DRM stands for Digital Rights Management. It is a set of protocols and technologies which are used for limiting the use for copyrighted contents and proprietary hardware. Copyright is a very sensitive issue nowadays. The internet and various other sources now have some very serious rules and regulations regarding this matter. In earlier times there were many issues piling up regarding the originality of an article and its source. The rightful owner of a particular content was not able to control what other people could do with their work. People who had genuine talent for work were being exploited earlier. Hence, the DRM or Digital Rights Management became a necessity and was brought into function.
What does DRM allow us to do?
Digital Rights Management allows the authors and creators to have control over what paying users could be doing with their content or works. DRM has codes which limit the number of users or the number of times a particular content can be accessed as per the creator’s wish. There a number of ways in which DRM proves to be useful. It forbids the user from making any changes and saving your content. It can even forbid the user from printing a copy of your article or content or it can put a limit on the number of printouts for the document. Nowadays, people can take screenshots of your content but through DRM you can also prevent that from taking place.
The users are even restricted forwarding your documents or works to other people or sources. If you feel that your document is not required after a particular period of time and you want to prevent people from accessing it after that time, then you can also set up an expiry date for it. When the expiry date will be reached, the content won’t be accessible to others. DRM also allows you to choose the region of accessibility for your works such as you can restrict your work for view only for the residents of a particular country. Another wonderful feature of DRM is that it allows us to view who and when accessed our content.
Importance of Digital Rights Management
Digital Rights Management is not all beneficial. It has certain shortcomings and is not permanently available. Despite all of this there are still certain benefits its offers which we cannot choose to ignore. There are as follows –
1. Ownership – The most beneficial or important aspect of DRM is how profitable and valuable it has been for the creators and authors of different contents and works. They ae able to retain their ownership which was earlier seen to be taken away from them in several cases.
2. Privacy – DRM allows us the authors to keep their documents private if they wish to. This prevents unauthorized users from accessing their works.
3. Protects the value of money – In the modern world, a lot of pirated sites are made which provide access to videos and stuff for free without the permission from the owner. Now, DRM helps those owners who spend a lot of money coming up with videos and files by preventing their content from being spread across various unauthorized platforms.
4. Copyright rules – DRM works to provide knowledge to people regarding the rules and regulations for copyright. This is a must as a lot of people are unaware of such aspects and this prevents the people from misusing the content available on the internet.
Thus, the summary of Digital Rights Management and its explicit importance in this world of technology must be clear for now. DRM holds an important place as digital assets have become the modes of communication now.