2 - Digital Rights Management Systems

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of digital rights management (DRM) technology structure and capabilities.. DRM technology provides the tools to manage the access to digital media. In the DRM process, rights holders/content providers release digital content that needs to be packaged into a media file format to allow protection and watermarking/tracking of the enclosed content. The rights holders/content providers also define the end-user's rights that allow access to the protected media asset.. Playing content in a DRM system requires that usage rights to the content are also delivered to the end-user. The chapter uses an example of the Content Scrambling System (CSS), which was designed to protect the digital content of DVDs, to present a particular DRM system and show how its components fit into the described structure. The chapter also discusses a reference model (RM) describing the various principles and functions of a DRM system to support the evaluation of patents for their essentiality and the creation of joint patent licenses for a variety of applications. A toolkit of generic DRM processes is specified in the RM through a set of primitive functions. The basic tools include: packaging assets, distributing assets, generating and issuing usage licenses, enforcing licensed usage, protecting asset and license confidentiality, and managing keys. The chapter gives a detailed reference of the company, MPEG LA, LLC (MPEG LA), which is involved with the licensing of technology and the chapter concludes with a hope that the reader also begins seeing MPEG LA's RM provision of a common language and framework for discussing, designing, and offering joint patent licenses for a broad set of DRM technologies and applications. The company has worked very hard to try and build a flexible and extensible RM that can be used to characterize current and emerging DRM systems.