Digital Rights Management II

Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a standard term for a system that enables authority on technologies. Hardware manufacturers, copyright holders, and any persons who will try to enforce limitations on the use of the devices can use this. It is the copyrighting of the protection for digital media. It blocks friends and others of sharing music and other digital media causing them to purchase their own digital media.
The purpose is to avoid and protect the copying of content of digital media. Try and make it impossible to steal or duplicate the content of any digital devices but the certain that this will never happen is slim. This is what helps musicians to get more money. Without DRM musicians and artists would not make much of any profit. It also helps with the economy because producing CD’s gives many people jobs. Without it we would have a less amount of jobs and more starving people. The modern technology is making it easier and easier for people to get free music. Although it may be getting easier the people who are a part of the DRM are trying to make it more difficult to get free music.
History
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Engineer Ryoichi Mori in 1983 from Japan started DRM under a different name called Software Service System. Before the 1900’s the sharing of music and other digital media was allowed causing less sales for each of the digital media. Although it was allowed then it is certainty not allowed now because of our low economy. Without the actual selling of CDs there would be a significant drop in economy because technology is so wide spread now. This was the start of DRM to prevent the entire sharing and copying helping out companies. DRM is not something new it has been around for a while but in different forms such as floppy disk. They were copied protected. Manufacturers placed special coding inside so the consumer could not mimic.
Introduction
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The purpose is to avoid and protect the copying of content of digital media. Try and make it impossible to steal or duplicate the content of any digital devices but the certain that this will never happen is slim. This is what helps musicians to get more money. Without DRM musicians and artists would not make much of any profit. It also helps with the economy because producing CD’s gives many people jobs. Without it we would have a less amount of jobs and more starving people. The modern technology is making it easier and easier for people to get free music. Although it may be getting easier the people who are a part of the DRM are trying to make it more difficult to get free music.
How DRM is Accomplished
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DRM is essentially encryption (writing a code onto the media or software that allows it to not be altered). By coding the form of media or software with a closed source code, it makes it impossible for people to access it in a way not intended by the developer. An example of this would be encrypting M4A audio formatting used on iTunes when a song is legally purchased. While the song plays on the machine it is intended for, the DRM coding does not allow it to be played anywhere else.
Who Uses DRM?
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Since it’s inception in 1984, essentially all companies that have copyrighted software that they have chosen to not release as open source use a form of DRM encoding on their products. By releasing their product with a form of DRM on them, it protects their files from being illegally copied.
Some of the most common forms of DRM can be found on operating software, computer games, and media distribution services such as the iTunes Music Store and the Napster Music Service.
Law
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In 1998 the Digital Millennium Copy Right Act was passed to prevent the copy-restriction over technology. Since this law was passed it has helped many artists become more and more successful. It has also helped the economy in a small way. DRM is a crucial law for all of our modern artists
Digital Rights Management on Media Services
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Microsoft
"Windows Media Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a proven platform to protect and securely deliver content for playback on computers, portable devices, and network devices. The latest version offers increased flexibility to support a wide range of business models that provide consumers even greater access to protected audio and video content."
Apple
"With the stunning global success of Apple’s iPod music player and iTunes online music store, some have called for Apple to “open” the digital rights management (DRM) system that Apple uses to protect its music against theft, so that music purchased from iTunes can be played on digital devices purchased from other companies, and protected music purchased from other online music stores can play on iPods... Apple was able to negotiate landmark usage rights at the time, which include allowing users to play their DRM protected music on up to 5 computers and on an unlimited number of iPods. Obtaining such rights from the music companies was unprecedented at the time, and even today is unmatched by most other digital music services. However, a key provision of our agreements with the music companies is that if our DRM system is compromised and their music becomes playable on unauthorized devices, we have only a small number of weeks to fix the problem or they can withdraw their entire music catalog from our iTunes store.
To prevent illegal copies, DRM systems must allow only authorized devices to play the protected music. If a copy of a DRM protected song is posted on the Internet, it should not be able to play on a downloader’s computer or portable music device. To achieve this, a DRM system employs secrets. There is no theory of protecting content other than keeping secrets. In other words, even if one uses the most sophisticated cryptographic locks to protect the actual music, one must still “hide” the keys which unlock the music on the user’s computer or portable music player. No one has ever implemented a DRM system that does not depend on such secrets for its operation."
Dell
"The trend towards DRM-free music seems to be giving Dell the notion that the market's ready for another digital music player. They tried to sell MP3 players five years ago, but got washed away in the Apple iPod tsunami and gave up in 2006. There's a whiff of "me too" about anybody trying to make portable music players now; Apple's devices are so ubiquitous that people call any such device "an iPod" at this point. But Dell's hoping that by hiring an ex-Apple executive to oversee the making of an inexpensive player that will play music from any vendor, they can make inroads into Apple's iTunes/ iPod audience.
Dell would offer a subscription service for their music catalog instead of a per-track purchase model, so in a way that's still a form of DRM. But you could still load music that you already own onto the device in addition to the subscription offerings, and you can purchase music from all sorts of vendors these days. It just might work. We hope they're smart enough not to make the player chocolate brown."
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Criticism
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A number of high powered media related corporations and individuals such as Microsoft and Steve Jobs of Apple have openly disagreed with the concept of DRM due to that the fact that they believe it is not fair to the consumer.
One of the main criticisms with DRM is that it costs a significant amount of money to encrypt the software and media files with the DRM code. As a result, the price is then raised for the consumer.
While the concept of DRM is the same amongst all software developers and media distributors, the actually coding of the software and media files differs greatly from company to company. Therefore, when something is legally purchased and is able to play on one computer or media player, it may not necessarily work on others. On of the largest groups that take issue with this are users of the iTunes Music Store.
On the iTunes Music Store, M4A file format is what is used on all iTunes purchased songs. While this format allowed legally purchased music to be played on registered iTunes accounts, iPods and iPhones, it cannot be played anywhere else. Essentially, even though the music is legally purchased, it can only be played on players selected by Apple. Those against DRM encoding believe that once a song or other form or media is purchased, it should be able to work on all media players.
After an open letter sent to various record labels in early 2008 by Apple, more specifically the iTunes store requested that DRM be taken off many the media files sold on the music store. On January 6th, 2009, DRM encoding was taken off of all audio on the store, but remains on all video and other content sold.
According to Bill Gates, DRM actually makes it more difficult for the consumer who has purchased software and media files legally to access it and use it to it’s full ability. It is more difficult due to the fact that the DRM software is designed to not allow an illegal user to use the file, but at the same time gives the legal user far more difficulty using the file, as it should.
Many individuals and groups have called for DRM encryption to become common amongst all software and media sources. If the coding becomes common, it will mean that once a song is legally purchased, it will have the ability to play on all media players, not just selective players.

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