What is Digital Rights Management?

For musicians, the internet can be their greatest stage. There are hundreds, if not thousands of people who look to musicians for entertainment and for them to share a piece of themselves. The internet can also be a musician’s greatest enemy. As an independent artist, one of the most frightening and violating things that can happen to you is the premature leaking and illegal downloading of your music. Music that you spent countless hours writing, recording, and tweaking. Music that you poured your blood, sweat, and tears into.

For years, musicians and labels alike have been trying to crack down on the number of people who illegally share music, among other important files, using various tactics to slow them down. The actions of a few not only have monetary consequences, but they affect entertainers emotionally as well, leaving them feeling violated. One method, digital rights management, has proven successful in slowing down the practice of piracy.

In the following sections, we break down what digital rights management is, how it works in the music industry, and a possible solution for the entertainment industry.

What is Digital Right Management?

Digital Rights Management, or DRM, is defined as protecting copyrighted works by various methods to control or prevent digital copies from being shared through computer networks or telecommunications networks. Simply put, it’s a general term for any technology that aims to stop the practice of piracy.

Unfortunately, stealing people’s ideas and their hard worked-on property isn’t something new; it’s an age-old practice. In fact, many of the floppy discs we owned growing up were copyright protected. In the beginning, piracy was much harder to accomplish, and the “burned” copies of albums were more akin to deep cuts of songs never slated to see the light of day or spliced together versions of live shows performances than anything of real concern. It wasn’t until the advent of modern technology that it became infinitely easier to steal music from others.

A few clicks of a mouse supported by a decent Wi-Fi connection allowed people access to download audio, video, photos, and sensitive documents and share them to the worldwide web. Take file-sharing networks like Napster and Limewire, for example. They rendered traditional copyright laws powerless against the new way of illegally sharing music. Although many of those sites have been shut down, it’s now torrents that are the source of leaked and illegally downloaded music. And according to the US Chamber of Commerce, it’s estimated that online piracy has cost the US economy almost $30 billion a year. The sad part is that piracy isn’t just limited to music. It also affects the TV, film, and video game industry. 

To combat the increasing number of piracy cases, many in the entertainment industry have opted for using digital rights management tools. There are many different approaches to digital rights management and digital media protection, with new methods being created every day! A few technologies used include:

Copy protection: Also known as scrambling. This method controls who gets access to digital media by preventing users from making copies of the protected file. This is commonly achieved through encryption, which writes digital media in a code that can only be read by approved devices or those with the digital key to unlock it. Other examples of scrambling include digital watermarks and fingerprinting.

Permission management: This version limits who has permission to use a particular file or work. The permission management tool is designed to only work on specific approved hardware and or software. Examples of this method include virtual private networks (VPNs), software licensing keys, proxy servers, and user and IP authentication protocols.

Ripping: Digital files here are released on CD or DVD and include bits of code that confuse the ripping or CD burning software if they try to duplicate the file.

Digital Rights Management in the Music Industry

As previously mentioned, the music industry is among one of the top affected industries when it comes to piracy. It’s even said to be the main reason for the steady decline in music industry sales year over year. This reason is listed alongside youths shifting their attention to streaming music over buying music and the continued rise in console gaming. In earlier years, to stop piracy, some music labels would encrypt their CDs, which cause a user’s computer and apps to start running slowly to discourage music ripping.

Situations like these make digital rights management a bit controversial and have brought up what constitutes fair use. If a user legally purchases music, what’s the limit on how many times they can download it or distribute it? Most would say only two copies can exist: the original and the copy. But the standards have never been set.

Today, more modern versions of digital rights management tools are an extremely beneficial method for combatting piracy. By encrypting audio files and the external hard drives that house them, they can be safely transported between departments and music industry members without the fear of it ending up in the wrong hands. And in the off chance that one of your own leaks the music, you’re able to narrow down the possible culprit.

Establishing a Digital Rights Management System

Now that you’ve learned more about digital rights management, it’s only natural that you’d want to enroll your music in a DRM system or program. A DRM system operates on three different levels:

-Establishing copyright: Your media needs to be copyrighted before it can be eligible for protection.

-Managing distribution: You need to decide where it’s distributed and how (radio stations, stores, CD, streaming service, vinyl, etc.)

-Controlling consumer limits/rights to the media: This means deciding who has permission and what the limits are to this.

The final step in establishing your digital rights management system is to define further and describe who the user is, the media, and the user’s relation to it, as well as the usage rights you assign.

Defining this is crucial because you decide the permissions, restrictions, and any other parts related to the transaction. This refers to any scenarios outside of the previously stated restrictions. Think of it as creating a bunch of what-if scenarios. For example, what if someone purchases a five-song per month download subscription and they’ve reached their limit. Do they need to pay extra if they want to download the song again? Or are they out of luck? Does downloading a clip of a song to be used as a sample in a mix by the user count as a download? Clearly defining these limitations makes it easier to identify when someone is violating your terms and conditions!

Mirada Media

The potential of your unfinished or unreleased music leaking to the internet is scary and a severe violation of your privacy. But with digital rights management and Mirada Media, you no longer have to worry about your hard work ending up in the wrong hands. Our SecureMedia API allows the entertainment industry to breathe easily by encrypting sensitive documents and other files and limiting who can access them.

To learn more about how SecureMedia works and our other services for independent musicians, contact us today!