which is not compatible with other DRM systems including Plays for Sure and is not part of the PlaysForSure platform or program.

DRM vs audio books: Electronic books read on a personal computer or an e-book reader typically use DRM restrictions to limit copying, printing, and sharing of e-books. E-books are usually limited to a certain number of reading devices and some e-publishers prevent any copying or printing.

DRM vs computer games: Computer games sometimes use DRM technologies to limit the number of systems the game can be installed on. Most games with this restriction allow three or five installs, which limits users who have more than three or five computers or computer crash. These technologies tend to benefit publishers from blocking sales in the second hand market more than stopping piracy.

How does DRM rule

DRM essentially works by encrypting a file and tagging it with rules on how that file is allowed to be used (the rules are also protected). Whatever reads that file must be able to both decrypt it and understand (and be able to enforce) those rules. A DRM system has two technical goals: control and protect content by restricting what software and devices can read it; control and protect content by restricting what that software or device (and thus the user) can do with it. On the user side, this leads to two major implications: users are restricted in how they can use content (copying, saving, sharing etc.); content (and thus users) are locked into using specific players or readers.

Impacts on consumers from DRM - Exampled by iTunes

Music distributed through Apple's iTunes store is protected with FairPlay (Apple's unique DRM system), and comes with certain limitations. You can’t just copy a FairPlay protected song- when you download the song you also download a license that lets you play it on up to 5 computers at the same time, and an unlimited number of iPods (and only iPods) attached to those 5 authorized computers. You can burn songs to CD in an unprotected format, but any particular playlist can only be burned total 7 times.

What are the implications? Well, when you download a song from Apple you can’t use any device other than an iPod to play it. Own a non-Apple digital player? You’re out of luck unless you want to burn it to CD and re-rip it (dropping the quality somewhat) or resort to a 3rd party DRM removal. You can’t stream protected songs from your computer to your stereo or TV unless you use a specific Apple device as Apple doesn't license FairPlay. FairPlay not only protects the content, but also ties you to Apple-only-devices. It protects both the content and Apple’s business model.

Second think on DRM

Whether you like or not, DRM, as an enacted tool to protect intellectual property, has overflowed our entertainment life. But the point in question is, the current DRM systems are more effective at restricting consumers’ rights than preventing illegal distribution and copyright infringement. Another interesting problem with DRM protected contents is that they actually violate copyright law since copyrights expire but DRM restrictions do not.