Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 06/2009

Digital Rights Management does not replace understanding

June 2007

Media Tenor International

Abstract

The new copyright law strongly bolsters commercial providers of intellectual property, whether in the area of software, music, movies or consumer goods. In the case of digital content, the tool for enforcing the new protection rights is supposed to be Digital Rights Management (DRM). This relates to the technical security measures, which serve to limit the use of digital content to those who acquire a license. Possibilities are in the hardware design, such as regulating the analogue outputs of DVD players, or in software design that limits and impedes copying.