Digital Rights Management

“Digital Rights Management” is a term used for technologies that control how digital content is used. While copyright holders have exclusive rights of copyright–such as the right to make a copy or the right to distribute a work to the public–thus far they have not had the right to control how works care used (the right to see a work, for example, or to read a work). Digital rights management (DRM) is an umbrella term that refers to access control technologies used by publishers and copyright holders to limit usage of digital media or devices. It may also refer to restrictions associated with specific instances of digital works or devices. To some extent, DRM overlaps with copy protection, but DRM is usually applied to creative media (music, films, etc.) whereas copy protection typically refers to software. In addition, fair use, a statutory exemption to the copyright law, allows users to exercise a copyright under certain conditions. These user privileges are threatened by DRM. Copyright holders (for their part) have acted in response to the proliferation of digital content, where the 100th copy is as pure as the first, and the Internet, which enables the instantaneous distribution of digital content. The development of digital content along with the Internet has propelled content owners and users into a new arena where each is adjusting to ensure, assert and in some cases enhance their rights.

Content owners are looking to DRM technologies as a means to control the use of their content. Many public interest organizations, however, fear that DRM technologies will be “used by copyright owners to erode capabilities that had previously been permitted to the public by copyright law under the “fair use” doctrine (or its cousins, such as first sale or limited term)” (Electronic Frontier Foundation). DRM technologies can be used for more nefarious purposes such as infringing on privacy, personal profiling, price discrimination based on personally-identifiable information and stymieing the development of open source software. For libraries, DRM technologies can additionally impact first-sale, preservation activities, and institute pay-per-use pricing.

Benefits for the client

Security loopholes and potential weaknesses that are detected are immediately reported to the contact (if required), together with a proposed solution. This procedure is suitable for iterative application hardening.

We will not issue a “this application is secure” stamp, since no software is 100% secure. However, it is possible to configure a software product in such a way that the effort involved for a potential attacker is too great to justify the rewards. This is an approach that is also used in areas such as cryptography.

The client receives a comprehensive and substantial final report, including a list and assessment of the remaining risks and suggestions for appropriate countermeasures, thus enabling proactive risk management.