DRM will prevail, like it or not

By James Kobielus, Network World, 04/17/06

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Digital rights management is a technology with many ideological enemies. DRM got a black eye in the business-to-consumer market recently from such public relations fiascos as Sony's XCP rootkit. In that incident, the media giant inadvertently violated users' desktop security in an ill-conceived effort to enforce CD-music anti-piracy controls.

Don't let the anti-DRM hysteria fool you into thinking the technology is on the decline or that it won't be widely deployed. DRM isn't evil. It's coming on strong from many directions, with DRM vendors developing many innovative approaches - most of which don't involve root-kits. Some DRM vendors wrap access and usage policy around downloadable content, while others enforce DRM controls at access management portals or in the firmware of content streaming or playback clients.

It's only a matter of time before DRM, in various forms, plays a role in many information exchanges over the Internet and within corporate environments. It has gained significant attention in the business world as a tool for ensuring life-cycle controls on access to sensitive messages and documents. It is being used to enforce security classifications on internally distributed materials within organizations. It also is being used to keep tabs on who accesses what information and to prevent users from performing certain document functions - such as printing, copying/pasting and forwarding - forbidden by the content's owners.

EMC's recent acquisition of DRM pioneer Authentica is a significant industry development. EMC is a leader in the data storage market but also owns leading content management and collaboration product families: Documentum and eRoom, respectively. Don't be surprised to see EMC embed Authentica's DRM technology across all of its hardware and software products, thereby providing a unified policy environment for content owners to enforce life-cycle controls on user access to storage, folders, documents, messages and other content containers.

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