What is Digital Rights Management(DRM)?

Digital Rights Management is a set of hardware and software technologies designed to control how we use, edit, and share content/information assets online or offline. DRM is also called technological protection measures (TPM), as it intends to protect the copyright for technology-enabled content.

You can implement DRM for:

• Copyrighted multimedia content like audio, video, images
• Copyrighted software like games, operating systems, applications
• Confidential documents, like bank statements, company financial records
• IP assets like product plans, diagrams, patents, specification sheets
• Government documents like legal blueprints, policy documents
• Smart hardware like lightbulbs, automobiles, kitchen appliances
• Licensed eBooks like online libraries, eBook stores, digital subscriptions, etc

Why do you need it?

If your company is creating, delivering, and distributing content online, they need to be that they have the necessary protection in place.

1. Copy Prevention

This is among the oldest types of DRM. The user can view or consume the content from the primary channel (streaming platform, DVD, website, etc.) but cannot make a copy. An online publisher could enforce DRM on its website to prevent plagiarism.

2. Copy Restrictions

This is similar to copy prevention, but the user is allowed to make a certain number of copies in certain conditions. For instance, you might be allowed up to three copies of an eBook, but not for commercial purposes.

3. Password Protection

This is a simple but highly effective DRM technique, where the user must know a unique password to access a document. This type of DRM is frequently used by financial services providers to keep consumer transactions safe.

4. Watermarks

This is a free Digital Rights Management technique that prevents users from reusing visual content as their own. Watermarks are regularly used for stock photographs, GIFs, and videos, enabling users to pursue content libraries without using them for commercial purposes.

5. Device Control

This advanced technology prevents users from opening a file unless they are on an approved device. Enterprise DRM relies heavily on device-based control, as does certain OTT media. For example, device manufacturers must obtain DRM certification from Netflix.

How does DRM works?

DRM confirms that video content is encrypted and packaged properly during the storage and transmittal processes, the main goal here is to ensure that only authorized devices and users can play the video back. When the necessary DRM schemes are in place, the video player will only decrypt the content if it determines the device and user have the proper authorization.

In a nutshell, DRM ensures that video content is stored and transmitted in an encrypted form so that only authorized users and devices can play it back, as depicted above.

Benefits of Digital Rights Management

Digital rights management solutions provide the ability to share data/files but still retain control over who can access and what they can do. Secure file collaboration and the need to share files with sensitive information with 3rd parties is a necessity for companies of any size, in any industry. DRM’s benefits include:

• 1. Digital rights management educates users about copyright and intellectual property.
  Most people are not concerned with copyrights and are passive when it comes to DRM. As long as they can access the content they like, they have no issue with smaller details. With DRM in place, companies can communicate to users what they can and cannot do with respect to digital content.
• 2. DRM helps make way for better licensing agreements and technologies.
  Digital rights management technologies are aimed at restricting the ways in which users interact with content, such as listening to music on multiple devices or sharing content with friends with family. Users who do not want to be restrained by DRM codes are able to support vendors who offer and sell DRM-free content, thus encouraging vendors to look for other technologies that are better at licensing than DRM.
• 3. Digital rights management helps authors retain ownership of their works.
  It is very easy for a company or user to copy content from someone else’s e-book and rebrand it as their own. With DRM, it is possible to stop anybody from altering content. This also applies to scientists who rely on DRM to protect their inventions.
• 4. Digital rights management helps protect income streams.
  Video and moviemakers spend money to create their videos in the hopes that they will be able to recoup their investments once it hits screens, or when it streams or is distributed online. DRM can help ensure that only paying users are able to watch the video or movie. It also ensures that the video is only accessible to a certain audience. For instance, videos with adult-oriented content should only be accessible to adults who can verify their age.
• 5. Digital rights management can help secure files and keep them private.
  DRM effectively prevents unauthorized users from seeing or reading confidential files.