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section heading icon     studies

This page highlights some studies of Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems and issues.

It covers -

Works on particular issues such as privacy, identification and rights administration are noted in more detail elsewhere on this site, particularly in the Publishing and Intellectual Property guides.

subsection heading icon     introduction


Literature on DRM is increasingly rich, with a wide range of studies on technological challenges (including signature stripping and interoperability), administration (eg universal identifier mechanisms such as DOI) and public policy (eg privacy, security, contract and fair use).

We will be highlighting particular works in coming weeks

subsection heading icon     technical primers

As a starting point for considering DRM in theory and practice we recommend three documents

Electronic Rights Management & Digital Identifier Systems, an article by Daniel Gervais in The Journal of Electronic Publishing

Gervais' major report of December 1999 for the WIPO Advisory Committee On Management Of Copyright & Related Rights In Global Information Networks

the February 2002 EC staff paper (PDF) on Digital Rights: Background, Systems Assessment

Steganography and other authentication technologies are discussed in our Infocrime & Security guide.

For identifiers one starting point is the paper
by Brian Green & Mark Bide on Unique Identifiers: a brief introduction

Peter Wayner's Digital Copyright Protection (Boston: AP Professional 1997) is a sensible introduction to encryption and document marking technologies, including the identification of audiovisual content.


subsection heading icon     management studies

In considering past developments the
final report of the UK ECMS Scoping Study (1996) and the proceedings of the 1994 conference on Technological Strategies for Protecting Intellectual Property in the Networked Multimedia Environment under the auspices of the Coalition for Networked Information, the US Interactive Multimedia Association & MIT may be useful. John Erickson's 1995 paper on A Copyright Management System for Networked Interactive Multimedia offers another perspective. 

subsection heading icon     regulatory studies

Studies by parliamentary committees and researchers include -

  • UK All Party Parliamentary Internet Group (APIG) 2006 public inquiry into the issues surrounding DRM | here
  • Australian House of Representatives 2005 inquiry to protection measures | here
  • European Commission Data Protection Working Party 2005 document on data protection issues related to intellectual property rights | here

Pointers to the DMCA and other 'TPM-positive' legislation are provided later in this note.

subsection heading icon     other legal writing

Some of the privacy and other legal questions posed by DRM are explored in Julie Cohen's 1997 Berkeley Technology Law Journal paper Some Reflections on Copyright Management Systems & Laws Designed to Protect Them, and Graham Greenleaf's 1999 paper 'IP, phone home!' - ECMS, (c)-tech, and protecting privacy against surveillance by digital works. Cohen's 1996 paper A Right to Read Anonymously: A Closer Look at Copyright Management in Cyberspace, her 2003 DRM and Privacy paper and Declan McCullagh's 2005 Leave DRM Alone: A Survey of Legislative Proposals Relating to Digital Rights Management Technology and Their Problems (PDF) are also suggestive

The discussion of DRM in Bernt Hugenholtz's Copyright & Electronic Commerce - Legal Aspects of Electronic Copyright Management (Amsterdam: Kluwer 2000) is particularly valuable.

The UK IMPRIMATUR project resulted in a 1998 report (PDF) on Privacy, Data Protection and Copyright: Their Interaction in the Context of Electronic Copyright Management Systems by Lee Bygrave & Kamiel Koelman of the Amsterdam Institute for Information Law.

subsection heading icon     advocacy organisations

Among sites maintained by advocacy organisations the following are of particular interest, whether for the depth of information or because argument/polemic has been influential in shaping the perceptions among policymakers and other communities -

  • ADA DRM pages | here
  • EPIC DRM pages | here
  • CDT Broadcast Flag pages | here

 



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version of February 2006
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