Digital Rights Management Approach Research Articles

A Review: Digital Rights Management Sustainable Development in e-Commerce

Strong encryption is an urgent need for e-commerce development, since it allows the privacy and secure transactions of the financial and other data. International regulations must support the spreading of e-commerce and the associated encryption techniques in order to establish a secure e-commerce environment that customers can trust and develop faith in international deployment of ecommerce solutions without restrictions. In the present paper, a pricing and license model for the fare use of the digital contents is proposed suitable for today’s digital environment. Protection by way of Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems is emerging as a natural solution because it remains in force wherever the content goes. In contrast, a file that sits on a server behind the server’s access control mechanism loses its protection once it is moved from the server. The meaning of the term “DRM” has been used so far in its most narrow sense and no longer reflects many of the recent developments in the technology used to manage copyrighted works in the digital age. The efforts made for a secure DRM approach for the secure content transactions over digital environment using latest technologies has been reviewed in the present paper to advocate finally for the most acceptable DRM architecture supporting audio, video, text, XML and other popular applications file formats to serve the dynamic needs of the market optimally.

A Cultural Approach to DRM Implementation in China

China's adoption of copyright has been problematic. Between the Confucian emphasis on sharing cultural materials and a more politically motivated treatment in both Imperial and Maoist periods, there has been little basis for the Western intellectual property rights approach favored by the West and pushed in international trade agreements. Some scholars have questioned whether Western property rights approaches are appropriate for all cultures, and have suggested that Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems can offer an alternative approach. Delays in the implementation of copyright procedures and processes in China, particularly in the electronic media provide an opportunity to develop new approaches. China has an opportunity to consider how DRM systems and approaches could be developed to enable an alternative approach to intellectual property rights consistent with traditional cultural values. This article considers how China could implement DRM approaches within the international copyright structure that could maximize social value and acceptance.

Commentary: Value and Digital Rights Management—A Social Economics Approach

The rise of digital media has created a number of problems for copyright, in large part by removing the physical constraints of copying associated with older media forms. The concept of digital rights management (DRM) has been pushed as one solution, restoring technological constraints on copying. There are, however, other issues associated with DRM approaches; they are costly and can be used to restrict access and use of content beyond the specific rights granted by copyright policy. These costs and additional restrictions reduce the value of content, affecting its demand and use, with repercussions for the creation of both private and social value. This paper will examine several proposed digital rights management approaches from a social economics perspective—an approach that emphasizes recognition of indirect and social sources of value, and the implications of policy for such value.

The potential impact of digital rights management on the Indian entertainment industry

For India, having being endowed with a rich heritage of art and culture, copyright is perceived to offer potential rewards. The entertainment industry is one of the fastest growing sectors in the Indian economy. At present, India is not a signatory to the WIPO Internet Treaties, but the government has proposed amendments to the extant legislation to incorporate Digital Rights Management (DRM) as enshrined in them. Conventionally the western entertainment industry has viewed DRM as an important tool to combat piracy pervasive on the internet. DRM involves the application of a set of technical and legal mechanisms that allow copyright owners to control the access to their works, determine the types of permissible uses and terms of such uses and the ultimate distribution of their works in the digital world. With the growing popularity of Indian cinema abroad, the entertainment industry is attracting increasing foreign investment, is gradually being corporatised and thus it is felt that such investments need to be protected. DRM is considered to be one of the solutions as it prevents loss due to unlimited unauthorized reproduction of works, introduces more effective market segmentation and promotes the incentive to create, facilitating the maximum exploitation of works in the digital world. However, for India, a developing economy, such a path is to be treaded with caution. DRM is an extra‐statutory measure, with perceived potential impact on consumer privacy, innovation and limiting legitimate exceptions. A unique feature of the industry is that it is an extension of its dynamic indigenous folk and classical cultural tradition where the emphasis has been on adaptation and improvisation, drawing upon works in the public domain. Some experts observe that DRM poses a threat to such a tradition by artificially restricting the public domain.This paper explores the likely impact of the proposed introduction of the DRM provisions in the Indian Copyright Act, 1957 with its focus on Bollywood and the related music sector. Given the tension surrounding DRM, this paper examines the aforementioned issues, taking into consideration the promotion of the underlying objectives of copyright law. Noting that the case for strong copyright protection as a key for innovation is highly debatable, this paper argues that India should keep in mind the flexibilities under law as provided by various international treaties and in technology before adopting the DRM approach.