Digital Right Management- Its application In Libraries

 ABSTRACT 

                    Digital right management is an important and inseparable system for protecting the copyrights of data circulated via the internet or other digital media by enabling secure distribution and disabling illegal distribution of the data. It encompasses a variety of technologies and strategies utilized by content owners and managers to limit access to the use of rights-protected content.The present study considers consumer concerns and expectations as well as DRM-based business models. DRM manifests  both technology and user-related issues of DRM and establishes how their functions are essential element of modern librarians’ toolkits to prevent unauthorized redistribution of contents and products and restrict the way users can copy content they have acquired. This paper presents the challenge faced by Users, Content creators and its associates as well as address digital rights management issues in relation to provide users with access to information.Different resources including books, journals, documents, seminar papers, in-house expertise are used in the study.Relevant literature is also consulted through internet browsing.

Keywords:Digital Right Management, Internet, Publisher, Technologies,  Copyright, Content Creator, Retailer, Digital Library.

 

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 Introduction

 

Copying the content, work and ideas of other people is a human tendency and is an age-old practice. With the constant and fast development of information and communication technology, the use of internet became wider as a result of which copied and pirated digital content is being distributed instantaneously. The sale of marketed digital content and products have also become routine resultantly the issues relating to copyright infringement and revenue losses to content owners are increased. On one hand Users argue that DRM is strictly obstructing and limiting the use of content frequently and on the other side the logic of content owners is that they make their works available on selected terms and conditions, make all of their work or part of it available on charging of specific fee or free basis and make use of whatever technological protection is offered by the system. So in this way Digital Right Management prevents stealing and unauthorised use of content of the creators and profiting from their work. However,librarians find themselves dutiful trying to balance between the owners’ and users’ rights. But before the librarian could do this it is necessary for the librarians to understand the concept of DRM and how it works. The creation of DRM, its responses and policies and the issues involved with its use are also necessary to balance the needs and requirements of both users and content owners.

 

Digital Right Management

Digital Rights Management is a technical system enabling content owners for delivering digital content in a controlled way and further preventing users from having access to the data unless they meet the requirements of the right holder, be it financial or otherwise. DRM can, therefore, also be described as encryption applied to an e-book in order to control what users do with it, all in an effort to give authors, publishers, and copyright holders a security that their intellectual property will not be infringed online. Wikipedia describes the tools or technological protection measures through DRM, as a set of access control technologies for restricting the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works. This application of technology to facilitate the exploitation of rights is commonly referred to as “digital rights management”.According to Potts, Liza, Dean Holden, and Katie Dobruse (2015),DRM is technology that controls access to content on digital devices.”  Thus Digital rights management (DRM) is the use of technology to control and manage access to copyrighted material

Need Of DRM

The advances in modern technology made, digital piracy, sharing or downloading of creators’ content, much easier and digital piracy has become a routine practice. One can make copies quickly and often for free without being detected. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the US economy loses billions of dollars a year to online piracy. Despite existence of copyright laws it is far from easy to police the internet.

According to TrulsFretland, Lothar Fritsch, and Arne-KristianGroven(2008), ‘Key goals of DRM are to ensure continuing revenue streams for publishers and authors, to protect books from piracy, to enable tracking of those engaging in illegal copying or downloading, and to limit what users can do with content beyond merely reading it’.DRM is a method of securing digital content to prevent unauthorized use and piracy of digital media. This mechanism prevents users from copying, redistributing, or converting content in a way that is not explicitly authorized by the content provider. DRM tools and software make it almost impossible for anyone to steal protected content. Braid, (2004) expressed three main reasons for the implementation of the DRM:

·         Publishers are not in direct control when supply is through a third party,

·         They fear that inappropriate use might result, and

·         They fear erosion of their subscription base.

Because of the advent and further progress of internet technology it has become very easy to copy any of digital material. Some of the copyright owners are afraid that their copy right works will be misused. This is why the need of digital right management is felt.

Basic Tools & Techniques Used In DRM

DRM has many access control techniques to restrict the unauthorised usage and copy of digital content on various devices, like packaging of content, authentication as well as authorization of the user and controlany other kind of usage of the content.The basic tools and techniques used in DRM are:

Encryption: is  one  of  the  standard  method  to  protect  the  content  available in digital medium from unauthorized use which includes scrambling of the content to make it  unintelligible  to  understand  for  layman,  until  a  key  is  used  to  make  the  content intelligible.

Watermarking: is a method of embedding a copyright stamp into a digital content.  The process is done in a way  that  does  not  change  the  quality  of  the  host  media  and  cannot  be  captured  by human  eyes  or ears.

Hashing Technology :  protects  the digital content from being manipulated by using one-way hash function and to check the authenticity of  content by performing this one-way function  and  comparing the  result  with  message digest provided from the  content provider.

Digital Certificate: is a technology where an identity of a person is bind to a pair of electronic keys that can be used to encrypt and sign digital information.  Digital certificate provide complete security to all the parties in transaction along-with its use with encryption techniques.

Digital Fingerprinting: is also used to detect tempering of electronically transmitted messages.  It cannot be reconstructed from any other digital fingerprint. It is also called ‘Forensic Fingerprinting.

Benefits Of DRM

DRM maintains the right to ownership. DRM takes a proactive approach to protect digital content of authors in retaining ownership of their work by creating barriers to stealing. DRM helps to enforce copyright laws. It protects the rights and interests of the copyright holder by way of piracy protection.

DRM  helps monetize digital content more effectively as it helps protect income streams and prevents illegal sharing thus, protecting fromthe revenue loss.DRM raises awareness and educates users about copyright and intellectual property. DRM directly linked to business growth as it assures companies about the secure sharing of their productand make way for better licensing agreements and technologies. It alsosends a message to consumer when the DRM protected material is used.

Dr. Rajiv Vij

                                                                                                 Deputy Librarian,

Ch. Devi Lal University, Sirsa (Haryana)