Governed Media Distribution based on Nonrestrictive DRM_v4
Helder Castro, M. T. Andrade, A.P. Alves · 2008
The growing pervasiveness of broadband Internet expands both the range of rich media assets that can be delivered as well as the universe of possible receivers. This in turn, opens the door for the creation of new forms of delivering rich media content, establishing a diversity of associated value chains and Business Models (BMs). The full adoption of this new medium is something that is yet to be accomplished. It has been stalled by the hesitation of the key players in the content production and distribution industry which is closely related to the technical and legal difficulties in dealing with the free file sharing phenomenon. Their strategy for the adoption of the Internet medium has generally involved the employment of restrictive DRM enforcing technology to preserve pre-Internet (legacy) operating modes. Current approaches, within this context, have aimed at agilizing and facilitating the full adoption of this new medium by providing efficient, interoperable DRM enforcing tools to harness its power. However, the current resistance to DRM adoption, by some major Web media distributors, does not foretell a bright future for the use of restrictive DRM schemes for Internet based delivery of digital goods. New solutions are thus required to enable the creation of new BMs, taking advantage of the opportunities offered by broadband Internet. In this context, the work described here proposes an alternative approach to the use of DRM, aiming at optimizing content distribution and usability and promoting content usage governance. The logic behind this proposal is based on the use of DRM schemes that favor content governance over rigid access restriction. These changes permit the development of new BMs which are very much inline with upcoming Internet businesses. This work was developed within the framework of the European R&D project ENTHRONE.