14.Digital Rights Management (Part I : Understanding DRM)

इस ब्लॉग्स को सृजन करने में आप सभी से सादर सुझाव आमंत्रित हैं , कृपया अपने सुझाव और प्रविष्टियाँ प्रेषित करे , इसका संपूर्ण कार्य क्षेत्र विश्व ज्ञान समुदाय हैं , जो सभी प्रतियोगियों के कॅरिअर निर्माण महत्त्वपूर्ण योगदान देगा ,आप अपने सुझाव इस मेल पत्ते पर भेज सकते हैं - chandrashekhar.malav@yahoo.com

14.Digital Rights Management (Part I : Understanding DRM)

P- 01. Digital Libraries*

By :Jagdish Arora, Paper Coordinator

Multiple Choice Questions

1 / 1 Points

Question 1: Multiple Choice

DMCA stands for,

•   Digital Millennium Copyright Act
•   Document Management Copyright Act
•   Digital Management Copyright Act
•   Document Millennium Copyright Act

0 / 1 Points

Question 2: Multiple Choice

The Indian Copyright Act has been established in_________.

•   1955
•   1947
•   1952
•   1957

0 / 1 Points

Question 3: Multiple Choice

The Indian Copyright Act has not having provisions for;

•   compulsory and statutory licensing
•   cover versions
•   widely-worded right of fair dealing for private use
•   punishment for offence

0 / 1 Points

Question 4: Multiple Choice

The IP Asset Usage module provide functionalities for,

•   Repository Functions
•   Trading functions
•   Rights Creations
•   Permission Management

0 / 1 Points

Question 5: Multiple Choice

The supporters of DRM argue that digital locks should be considered necessary to prevent _______________ from being copied freely.

•   Intelligence Property
•   Digital Property
•   Online Documents
•   Intellectual Property

1 / 1 Points

Question 6: Multiple Choice

The term DRM stands for

•   Document Rights Management
•   Digital Rights Management
•   Digital Resources Management
•   Digital Resource Making

0 / 1 Points

Question 7: Multiple Choice

Which of the following is not the part of Functional Architecture of DRM ?

•   Intellectual Property (IP) Asset Analysis
•   Intellectual Property (IP) Asset Management
•   Intellectual Property (IP) Asset Usage
•   Intellectual Property (IP) Asset Creation and Capture

1 / 1 Points

Question 8: Multiple Choice

Which of the following is not the part of Information Architecture of DRM ?

•   Modelling the entities
•   Identifying and describing the entities
•   Implementing Legal Aspects
•   Expressing the rights statements

0 / 1 Points

Question 9: Multiple Choice

Which of the following phrase fulfil the meaning of 'Rights Validation’?

•   for assurance of the fact that content being created from existing content includes the rights to do so
•   to enable the access or retrieval of content in potentially distributed databases and the access/retrieval of metadata
•   to allow rights to be assigned to new content, such as specification of the rights owners and applicable usage permissions
•   to allow for content to be processed through a series of workflow steps for review and/or approval of rights (and content).

0 / 1 Points

Question 10: Multiple Choice

Which of the followings are open standards ?

•   Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI)
•   Digital Object Identifiers (DOI)
•   International Standard Textual Work Code (ISTC)
•   All of the Above

3 / 10 PointsFinal Score:

0. Objectives

Objectives of the module is to impart knowledge on i) basics of DRM; ii) functional architecture of DRM;  and iii) legal aspects and IPR issues in DRM. 

1.0 Introduction

Advances in information and communication technologies including computing, communication, consumer electronics and their convergence has significantly contributed to efficient and effective management of a large volume of digital content as well as the way it is generated, stored, disseminated and accessed.

The term “digital content” may include information that can be distributed over electronic media such as PCs, laptops, tablets, smartphones and other similar devices. The digital content can be in any format such as text, images, video, audio, animation or combination of any of these types. The exponential increase in generation and consumption of digital content has raised several questions about the rights of the content creator,producer and distributor as well as the rights and responsibilities of consumer. The current set of rules governing the appropriate use of content is also under question.

2.0 Digital Rights Management (DRM)

Digital rights management, is a general term used to describe a set of technologies which intends to simplify the practiceof preventing inappropriate use of digital content. These sets of technologies are being used by publishers, copyright holders, individuals and hardware manufactures with an intention to control use of digital content and devices to protect it from in-intended use.

The intention of the first-generation DRM software is to control copying, the second generation DRM schemes extends previous one to control viewing, copying printing and altering (copy protection, prevention and control).

Digital Rights Management (DRM) encompasses the description, layering, analysis, valuation, trading and monitoring of the rights over an individual or organization's assets; both in physical and digital form; and of tangible and intangible value. DRM covers the digital management of rights - being them rights in a physical manifestation of a work (e.g. a book), or being them rights in a digital manifestation of a work (e.g. an e-book). Current methods of managing, trading and protecting such assets are inefficient, proprietary, or else often require the information to be wrapped or embedded in a physical format.

Use of digital rights management is not universally accepted. Some content providers claim that DRM is necessary to fight copyright infringement online and that it can help the copyright holder maintain artistic control or ensure continued revenue streams for content creator or copyright holder. The supporters of DRM argue that digital locks should be considered necessary to prevent "intellectual property" from being copied freely, just as physical locks are needed to prevent personal property from being stolen. Those opposed to DRM contend that there is no evidence that DRM helps prevent copyright infringement, instead, it is argued that it serves only to inconvenience legitimate customers, and that DRM helps big business stifle innovation and competition. Furthermore, works can become permanently inaccessible if the DRM scheme changes or if the service is discontinued.

3.0 Functional Architecture of DRM

The overall DRM framework which can be used for implementing digital rightsenabled system can be modelled in three areas:

• Intellectual Property (IP) Asset Creation and Capture: The management of content creation so that it can be easily dealt. This includes assertion of rights when content is first created (or reused and extended with appropriate privileges to do so) by various content creators/providers.

• Intellectual Property (IP) Asset Management: The management of facilitating the trade of content. This includes acquisition of content from creators into an asset management system. The trading systems need to manage the descriptive metadata and rights metadata (e.g., parties, usages, payments, etc.).

• Intellectual Property (IP) Asset Usage: The management of usage content once it has been traded. This includes supporting constraints over traded content in specific access devices /software.

While the above models comprise the broad areas required for DRM, the models need to be complemented by the Functional Architecture that provides the framework for the modules to implement DRM functionality as shown in following figure.

                                 Figure 1: Functional Architecture of DRM

As shown in figure 1above the functional architecture specifies the roles and characteristics of a number of supporting and interconnected modules under the three broad areas of Intellectual Property: Asset Creation, Management, and Usage.

The IP Asset Creation and Capture module provides functionalities for:

• Rights Validation –for assurance of the fact that content being created from existing content includes the rights to do so.

• Rights Creation - to allow rights to be assigned to new content, such as specification of the rights owners and applicable usage permissions.

• Rights Workflow - to allow for content to be processed through a series of workflow steps for review and/or approval of rights (and content).

The IP Asset Management module provides functionalities for:

• Repository functions - to enable the access or retrieval of content in potentially distributed databases and the access/retrieval of metadata. The metadata covers Parties, Rights and descriptions of the Works as described in Information architecture of DRM.
• Trading functions - to enable the allocation of licenses to parties who have traded agreements for rights over content, including payments from licensees to rights holders (e.g., royalty payments). In some cases, the content may need to go through fulfilment operations to satisfy the license agreement. For example, the content may be encrypted/protected or packaged for a particular type of usage environment.

The IP Asset Usage module provide functionalities for:

• Permissions Management - to enable the usage environment to comply the rights associated with the content. For example, if the user only has the right to view the document, then printing will not be allowed.

• Tracking Management - to enable the monitoring of the usage of content where such tracking is part of the agreed to license conditions (e.g., the user has a license to view a content only 5 times). This module may also need to interoperate with the trading system to track usage or to record transactions if there is payment due for each usage.

These three modules in combination provides the core functionality for DRM systems. The functionalities of these module has been described only at broader level, however for practical implementation the modules needs to be operated with integration with each other. In addition these modules should also support interoperability, standard formats and protocols, openness and trust and other such related principles.

These modules are supposed to be the part of components to enable systems to be built in a modular manner, for modular approach there needs to be a set of common and standard interfaces/protocols between the modules that does not yet exist in a manner that is acceptable by everyone.

The Functional Architecture is only part of the solution to the challenges of DRM and just provides a framework. The actual Rights Management is more complex. For simpler implementations DRM systems must support the most flexible information model possible to provide for these complex and layered relationships. The Information Architecture provides this.

4. Information Architecture of DRM

The Information Architecture deals with how the entities are modelled in the overall DRM framework and their relationships. The main issues that require addressing in the development of a DRM Information model include:

• Modelling the entities
• Identifying and describing the entities, and
• Expressing the rights statements

4.1 Modelling the entities

It is important to adopt a clear and extensible model for the DRM entities and their relationship with other entities. IFLA has done some work in this area, In present context IFLA model will be taken as example for modelling entities. The basic principle of the model is to clearly separate and identify the three core entities: Users, Content, and Rights as shown in following figure.

                                                     

                                                         Figure 2:Core Entities Model

Users can be any type of user, from a rights holder to an end-consumer. Content is any type of content at any level of aggregation. The Rights entity is an expression of the permissions, constraints, and obligations between the Users and the Content. The primary reason for this model is to provide greater flexibility when assigning rights to any combination or layering of Users and Content. The Core Entities Model also does not constrain Content from being used in new and evolving business models it also implies that any metadata about the three entities needs to include a mechanism to relate the entities to each other.

The Content itself also needs to be modelled. The key principle in the modelling of Content is its multiple "layers" containing its evolution and development from various intellectual stages. Such a model will enable explicit attribution of rights information. The IFLA model allows Content to be identified at the Work, Expression, Manifestation, and Item layers. At each of these layers, different rights and rights holders may need to be supported as shown in figure (3).

                                                 

                                                                                   Figure 3:Content Model

The layers of the Content defined as Work (a distinct intellectual creation) and Expression (the intellectual realization of a work) reflect scholarly or creative content. On the other hand, the other layers of Content, defined as Manifestation (the digital embodiment of an expression of a work) and Item (a single exemplar instantiation of a manifestation), reflect physical or digital form.

As an example, consider "The story of My Experiments with Truth". is the autobiography of Mohandas K. Gandhi, covering his life from early childhood through to 1921 It was written in weekly instalments and published in his journal Navjivan from 1925 to 1929. Its English translation also appeared in instalments in his other journal Young India.

The Expressions of the Work could then include:

• The original text by Mohandas K Gandhi
• Original Text in Gujarati
• The English translation of the original text
• Translator : Mahadev Desai

The Manifestations of the "English translation" Expression could include:

• The  hard cover book published by Navajivan Publishing House (Ahmedabad), 1948
• The paper back published byBeacon Press, 1993

The Items of the "book" Manifestations could include:

• A physical hardcover book purchased from Books India retail store
• A digital book(kindle version) purchased from Amazon Inc online store

By using this style of content modelling,different associated rights holders can be recognized, at any point. Another aspect that may affect rights is when Content is made of many parts. Some of these parts may have different rights associated with them that need to be recognized in the aggregated content.

4.2 Identifying and Describing the Entities

All entities need to be both identified and described. Identification should be accomplished via open and standard mechanisms for each entity in the model. Both the entities and associated metadata records about the entities must be identifiable. Open standards such as Uniform Resource Identifiers(URI), Digital Object Identifiers (DOI) and the emerging ISO International Standard Textual Work Code (ISTC) are typical schemes useful for Rights identification.

Content should be described using the most appropriate metadata standard for that genre. It is also critical that such metadata standards do not themselves try to include metadata elements that attempt to address rights management information, as this will lead to confusion regarding where to describe such rights expressions. To describe Users, vCard is the most well-known metadata standard for describing people and (to some extent) organizations. An additional and important part of the Rights model is to articulate the role that the User has undertaken with respect to Content. A comprehensive list of roles can be found in the MARC Relators code list.

4.3 Expressing Rights Statements

The Rights entity allows expressions to be made, permission that are allowed, constraints, obligations, and any other rights-related information about Users and Content. Hence, the Rights entity is critical because it represents the expressiveness of the language that will be used to inform the rights metadata.

Rights expressions can become complex quite quickly. Because of that, they are also modelled to understand the relationships within the rights expressions.

As shown in following figure, Rights expressions should consist of:

• Permissions (i.e., usages) - what you are allowed to do
• Constraints - restrictions on the permissions
• Obligations - what you have to do/provide/accept
• Rights Holders - who is entitled to what

                                                                 Figure 4:Rights Expression Model

For example, a Rights expression may say that a particular e-resource can be viewed (i.e., a usage permission) for a maximum of 5 times (i.e., a count constraint) within a period of one month (i.e., a time constraint) for a ₹ 50.00 fee (i.e., an obligation to pay). Each time the content is accessed, Jagdish, Ashok , Abhishek and Kannan (the rights holders) receive a percentage of the fee. Usually, if a right is not explicit in an expression, it means that the right has not been granted. This is a critical assumption made by implementing mechanism (Rights Language) and should be made clear to all Users.

For an example of a rights language, see the Open Digital Rights Language. ODRL lists many potential terms for permissions, constraints, and obligations as well as the rights holder agreements. As such terms may vary across sectors, rights languages should be modelled to allow the terms to be managed via a Data Dictionary and expressed via the language.

5.0. DRM and Legal Aspects

Since pertinent laws and law making vary from country to country it's not possible to give insight to each and every legal aspect of DRM.

DRM systems have received some international legal backing by implementation of the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT). Article 11 of the Treaty requires nations party to the treaties to enact laws against DRM circumvention.

The WCT has been implemented in most member states of the World Intellectual Property organization. The American implementation is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), while in Europe the treaty has been implemented by the 2001 European directive on copyright, which requires member states of the European Union to implement legal protections for technological prevention measures. In 2006, the lower house of the French parliament adopted such legislation as part of the controversial DADVSI law, but added that protected DRM techniques should be made interoperable, a move which caused widespread controversy in the United States.

In India, The Indian Copyright Act, 1957 has been designed from the perspective of a developing country. It has always attempted a balance between various kinds of interests. It has always sought to ensure that rights of authors of creative works is carefully promoted alongside the public interest served by wide availability and usability of that material. For instance, our Copyright Act has provisions for:

• compulsory and statutory licensing: recognizing its importance in making works available, especially making them available at an affordable rate.
• cover versions: recognizing that more players lead to a more vibrant music industry.
• widely-worded right of fair dealing for private use: recognizing that individual use and large-scale commercial misuse are different.

This act was amended by The Copyright (Amendment) Act 2012, passed by the Lok Sabha (lower house of Parliament) on 22 May 2012withthe provisions that relate to the protection of digital rights management (DRM) techniques. This made the Indian Copyright Act compliant with the WCT and the WPPT. 

6.0 Summary

Digital technology has not only created new risks from right holders but also created opportunities for widespread cost effective distribution, as well as new tool for controlling content.  Number of approaches are being deployed to make digital works difficult to copy, distribute and access without necessary permission. This module elaborates onmodelling framework and architecture of these technologies popularly known as Digital Rights Management (DRM).

References and Further Reading

1. Hickey, Thomas B., Edward T. O’Neill, and Jenny Toves. "Experiments with the IFLA functional requirements for bibliographic records (FRBR)." D-Lib magazine8.9 (2002): 1-13.( http://mirror.dlib.org/dlib/september02/hickey/09hickey.html)

2. International Federation of Library Associations, & Institutions. Section on Cataloguing. Standing Committee. (1998). Functional requirements for bibliographic records: final report (Vol. 19). IFLA Study Group on the Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records (Ed.). KG Saur Verlag Gmbh & Company. (http://www.ifla.org/publications/functional-requirements-for-bibliographic-records)

3. Iannella R., "Digital Rights Management (DRM) Architectures." D-Lib Magazine v.7, no.6, (http://www.dlib.org/dlib/june01/iannella/06iannella.html, 2001)

4. Rosenblatt, B. (2003). Integrating DRM with Peer-to-Peer networks: Enabling the future of online content business models. Whitepaper GiantSteps–Media Technologies Strategies.http://www.giantstepsmts.com/P2P-DRM%20whitepaper.pdf)

5. Jean-Marc Boucqueau (2006-2012). Digital Rights Management. IEEE Emerging Technology portal(http://www.ieee.org/about/technologies/emerging/digital_rights.pdf)

Glossary

Digital - Data recorded or transmitted as discrete, discontinuous voltage pulses represented by the binary digits 0 and 1, called bits. In digitized text, each alphanumeric character is represented by a specific 8-bit sequence called a byte. The computers used in libraries transmit data in digital format. The term is also used in a general sense to refer to the wave of information technology generated by the invention of the microcomputer in the second half of the 20th century, as in the expressions "digital divide" and "digital library."

Digital rights - Ownership of information content published and distributed in electronic format, protected in the United States by copyright law. Digital rights management (DRM) uses technologies specifically designed to identify, secure, manage, track, and audit digital content, ideally in ways that ensure public access, preserve fair use and right of first sale, and protect information producers from uncompensated downloading (copyright piracy). The Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) provided one of the earliest solutions used by libraries to obtain permissions. Since the late 1990s, a variety of models have emerged to facilitate the complex relationships and transactions among rights, works, and the parties that produce and use information, including encryption schemes and plug-ins. ContentGuard has based its software approach on XrML (eXtensible rights Markup Language), originally developed at Xerox PARC, which the company hopes will become the open standard for interoperability, giving customers a common platform for receiving content under conditions that protect copyright.

Digital rights management (DRM) - A system of hardware and software components and services, designed to distribute and control the rights to intellectual property created or reproduced in digital form for distribution online or via other digital media, in conjunction with corresponding law, policy, and business models. DRM systems typically use data encryption, digital watermarks, user plug-ins, and other methods to prevent content from being distributed in violation of copyright.

Intellectual property - Tangible products of the human mind and intelligence entitled to the legal status of personal property, especially works protected by copyright, inventions that have been patented, and registered trademarks. An idea is considered the intellectual property of its creator only after it has been recorded or made manifest in specific form.

Copyright - The exclusive legal rights granted by a government to an author, editor, compiler, composer, playwright, publisher, or distributor to publish, produce, sell, or distribute copies of a literary, musical, dramatic, artistic, or other work, within certain limitations (fair use and first sale). Copyright law also governs the right to prepare derivative works, reproduce a work or portions of it, and display or perform a work in public. Such rights may be transferred or sold to others and do not necessarily pass with ownership of the work itself. Copyright protects a work in the specific form in which it is created, not the idea, theme, or concept expressed in the work, which other writers are free to interpret in a different way. A work never copyrighted or no longer protected by copyright is said to be in the public domain.

Electronic rights - The right to publish and sell copyright-protected material in electronically accessible form, for example, on CD-ROM or online via the Internet. Electronic rights are negotiated with the publisher and should be clearly stated in the author's contract. Abbreviated e-rights.

Entity - An entity is something that exists in itself, actually or hypothetically. It need not be of material existence. In particular, abstractions and legal fictions are usually regarded as entities. As defined in FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records), one of the key objects of interest to users of information within a given domain of "things" described by bibliographic data. In FRBR, entities are divided into three groups: (1) the products of intellectual or artistic endeavor (work, expression, manifestation, and item); (2) the individual(s) or corporate bodies responsible for creating intellectual or artistic content, for producing or disseminating the content in physical form, or for maintaining custody of the products; and (3) the subjects of intellectual or artistic expression (concept, object, event, place). Each type of entity has a defining set of attributes, for example, the attributes of a "work" include the title, form, date of work, intended audience, etc.

Descriptive metadata - Data about an information resource that is intended to facilitate its discovery, identification, and selection. Descriptive metadata is also used to bring together all the versions of a work in a process called collocation, and for acquisition purposes. When viewed as metadata, traditional library cataloging is descriptive, as are such schemes as the Dublin Core Metadata Element Set and the VRA (Visual Resources Association) Core. Descriptive metadata is also used for evaluation, both narrative (reviews, etc.) and formal (content ratings); for linkage (relationships between a resource and other things); and for usability.

Digital asset management (DAM) - Systems designed to organize and display digital content produced in a variety of media types. The content is usually locally owned and controlled, rather than licensed from a third party. Most of the DAM systems offered by the leading library automation vendors use standards other than the MARC record, such as XML, the Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH), Metadata Encoding and Transmission Standards (METS), and JPEG2000. The rapid pace of archival and special collections digitization projects has created the need for DAM systems. Synonymous with digital object management.