Digital Rights Management is Controlling How We Get Our Media

Digital Rights Management has to do with controlling piracy through Technology

Digital Rights Management (DRM) is an attempt to control what people can do with the media they have purchased with technology.  These technologies can be used by publishers, hardware manufacturers, copyright holders, etc.   It can be anything from not being able to copy a DVD that you bought onto a media player, or buying a smart phone and only being able to use certain applications or a certain service provider.  DRM is important to fight copyright infringement and to help protect people from getting viruses. In 1998 the Digital Millenium Copyright Act was passed in the United States to impose criminal penalties for those who make available certain technologies in order to get around the DRM technologies.  

Digital Rights Management has Multiple ways of Managing Copyrighted Media 

Digital Rights Management has three different ways to how it operates.  First, there is the establishment of the copyright for a piece of media.  Then there is the management of the distribution of the copyrighted content, and lastly DRM controls what a consumer is allowed to do with the media.  There are certain companies such as ContentGuard, and InterTrust which have services that enable copyright holders to enforce licenses.  Also these companies can let the copyright holders set “encryption modes” for the content or set access levels.  In addition, there are technologies that have web based permission in which when a user installs software, their computer needs permission from a license verification server in order for permission to install the program.  

Digital Rights Management Means we should all be aware of where and how we are getting our media from.  

Digital Rights Management means to me that I have to be more aware about the places I download music.  While most of the time I do buy my music, I think it is also good to know that some places which you might think seem legal, might not necessarily be.  I also think it’s helpful to be aware of the laws and circumstances that are in act if you are pirating media.  I think often people assume they will not get caught but everyone should be educated on what the circumstances are if they were to.  Learning about Digital Rights Management also gives me a better look into how media is protected through different technologies which I found to be interesting.