Digital Rights Management

With the increase of peer to peer services which allowed easy file sharing, Digital Rights Management was soon born. Digital Rights Management (DRM), also known as Digital Restrictions Management, is control technology for copyright owners, publishers, manufactures, distributors, and other individuals for their content.  They are able to do this by either preventing access, copying, or converting to other formats. DRM affects a variety of different forms of technology like movies, music, video games, television, e-books, documents, and software. While DRM may seem great for the owners, it has met a plethora of opposition from users and sometimes the providers of this content.

History
DRM has been around for a long time, but has been drawing more and more interest since the late 1990's. DRM's big splash came in 1998. It is in place due to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act which is the American version of enforcing the World Intellectual Property Organization treaty. This act is an amendment to the United States copyright law. This act enabled the owners to exercise DRM. It created civil and criminal penalties for anyone for the creation or distributions of DRM circumvention tools and for anyone creating or distributing DRM content.

More Information on DRM
The video below provides more information about DRM:

 

DRM relies on a two part system. The first part is encryption which protects the content.  The second part is authentication to ensure only authorized users access the content. DRM will scramble content to make it unusable without the right identification. Some forms of DRM being implemented include restricting the information that you send via email at a company and how many copies of digital media you can make. Other examples include putting an expiration date on the content, allowing the content to only be on one device, and outright prevention of copying. Like the video above mentions, some owners put watermarks in their music. iTunes uses this method to track their content. Many companies like Apple use their own version of technology to protect their DRM rights. Apple uses FairPlay which insures that Apple's content isn't played on unauthorized computers. As of today, Apple doesn't use DRM on music, but still relies on it for movies and television shows. Many owners have followed suit.

The Effect on Technology
The following video provides great insight on how DRM affects consumers and producers.

The Pros of DRM
The biggest pro of DRM is its ability to protect the owners content. Many corporations and individuals are thankful that they are rightfully earning money for their works. DRM is trying to solve a serious problem that occurs in our society which is "stealing property." The movie industry estimates its losses to be about $5 billion.  Imagine the loss if DRM was not in place.

The Criticism of DRM

One of the more "kinder" anti-DRM cartoons

A Google image search on DRM shows the numerous amounts of anti-DRM cartoons. One of the more "blatant" problems with DRM is its lack of compactability. A song may work on one device, but not another. As an avid gamer, I have experienced the constraints of DRM. Some PC games require the user to be connected online to play even though it is not really necessary. Other games only allow you to download a game to a computer so many times before you have to buy the game again. For example, the game Spore only allowed you to download it 3 times in order to control their product. Ironically enough, Spore was the most pirated game that year. At one point, Sony used to install a DRM program on your computer without your knowledge in  order to track what was happening with the CD you just bought from them. This eventually became a target for viruses and hackers due to the program making computer security vulnerable.

Many critics feel that DRM violates their privacy as it allows the owners to monitor your computer. The owners have a right to view what you do with "their" content and sometimes that means monitoring what you do on your computer.

Final thoughts
DRM was designed to fix a problem in our culture but does DRM really need the fixing? Whether you love or hate DRM, it is the law and we (the people) must obey the law.

Sources:
http://www.gamepro.com/article/news/214178/analysis-digital-rights-management-in-pc-gaming/
http://computer.howstuffworks.com/drm2.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FairPlay
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management
http://epic.org/privacy/drm/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6337781.stm
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2007/04/02itunes.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal