Managing Rights Management

Vobile Fingerprinting and Cryptography Research Watermarking DVD Patent Applications

Every Thursday the USPTO publishes new patent applications. Both of today's Spotlight applications address optical disc content security. Assigned to Vobile, the first application discloses techniques for fingerprinting and identifying digital versatile disc (DVDs). Assigned to CRI, the second application discloses a content security layer providing long-term renewable security that includes content watermarking.

Metadata, Metadata, Who Has The Metadata

Yesterday's blogicle noted that metadata will be increasingly important component of DRM 3.0. The Wiki article on the subject points out that metadata has a broad range of meanings, uses, and contexts that share in common the idea of "data about data." Regarding rights management and related areas, metadata describes various objects, including, but by no means limited to, books, serial publications, music, and audiovisual works.

A wide variety of international, open, and proprietary standards exist for various kinds of real and digital objects. Among the latter are the well known ISBNs for books and the ISSNs for serial publications. The familiar barcoded UPCs are administered by a global non-for-profit organization, GS1, that has affiliates in the US and numerous other countries.

DRM 3.0 Has Arrived

Following several conversations with senior executives from several different companies, I've come away from the CES show thinking that the next generation of DRM has arrived. The outlines of DRM 3.0 have been clear for the past several months, but two themes emerged from my various discussions.

The first is that despite the apparent death of DRM in the music world, rights management is being reinvented as network layer and backend sets of processes and services. Network providers will increasingly play traffic cops and apply rules such as "don't allow transmission of the copyrighted material" across our network. Similar functions are being developed / applied in the User Generated Content world (UGC).