From XrML to RFID, developers and publishers are trying hard to make using “their” content beyond what they want, impossible. DRM is to equal total control over content, if publishers get what they want.
We all know about the criminal multiplication of music, video and software in large quantities. Usually, that sort of denial of a publisher’s intellectual rights is done by criminals who have the money to run large multiplication facilities. Usually such multiplication “plants” are to be found in the Far East, with China (until recently, at least) being at the forefront of illegal copying.
But we at home, don’t we also copy content without thinking about the revenues of the author/publisher? More often than not, the answer to this question is yes, and equally often we’re not even aware of our behaviour. But all that is changing rapidly. Digital Rights Management is here to stay. It is a group of technologies that secure content from being used outside of the publisher’s intent.
Not only will DRM make it impossible to use content outside of the publisher’s usage policies, it will also enable full control over the content, where it is used, how, by whom, and for how long. And the word “content” may be taken literally, because email messages and documents are also being subjected to DRm these days.
Play Maestro, please
Music is the content of which it is the most easy to understand why publishers would wish to protect it. Children and adolescents copy, not so much because they’re criminals (at least, in general) but because it’s easy, it’s cool, and it is the best way to make friends.
But music publishers have a real problem with that behaviour. Music sales are collapsing, and iTunes sales soaring high can’t help that much. So, what the industry needs, so the reasoning goes, is protection of the content and control over what a buyer may do with it. One company which is very active in this market, is First4Internet. First4Internet is a British developer of security products such as XCP-1 and XCP-2.
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Mathew Gilliat-Smith, First4Internet’s CEO, told me that his XCP-1 product is now used by most of the large record labels around the world. XCP-1 protects music befoore it is ever released. Apparently, until a couple of years ago record labels were having difficulties with their own employees not being aware of the risks when they copied a new song onto their PC. It sufficed for an employee to have P2P software on his disk to see an unreleased song suddenly appear on the Internet, our of the blue as it seemed.
XCP-1 is a protection technology that encrypts the music and watermarks it. The watermark enables an audit trail, so that an illegal copy of a song may be traced back to the originator. The encryption algorithms used by First4Internet have been developed in-house, specifically for keeping the playability and audible quality intact.
XCP-2 is First4Internet’s new product. It serves to enforce DRM when the music CD has been released. It will work on Windows machines only. The music content is wrapped inside a code that makes it impossible for a PC-drive to play the tracks without the user first agreeing to a DRM-license. If he accepts, the music will be played using a Windows Media Player that is installed on the CD.
The whole system allows for a limited number of backup copies, producing “sterile” copies (those cant be copied again). It is also possible to copy the music to the PC’s hard drive, where the songs will be played by Windows Media Player installed on the PC. Mathew Gilliat-Smith ensured me the whole system can be programmed quite easily by using Windows Data Session Toolkit, which performs a transcoding from the CD format to the Windows Media Player format.
Apple Mac-users are safe for the time being. They can copy these CDs as many times as they want. Until Apple settles with the record labels, that is. From that moment on, First4Internet’s algorithm will be updated so that iTunes will start on Mac systems and the DRM is enforced on Macs as well.
Tag that Disc
First4Internet may soon have a powerful new technology to enforce copy protection. Researchers at UCLA have been investigating the use of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification—the technology that’s said to replace barcodes in the near future) tags in DVDs and CDs to implement DRM.
RFIS tags would be embedded in the discs, and the players would have RFID readers. The player would only play a disc if it has a RFID tag, which would make it a very inefficient medium for playing old CDs. In more advanced usage schemes, the player would be connected to the Internet, and would use the Internet to authenticate the player, read the CD’s content rights, etc.
A good article on this subject can be found at DRM-Watch.
Software rights
The music and motion picture industries may have the most urgent need to protect themselves from illegal use of their content, the software industry is a close second.
Macromedia, to my knowledge, was one of the first to implement the notion of auto-activation. Using the software license number, a registration number, and a few other data (which the developer says will not enable them to identify you personally), a code was generated linking the software to one machine.
If your machine crashes and you weren’t able to “transfer the license”, then you get two more attempts at installing, after which the software simply won’t install anymore. Adobe followed Macromedia’s example with Creative Suite. Auto-activation is felt as a major pain in the butt by almost every user. Adobe seems to agree, as it gives you a font or a training session as a bonus for doing so.
Auto-activation is the best protection from illegal usage, though. Butler Group seems to believe there are other ways a software developer can make sure his programs will not be misused. The venerable USB-dongle for example, can do the same.
Alias uses USB-dongles to protect the expensive MotionBuilder from piracy. But Alias told me such a dongle is not always the best solution. It has its benefiits, but only in specific circumstances. Alias knows what it talks about. If you want to license their Maya Complete or Unlimited, you will have to get an activation code that is directly linked to your PC or Mac’s MAC-address.
No
Maya will therefore only function on one particular machine. MotionBuilder and for example, Apple’s Logic, will function on any machine with the dongle inserted in a USB port.
Documents with an expiration date
Documents like letters and manuals, and email messages, are the next frontier for DRM. Microsoft’s Office 2003 (on Windows) has DRM built in. DRM for documents enables a complete document management like you’ve never seen before. You can restrict documents from being forwarded to specific people by using the built-in DRM technology. You can also set the document to expire on specific dates, etc.
Microsoft is not alone with its DRM offering. Adobe has DRM built-in right into its Acrobat product, both on PC and Mac OS X. Acrobat 7 Professional will enable document authors to secuure the document according to a policy they set out right there, in the application. Expiration dates are possible with the use of Adobe’s Policy Server, a server product that integrates seamlessly with Acrobat.
This kind of document management is already generating much criticism. The EFF warns against DRM for a number of reasons. PGP Corp.‘s CTO Jon Callas believes it will not live for long, as people will downright refuse to handle restricted documents. Callas has other remarks that are even more to the point.
Forrester Research, on the other hand, believes DRM is here to stay. The analyst forecasts the embedding of DRM technology in applications like Office and Acrobat will even make specific enterprise-level server products pretty much obsolete by 2007.
