With the explosive rise of digital media, computing devices and digital networks have allowed the ability for digital media to be distributed at a highly flexible and cost-efficient way. This has led to a change on how the media is being consumed, with more and more sales dropping for DVD’s and CD’s causing problems for many retailers, but on the other hand, digital media is rising in contrast. However, with the media being accessed digitally it also allows people to access, manipulate or even duplicate the media beyond the terms and conditions that was originally agreed upon. An illustration of this is the largely spread piracy of video/audio files using a peer-to-peer which has left a rather large problem within the media industry. Accompanying a problem is always a solution and the solution to this particular problem is Digital Rights Management or DRM for short, or is it?
“Digital rights management (DRM) is a systematic approach to copyright protection for digital media. The purpose of DRM is to prevent unauthorized redistribution of digital media and restrict the ways consumers can copy content they've purchased.” - Margaret Rouse, 2009
Therefore, has the introduction of DRM combated this issue? Short answer: No. However, this answer wouldn’t satisfy most curious minds, as a result we are going to be looking into the reasons behind why it hasn’t solved the problems.
Digital Rights Management – Where did it start?
Let’s proceed by going back to the start of the DVDs with an early example of a DRM system being the Content Scrambling System or CSS for short; this system encrypts the data so that only DVD players that are licensed can decode it, however, the Content Scrambling System had a large weakness and that lies in ...
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...99). The Information Economy. In: Carl Shapiro, Hal R. Varian Information Rules. Boston: Hardverd Business School. 1-18.
Kris Pigna. (2008). Gabe Newell Says DRM Strategies 'Are Just Dumb'. Available: http://www.1up.com/news/gabe-newell-drm-strategies-dumb. Last accessed 10/03/2014.
Glyn Moody. (2013). Two New Reports Confirm: Best Way To Reduce Piracy Dramatically Is To Offer Good Legal Alternatives. Available: http://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20130723/12235723906/two-new-reports-confirm-best-way-to-reduce-piracy-dramatically-is-to-offer-good-legal-alternatives.shtml. Last accessed 9/03/2014.
Tim Cushing. (2011). Swedish Study Shows File Sharing And Music Buying Go Hand-In-Hand. Available: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111118/02101616810/swedish-study-shows-file-sharing-music-buying-go-hand-in-hand.shtml. Last accessed 09/03/2014.
Chapter one is an examination of different definitions of ‘information’ to support the concept of ‘information policy.’ Definitions that identify ‘information’ as a ‘constitutive force in society’ are most useful from the point of view of information policy (p.19).
... issue of file-sharing, and the decline in music sales due to people downloading free music. Besides using vague information and few statistics, she is also making many assumptions about the facts that she is stating in this article. When she is making too many assumptions, I am not entirely persuaded to steer clear from downloading music for free. Therefore, this is why I do not think this article is effective.
Depending upon the tactics used some of the strategies utilized by the film industry to restrain individuals from copying and sharing copyrighted films will work, however, most will have little or no effect.
An option that copyright owners have considered toward protecting their works from circulating in P2P networks is to use a variety of technological tools to prevent piracy. Such tools would be capable of blocking, decoying and redirecting the connections of unauthorized copyrighted file transfers. However, federal and state laws such as the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of ...
Recently, there has been a series of copyright infringement litigations against Internet businesses that are involved with unauthorized distribution of music files. The US recording industry claims to lose three million dollars per year because of piracy. A report predicted an estimated 16 percent of all US music sales, or 985 million dollars would be lost due to online piracy by 2002 (Foege, 2000; cited from McCourt & Burkart, 2003) Even though this claim has to be taken with caution, as it is based on false assumption that if copyright laws were strictly enforced, audio pirates would become buyers, it is apparent that audio piracy grew to a worrisome level for the record industry. (Gayer & Shy, 2003)
An “analyst” was quoted in the case (in 2002) as saying that “people will pay for music on the Internet, eventually.” This person was skeptical of the willingness of consumers to pay for
Schwartz, John. ?A Heretical View of File Sharing?. New York Times Online. 5 April 2004. URL: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30813
Copyright, in its first form, was first introduced in 1710 with a British statute of Anne. Since this time copyright laws have changed to remain current, and have grown into an international agreement by many countries around the globe.
Thier, Dave. "DRM Hurts Companies More than Piracy, Developer Argues." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 19 Mar. 2013. Web. 14 Apr. 2014.
Kingma, B. R. (2001). The economics of information: A guide to economic and cost-benefit analysis for information professionals (2nd ed.). United States of America: Libraries Unlimited.
Physical piracy-the copying and illegal sale of hard-copy CDs, videotapes, and DVDs-costs the music industry over $4 billion a year worldwide and the movie industry more than $3.5 billion. These numbers do not factor in the growing (and difficult to measure) problem of Internet piracy, in which music and movies are transferred to digital format and copies are made of the resulting computer file. Journalist Charles C. Mann explains why Internet piracy has the potential to be vastly more damaging to copyright industr...
The first reason why downloading and uploading copyrighted materials from the Internet should be legal is that downloading copyrighted materials positively affects the economy. The European Commission Joint Research Center reported that the profits of music companies would be 2% lower if uploading and downloading copyrighted materials were banned. However, music companies are able to acquire more profits despite illegal downloading because many people tend to purchase CDs or DVDs after watching or listening to copyrighted materials for free. Moreover, the research showed that people who download music illegally spent more money to buy music than people who did not download illegally. In addition, research conducted by the Swiss government informed that one-third of Swiss people downloaded copyrighted materials from the Internet because personal use of copyrighted materials is legal in Switzerland. Even though there is a fact that many people can download copyrighted materials from the Internet legally in Switzerland, the amount of money that people spend to buy copyrighted materials is not f...
Intellectual property rights are being broken as people are downloading free content through P2P (Peer 2 Peer) networks, and illegal websites online. Production companies can’t do anything about that because developers of this type of software can’t be blamed for what people share. And no one can track the people behind the illegal websites.
It's important to understand the different software piracy channels, not just to comply with the law but also to protect against bigger economic problems like lost revenue...and lost jobs.
At the dawn of the internet, many things such as books and text became obsolete, due to insufficient monitoring of internet activity and sites. Individuals were able to gain free access to books and publications that normally needed to be bought, or required a fee. This is something that has caused problems for booksellers and publishers. Now, as technology advances, it also begins the decline of music, software, and television industries—but something can be done before it’s too late. Illegal downloading is a problem that affects us all, either directly or indirectly. Many people do not take it too seriously. They have not realized that it is an epidemic; like a disease that keeps growing as people become more knowledgeable about computers and learn more about how software runs. People openly burn music CDs and download music and movies for friends who in turn give it to their friends; it’s a never-ending cycle on illegal practices. The problem started when Napster came out and should have ended when it was shutdown. Unfortunately, not enough has been done to stop the illegal transfer of files. It’s time someone takes full action and ends this detrimental offense.