Implication of Digital Right Management in Digital Media - Coursework Example

Implication of Digital Right Management In Digital Media Customer Inserts His/Her Name Customer Inserts Grade Course Customer Inserts Tutor’s Name Insert Date Here (Day, Month, Year) Until few years back, piracy was not a serious problem with the music industry as with the popularity of the recorded sounds, people were buying vinyl records from the record stores. They could enjoy the songs at home, gatherings and even swap them with friends but copying these songs was most difficult and expensive. Though many people contrived to create bootleg records, these were mere collections of the live performances and outtakes, not to the interest of the record companies. But the invention of the magnetic tape as a means of recording medium brought many changes basically with blank micro cassettes. Though many of the executives of the recording industry were showing their concern on duplication of the cassette tapes they had bigger concern than this, as now they had to handle the CDs and digital sounds. CD burners were enabling the people to copy music from CD to their personal computers naturally giving much greater cause of concern for the recording industries. People now have access to unlimited download of the music, can share them and can even make duplicate music contents. As changes began to creep in the music world, what should be the reaction of the music industry? This is the question that has been worrying all music lovers and all those associated with the world of music. (Layton (A), Online) Soon record companies began to formulate new techniques as they began to sell special music CD’s to consumers with the notion inscribed among the consumers that what they were buying were ordinary compact discs. But when people began to play these CDs on their computers, they witnessed a strange occurrence. Their programs got frozen and applications slowed down and the root cause of the problem-all the hidden files happened to become almost impossible to install. The question that arose was, why would any company resort to such ways and the answer to this was copyright issue but digital revolution was making it impossible for the copyright holders to put a control on the distribution of the property and with this appeared the concept Digital Rights Management inhibiting the use of privacy. Digital Rights Management refers to the scheme that puts ardent control on the copyrighted material using technological ways. It implies that music content is controlled through the various applications and methods by making the use of various computer programs. According to Windows Media, “Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a proven platform to protect and securely deliver content for playback on computers, portable devices, and network devices”. DRM provides advantages at multiple levels. It benefits the content owners, content users, and the providers all at the same time. In addition to this DRM also helps counter the evil schemes of hackers and dishonest traders on the Internet who try to misappropriate intellectual properties. Most online companies and distributors have been fighting piracy and thus protect their financial position and reputation. The Microsoft DRM launched in 1999 has multiple new features that provide content owners many channels to reach their consumers. According to Alice Pierce (2008), “This new technology has enabled the rights managers on the operating system platforms to deliver music, videos and multimedia items in a protected and encrypted format.  The file formats thus created can be streamed or downloaded straightaway on the computer of the user”. Online stores and distributors of digital media files are also protected by DRM. The new DRM technology permits the content providers to innovate various ways that will expand their online content without having to worry about piracy and copying problems. DRM also has its advantages on consumers. Because distribution of content has been made digital, the consumers have wide and flexible access to a large variety of content in a safe and secure manner as opposed to the problems that arise with duplicated or pirated content. The use of DRM has however, been quite controversial. Since it’s inception, there has been considerable opposition from organizations and individuals all over giving their own versions to withdraw the Digital Rights Management posing its regulation on the distribution and sales of music and also giving restricted access to consumers. While advocators of the digitized movement suggest that it is very essential for the copyright holder to pose prevention and restriction on the unauthorized use of the duplication of the work to retain artists’ integrity and image and to bring in more revenue. (Artist Scope and Christopher Levy 2003), there have been many arguments against the use of DRM from multiple opponents. Opponents such a Free Software Foundation and The Electronic Frontier Foundation argue that copyright holders are restricting the use of copyrighted material in ways other than those specified by existing laws. These opponents also consider DRM systems to be an anti-competitive practice. It has also been found that all DRM systems have been either defeated or evaded when utilized by a wide range of consumers. It would be a wise move for the music industry to move towards DRM-free products due to multiple reasons. Firstly, despite the fact that DRM system is very adjustable and transparent for the user, it creates a complex situation for the computer program. Many consumers view these DRM methods as very restrictive especially those methods that are being employed by the music industries. (Layton (B), Online). Digital Rights Management is paving the way for the initiation of dubious schemes to exercise control on copying, printing, altering, viewing and anything you can do with digital content. It imposes restrictions on three levels; firstly during the process of formulating a copyright piece, secondly by regulating distribution and thirdly putting control on the extent consumer can make use of the content after it has been distributed and thus surpasses the protections held under the copyright law. The fair use doctrine under the copyright law gives consumers rights to create copies of the copyright content but the use of DRM forbade consumers even using their own right. By coming up with DVDs with more restrictions then before, DRMs in essence violates consumer rights issues. Furthermore DRM is also causing imperative problems for the libraries and educational institutions that are lending digital content. DRMs are creating problems of archiving them with a time limited encryption key and causing difficulty in lending out a machine specific license for viewing content in their traditional norms. DRM system is also found to be creating a negative impact on the technological innovations as it creates limitation on the use and form of the digital content. If the computer code in the software is protected by DRM then also it becomes impossible for third party vendors to develop their own software products and plug-ins. Secondly, Professor Ed Felton of Princeton University found that DRM not only had an adverse affect on the technological development but also on freedom of speech. When Felton was going to publish article on the issue of faulty DRM system in 2001, he was threatened with lawsuits because companies were scared of the consumers who could violate the law, indulge in illegal activity and easily breach the DRM schemes. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DCMA) protects the DRM scheme in-spite of the fact company makes use of the DRM scheme fairly or not. In America, it is not only illegal to download music but also illegal to create or purchase it if DRM scheme is not followed. Now consumer rights groups are pressing Congress to put amendments in the section of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which makes copyright holders advantageous for making misuse of the law. According to many people, DCMA discourage competition spirit and makes it difficult for consumers to enjoy their favorite songs. There are two main prominent critics John Walker and the Richard Stallman whose influence on the consumers and activists was enough to strengthen the anti DRM movement. John Walker’s ‘The Digital Imprimatur: How big brother and big media can put the Internet genie back in the bottle’ and Richard Stallman’s ‘The Right to Read’ in other public statements clearly caught the nerves of agitators presenting with all its negative effects directly hitting on the very basis DRM’s foundation was laid. John Walker said DRM is a malicious in character especially designed to hurt users of its software. (Riordan, Online) Others to criticize DRM are Professor Ross Anderson of Cambridge University who leads British organization and Cory Doctorow, an influential writer and blogger. (Doctorow, Online) They based their arguments on the fact that it is wrong to assume that DRM prevents the illegal use of the files but it is not so, even if files are protected by DRM, any one can easily get unprotected/unencrypted version of the file. It has become easy with the help of the P2P networks, which can take only one copy of the file making it available to all. Moreover it is also a fact that anybody selling content on the CD is already selling unprotected files with the exception of rootkit. In other words, any body selling CD is already making unprotected content available to all and putting these files online and ripping it to MP3 files is a very easy task. Another major reason why the music industry must strongly consider making their products DRM-free is that the implementation of DRM is itself a costly affair, and these costs of developing, licensing of the DRM technology, encoding media files and dealing with many of the DRM related customer service complaints could be easily passed onto the content producers from the retailers. It simply means that content products run at loss if he sells the DRM protected content. It is also quite true that royalty rates given to them are also quite low. It is also impossible for the people to buy DRM content, as many of them don’t have compatible players, as there is no universal DRM standard. Since DRM does not come at free cost therefore in many situations, costs are fallen on the consumers. One of the main reasons for the failure of DRMs is because DRM Schemes are not able to keep in check consumers who are adopting several sneaky techniques to get over the upper hand. Looking at this issue, several controversies have to come to surface on the very use of the DRM technology. In 2005, for e.g. Sony BMG had distributed many number of selected CDs which entered into lawsuits and had an adverse impact on the public relations. This problem appeared on account of the two pieces of software on the CDs: SunnComm’s MediaMax and First4Internet's Extended Copy Protection (XCP). (Layton (D), Online) This incident raised numerous questions on the extent to which copyright holders should be permitted to protect their content. At the first instance, MediaMax software never allows the protection of copyright issue at all but puts a track on the users because every time somebody plays the CD on his or her PC, MediaMax would send message to the SummComm server and Sony-BMG would be able to easily trace the person who is listening CD and how much they listen. This occurs behind the scenes and there is no way listeners could make out and there is also no way to uninstall system too. The other problem that comes up is much bigger on account of the First4Internet’s Extended Copy Protection limiting on the extent number of persons can make copy of the CD but it is within the paradigm of the copyright protection. Software used can also create a virus issue as the software is hidden in such a place in the machine of the user that it almost becomes impossible for the user to find it. Secondly it forms a hidden area known as rootkit in the operating system of windows that can seriously lead to the virus living there undetected causing severe security risk. It becomes almost impossible for the virus scanners to detect the files hidden in the rootkit. XCP also makes the computing process much slower and connects it automatically to the Sony-BMG server to make users install the copy-protection updates. But once it is installed, there is no way one could uninstall it with the only solution left with the users is reformat their hard drives to remove the files and any negative impact that can be created on account of it. The latest technological advances can also bring about a complete change in the current ways of listening making DRM completely outdated as the newer technology would not be able to support it. There is no universally agreed standard for DRM instead every manufacturer creates his own standards making it undesirable for the consumers as well as producers. If DRM Standards were universally regulated then there would not be any violation of the copyright and privacy legislation. There is a solution to prevent illegal copies; DRM systems should permit only authorized devices to play the protected music. If it is found that a copy of a DRM protected song has been posted on the Internet, then it should not be allowed to get it played on a computer or any other portable music. To fulfill this, DRM system resorts to secret ways because there is no other way content can be protected rather than by keeping secrets. But these secrets are also getting broken with lots of people who had discovered ways to unravel these secrets and publishes methods to get music free and fortunately they are able to attain the success in their endeavor therefore any company trying to protect itself with the help of DRM has to constantly update itself with new systems and invention of much harder secrets that no one could be able to discover. So what should be the alternative course for the future? The first alternative would be to continue with the current action with each manufacturer gaining the ability to compete freely with their own top to bottom proprietary systems from selling to the process of playing and protecting of the music. The second alternative lies in the hands of Apple to license its Fairplay DRM technology for latest and future competitors but there is one serious problem in it as with the licensing DRM could disclose many secrets to number of people in many companies and secrets could leak. The third alternative lies in the fact companies should abolish DRM completely, and if it happens every online store could be able to sell the DRM free music but encoded in open licensable formats. In such a situation any person can play the music, he can purchase from any store, and any store would be able to sell music that he is able to play on all players. If all the big four major companies would give license to Apple to distribute the music through DRM free then it would reach maximum number of listeners, as it also has been cited above that use of DRM too never had been pirated free and over and above its use has not been of great benefit either to companies or to the consumers. In 2006 only, around 2 billion DRM protected songs were sold and more than 20 billion songs were sold DRM free. (Jobs, Online). On 4th January 2008 when Sony BMG Music Entertainment was reported to finalize to bring its songs at the consumers reach without use of the copyright protection software. Before this plan, there was restriction on the music downloaded from the Internet. Sony BMG, a joint venture of Sony (SNE} and Bertelsman still have the intention to make some parts of its collection to be made available without Digital Rights Management (DRM). Much before this, four more music labels including Warner Music Group since December 2007 already decided to make its songs available through Amazon.com, a digital music store without the control of Digital Rights Management. Even EMI and Vivendi had also decided to follow suit. (Holahan, 1). This decision depicted vast changes in the complete scenario of the recording industry, which since last few years has been using DRM to guard their songs against what is known as illegal duplication and distribution of the songs through online. By withdrawing themselves from DRM, companies also could use other ways having fewer restrictions to sell their music online like Facebook, NewsCorp’s and MySpace online social networks. It is also assumed that by partnering with retailers like Amazon could help these companies in the music industry to overcome Apple, a company that has dominated the legal market through its method and use of the one-size- fits-all pricing scheme. (Holahan, 1). Despite its advantages DRM has met with a considerable amount of failure. Because of its complex working within a computer system resulting in the slowing down of systems and various virus problems, it’s restriction of the user’s proper consumer rights, it’s employment of methods other than those specified by law to prevent piracy and illegal copying and the very fact that the implementation of a proper DRM scheme is a very costly proposition, it is slowly declining in popularity and several organizations and record companies are looking to make their music DRM-free. A fine example of this would be Sony as stated in the above sections of this paper. Furthermore the inability to universally standardize DRMs has also resulted in its opposition and subsequent failure of this scheme. If the current trend continued and if more and more companies made their content, irrespective of whether it is music or movies or any other digital content, DRM-free it would be more advantageous and profitable venture for the companies and it would also be beneficial to the consumers as they could enjoy more of their favorite music and moves without any sort of hindrance. References Doctorov, Cory. ‘Microsoft Research DRM talk’. Internet (2004) Available: http://www.craphound.com/msftdrm.txt February 28, 2009. Holahan, Catherine. “Sony BMG Plans to Drop DRM: The last major label will throw in the towel on digital rights management and prepare to fight Apple for valuable download revenues.” Buisinessweek.com Internet (2008) Available: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2008/tc2008013_398775.htm February 28, 2009. Jobs, Steve. ‘Thoughts on Music’ Internet (2003) Available: http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughtsonmusic/ February 28, 2009. Layton, Julia. (A) “Introduction to How Digital Rights Management Works”. Internet (2008) Available: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/drm1.htm, February 28, 2009. Riordan, Ciaran. ‘Transcript of Opening session of first international GPLv3 conference’ Internet (2006) Available: http://www.ifso.ie/documents/gplv3-launch-2006-01-16.html Walker, John. ‘The Digital Imprimatur: How big brother and big media can put the Internet genie back in the bottle’ Internet (2003) Available: http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/digital-imprimatur/ February 28, 2009. Windows Media. Digital Rights Management. Available: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/drm/default.mspx March 26 2009. Levy, Christopher (2003). Makning Money With Streaming Media. Available: http://www.streamingmedia.com/r/printerfriendly.asp?id=8306 March 26 2009. Artist Scope. Images and the Internet. Available: http://www.artistscope.com/protection.asp March 26 2009. Pierce Alice (2008). DRM Advantages. Article Base Online. Available: http://www.articlesbase.com/software-articles/drm-advantages-533661.html March 26 2009. Read More