DRM in the Digital Age

Copyright 2009, Liam Ó Móráin. All rights reserved.

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DRM in the Digital Age

DRM and Copyright

The Creator/Consumer Conundrum

Fair Rights Management as as Enabler

Liam Ó Móráin


Innovations over the ages have greatly changed the relationship between creators and consumers of content from an experience of “a

few” to one of “many”.

DRM and CopyrightDRM and Copyright

Limited ability to produce, reproduce, and distribute widely in bygone days

Innovations from the printing press, foundries, computers, and the internet has dramatically enabled and facilitated the (faster and economical) production, reproduction, distribution, and redistribution of objects

Over time laws and norms were developed to protect the creators and owners of products and inventions

Copying was excluded from copyright until 1909 when a US law included it.

100 years on, copyright is the “default”, creating a complex world for managing the creation and consumption of content especially in the digital world

Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a broad church of technologies trying to help manage this complex world spanning art and commerce

DRM is controversial; fundamental on one side; anti-competitive the other



1. Punitive and criminal

2. Ownership is ambiguous with no clear title

3. Complex, Kafkaesque, and Process based

4. Abstract

5. Deals in absolutes rather than negotiation and flexibility

Current copyright system is a regulatory omnipotence. It is also…

Copyright system needs to rediscover the limits of regulation

6. Views rights as a monopoly

7. Litigious

8. Expensive

9. Has a “command & control” view of the world and of enforcement

10. Powerful technological solutions being circumvented and make obsolete all the time



Advanced computing power has made content creation and manipulation easy

A plethora of new devices make it increasingly easy to view and experience digital content any where any time

Easy to access, modify, reproduce, or repurpose digital content

Cost of storing and accessing content getting cheaper all the time

A multitude of market niches can now be served through the Long Tail

Once content has a digital manifest, it can be replicated and (re)distributed ad infinitum

New business models, new technologies, new approaches needed to address a new world. New opportunities await!

Technology has completely and irrevocable changed the methods and dynamics of creating and distributing digital copyright material

New approaches and new technologies needed that is fair to creators, owners, and consumers of content



DRM today is a sledge hammer-type technical solution

Different and often contradictory needs across the creator/consumer spectrum that cannot be catered for by today’s DRM

Original aim of DRM was to make digital artifacts more like physical artifacts

DRM offers an absolute rather than a flexible solution

DRM reinforces the worst vagaries of the copyright system

DRM adds complexity

DRM can’t distinguish between commercial and non-commercial use

DRM today is technology enforcement part of the Copyright System

Most critically DRM today prevents lawful “fair use”



Laws and customs based on the physical world regarding art and commerce

Copyright law confers ownership, therefore control needed both for commercial and non-commercial use

Copyright holders have power to veto use, therefore they must also worry about misuse

Since DRM technology can be circumvented, process dictates a “command and control”, all or nothing, approach to enforcement

DRM is a tool not the complete solution to copyright

There are many fundamental problems with DRM as currently used. Control is the mantra.

Sometimes less control can make sound business sense



We have been warned before!

DRM manages “freedom” the same way a prison system manages freedom - very restrictive






Creator/Consumer ConundrumCreator/Consumer Conundrum

A copyright system that is cognisant of, and deferential towards, the needs of the main actors within the creator/consumer spectrum is

needed

A system needs to address the digital realities of the 21st Century

Consumer

Creator

Chasm

Consumer

Creator

Ownership - corporate or otherwise

Control

Collaboration

Community

Revenue identification, sharing, distribution

Commercial & Non-commercial use

Derivative works

Unencumbered by the letter of current copyright system


Creator/Consumer ConundrumCreator/Consumer Conundrum

Lawrence Lessig presented this to help bring clarity to a vexing problem (Remix, L Lessig, Nov 08, Penguin Press)

The inability of the copyright system and therefore of DRM to distinguish between commercial and non-commercial use is a fundamental deterrent

to creating a system for the 21st Century

European and US legislators need to drive the “legal” update.

“Copies” Remix

Professional © ©/free

Amateur ©/free free


Fair Rights Management (FRM)Fair Rights Management (FRM)

DRM today does not distinguish between commercial and non-commercial use

DRM today prevents lawful “fair use”

DRM today doesn’t encode the business wishes or rules of the licensor and cannot enforce its downstream use

DRM today is unable to offer “fair use” functionality as it doesn’t know a user’s social network

DRM today is rigid whereas flexibility and adoptability is needed

DRM of the future needs to address the above limitations and include “fair use” functionality as standard

Distinguishing between commercial and non-commercial use is a key requirement of any future copyright system

Fair Rights Management™ is a key requirement of users.


Fair Rights Management (FRM)Fair Rights Management (FRM)

SeDiCi - Secure Digital Credentials

Incorporates a user’s social network into DRM

Adds flexible and expandable business rules across the creator/consumer spectrum including a user’s social network

Enables enforcement

Greatly enhance current DRM offerings

Critically enables Fair Rights Management™ (FRM) and differentiates between commercial and non-commercial use

Funded by SFI and Enterprise Ireland

Is an innovative and breakthrough patent-pending technology

SeDiCi is a technology being developed at DERI in NUI Galway that enable FRM™

SeDiCi through its FRM™ technology brings DRM and Copyright into the 21st Century



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DRM in the Digital Age