Safeguarding Publisher's Materials Using Digital Rights Management

Digital rights management usually comprises codes that prevent copying or limit the time or devices on which a product may be accessed.

FREMONT, CA: Digital rights management (DRM) is a method to protect copyrights for digital media. Here the companies use the technologies that limit the copying and use copyrighted works and proprietary software.

Digital rights management enables publishers or authors to regulate what paying users can do with their works. For companies, implementing digital rights management systems or processes can help prevent users from accessing or using certain assets, allowing the organization to avoid legal issues arising from unauthorized use. Today, DRM is playing a growing role in data security.

THE WORKINGS OF DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT

Publishers, authors and other content creators utilize software to encrypt media, data, e-books, content, software, and other copyrighted materials. The material can only be accessed by those who have the decryption keys. They can also employ methods to restrict or limit what users can do with their materials.

There are numerous methods for safeguarding your material, software, or product. For example, you can use DRM to:

· Users should not be able to change or save your content.

· Likewise, users should not be able to share or forward one's goods or content.

· Users should not be able to print your stuff. For example, the document or artwork may only be printed a certain number of times for some.

· Users should not be able to take screenshots or screengrabs of the material.

· Set an expiration date for your document or media so that the user can no longer access it. This could similarly be accomplished by limiting a user's number of users. For example, if the user has listened ten times or accessed and printed the PDF 20 times, the document may be canceled.

· Only allow access to specific IP addresses, locations, or devices. This means that if the media is only available to inhabitants of the United States, it will be unavailable to those in other nations.

· To confirm ownership and identification, watermark artworks and papers.

· Publishers and authors can also know who used what media, content, or software to implement digital rights management. For example, check when an e-book was downloaded or printed and who accessed it.

Online piracy has been the bane of copyrighted material since the introduction of peer-to-peer file exchange services like torrent sites. DRM systems do not catch those that indulge in piracy. Instead, they prevent the content from being stolen or shared in the first place.