The DRM Conundrum
Numerous businesses are based on controlling and vending copies of information, also known as content. Copyright law gives owners many legal rights over these copies.1 Throughout history, owners of content have benefited from cost barriers and degradation to copying and subsequently distributing such copies. In the digital age, however, these costs can become trivial, and degradation non-existent. While copyright laws remain, some fear the business of vending copies is in trouble, and today there are efforts to engineer technology to rebuild and strengthen technical barriers to content duplication. These technological barriers then manage consumers' rights to use the content. Though this is expected to keep the business of vending copies sustainable, it puts tremendous pressure on the technology expected to govern the business. These content-protecting technologies are generally called digital rights management (DRM).
- Print ISSN
- 1545-0279
- Electronic ISSN
- 2160-2492
- Published
- 2004-04
- Content type
- Original Research
- DOI
- 10.5594/J15190