Digital Rights Management - the European debate begins
Published: 18 Apr 2002 17:45 BST
Digital Rights Management Systems ("DRMS") are technological measures which offer the potential for copyright owners to control the exploitation of their digital assets. At a workshop in Brussels in February, the European Commission kick-started a dialogue with industry, consumer rights groups and other interested parties on achieving workable legal and commercial solutions for the use of Digital Rights Management Systems (DRMS). As the December deadline for implementation of the Copyright Directive draws closer, there are many holes which still need to be filled if workable systems are to become a reality. This article explains the key issues for debate over coming months and how businesses can become involved.
So what are DRMS?
DRMS are technological measures that aim to control copyright material so that exploitation can be licensed, reported and paid for in the networked environment. DRMS work by identifying an intellectual property right, setting the rules under which it can be used and then ensuring via encryption that digital content is only used for purposes agreed by the rightsholder. Computer-based language will thus enable rightsholders to set the parameters within which their intellectual property can be interacted with by users.
The Commission has now set up a site with information and documents on DRMS including the Commission working paper and discussion document "Digital Rights, Background, Systems, Assessment".
Why the sudden interest?
The DRMS debate has been given new impetus by the Commission in view of their concern to accelerate the eEurope 2002 (soon to become eEurope 2005) initiative, with its priorities for faster technologies, broadband, security and recognising the importance of content and applications. Speaking at the workshop on 28 February, Commissioner Erkki Liikanen, said that DRMS will play a key role in the distribution of digital content and are essential to ensuring that there are sufficient incentives to continue to produce and distribute multimedia content and services under appropriate conditions.
The other main push comes from recently-adopted legislation. The Copyright Directive which sets the legal framework in which DRMS will be administered, must be implemented by Member States by 22 December 2002. The e-Commerce Directive which seeks to provide a framework for protecting service providers from liability for hosted illegal content (therefore including material in breach of copyright) in certain circumstances, should have been implemented by 17 January although only three Member States managed to meet this deadline.
Filling in the gaps
The problem is that both Directives provide only that - a framework - and the detail is left largely to Member States and the establishment of business models, self-regulatory and standardisation schemes, to fill in. Although DRMS are identified as a solution to many of the problems raised, strong differences of opinion still remain as to how they should be implemented and what needs to be done in order to make them acceptable to all different parties. The dialogue initiated by the Commission therefore seeks to address these issues in order to make the legislation workable and effective.
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