DRM protection of digital media
Monday, May 21, 2007
DRM, or Digital Rights Management (sometimes also referred to as Digitial Restrictions Management) is the term used to describe the restriction of usage on various forms of appropriately encoded digital material such as MP3s, WMA (Windows Media Audio) and WMV (Windows Media Video) files, allowing it to be distributed safe in the knowledge that it is (almost) impossible to by-pass.
There are many discussions on the Internet as to the point of DRM protection at the present time, as with the correct software and knowledge it can be by-passed detracting from the whole point of using it in the first place. All the major on-line music vendors continue to use some kind of DRM licencing protection though, to help reduce the affects of an age where digital media distribution is now as straight forward as opening a web browser and visiting a web site. To continue without it would be like literally giving the products away for free.
With the ability of cracking DRM protection freely available in the public domain, one might ask what the point is in continuing with a method that is obviously flawed?
Quite simply, DRM protection is a hurdle and a challenge to crack by anyone other than someone with the knowledge and determination not to have to comply with the DRM licence restrictions. That basically cuts out all the Aunty Jans, Grandpa Joes and the majority of Little Jims and Jennys. Considering the huge global number of Internet users, those with the patients and ability to re-produce non DRM protected files is probably relatively small.
So what can you gain from DRM protecting your digital material?
Take
the example of one of our recent web sites, Chalkhill
Soap Opera. Until recently all episodes of the soap were available
totally free of restrictions for download - restrictions neither implied
or imposed through use of DRM protection. This meant that one person
could download the file and then freely re-distribute it via any number
of methods including P2P (Peer to Peer) networks, their own web site
and any form of digital storage media, without those at Chalkhill having
any idea.
With the relaunch of the website, DRM protection was introduced. Through this system, anyone who receives a copy of the DRM protected file who then tries to play it on their machine will first have to authenticate themselves as a registered user of the Chalkhill website. There is of course a link to the registration page should they not have an account, but if they do (or once they have created one), authentication is a simple case of username and password entry.
The simple benefit of requiring this registration to enable authentication means that Chalkhill can keep a track of how many copies of the episodes have been distributed, both directly and indirectly from the web site and also allows them to capture users' data for opt-in marketing. The exposure of a greater number of users to the web site results in a higher uptake of subscriptions to the monthly newsletter, which in turn results in larger exposure of promotions and offers detailed in mailings.
If you would like to discuss how to DRM protect your media files and offer them from your website (either requiring payment or free of charge), drop us a line today.