{"id":21839,"date":"2023-11-16T09:50:49","date_gmt":"2023-11-16T08:50:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.teamnext.de\/blog\/what-is-drm-why-digital-rights-management-is-so-important\/"},"modified":"2024-05-06T10:20:01","modified_gmt":"2024-05-06T08:20:01","slug":"what-is-drm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.teamnext.de\/en\/blog\/what-is-drm\/","title":{"rendered":"What is DRM? Why digital rights management is so important"},"content":{"rendered":"
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What is DRM? Why digital rights management is so important<\/h1>\n

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Reading time:<\/span> 9<\/span> Minuten<\/span><\/span>\n<\/div><\/section>
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Table of contents<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>
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In the digital age<\/a>, in which media content can be reproduced in seconds and distributed around the globe without restriction, the protection of intellectual property is more crucial than ever. Digital rights management<\/strong> (DRM) plays a central role in this. In German, this is referred to as digital rights management<\/strong> or digital rights management<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

But what exactly does DRM need to accomplish? And how can digital rights management be integrated into a company’s DAM-System*?<\/p>\n

In this article, we will answer these questions in detail and also take a look at how DRM can help to protect digital content while ensuring fair use.<\/p>\n

* DAM stands for Digital Asset Management<\/a>.<\/small><\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>
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Basics of digital rights management
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DRM is based on technical solutions with which the use and distribution<\/a> of digital media<\/a> can be highly controlled. This allows targeted restrictions and precisely regulated monetization of digital content. As a result, this means that<\/p>\n

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    1. a) only authorized users have access to protected content.<\/li>\n
    2. b) content can only be used as intended by the rights holder.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      In practice, this can mean that an e-book can only be read on a certain device or a video can only be played within a certain period of time.<\/p>\n

      Films, e-books and music files are certainly the most common media protected with DRM technologies, but such measures are also used for software products, image files and PDF documents.<\/p>\n

      Protection mechanisms<\/h3>\n

      The technical protection mechanisms can be divided into two different classes:<\/p>\n

      1) Active protection mechanisms<\/p>\n

      2) Passive protection mechanisms<\/p>\n

      The first class includes encryption methods used for copy protection. In addition, encryption can prevent unauthorized use and changes, and digital signatures can be authenticated.<\/p>\n

      Clearly visible watermarks, which can only be removed with greater effort, also provide active protection.<\/p>\n

      Passive protection mechanisms, on the other hand, are not aimed at preventing access or rendering media unusable. They are primarily used for marking and ensure that the distribution of digital media can be traced. They must be seen as a sensible addition to the “hard measures”.<\/p>\n

      Steganographic processes are crucial here. They make it possible to conceal information and are used in digital watermarks and fingerprints (the latter are also characterized by their uniqueness). Markings of this kind are not perceptible for humans and can only be read with the help of special algorithms. They are also interwoven with the medium and are difficult to remove. They are mostly applied to prove authorship and are therefore used for tracking copyrighted images and videos on the Internet.<\/p>\n

      Example: digital watermark<\/h3>\n

      Figure (2) shows a photo with a digital watermark (created with Digimarc). The difference to fig. (1) is barely perceptible to the naked eye. Only if you increase the contrast of the watermark extremely, it becomes recognizable. See fig. (3) and (4).<\/p>\n

      \"the<\/a>

      Image source: Wikimedia<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

      Classic metadata containers<\/h3>\n

      Usually, license data and copyright notices are also stored in the metadata containers created separately from the content (such as XMP<\/a> or IPTC-IIM<\/a>). However, these can be easily manipulated or removed and do not offer any further technical protection on their own. Nevertheless, writing legal notices in the metadata containers is of course useful in order to assert copyright or license rights.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/section>
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      The three major advantages of DRM
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      1. Protection of intellectual property and avoidance of sales losses due to illegal copies (piracy)<\/li>\n
      2. More flexibility in licensing and distribution of content. This enables:\n