1. The document discusses how digital rights management (DRM) and copyright law are struggling to adapt to changes brought by digital technologies and the internet. 2. DRM aims to control digital content like physical artifacts but offers an inflexible solution that prevents fair use and cannot distinguish between commercial and non-commercial use. 3. A new approach called Fair Rights Management is proposed, which would incorporate a user's social network and allow flexible business rules and fair use while distinguishing commercial from non-commercial use.

1. DRM in the Digital Age DRM and Copyright The Creator/Consumer Conundrum Fair Rights Management as as Enabler Liam Ó Móráin

2. Innovations over the ages have greatly changed the relationship between creators and consumers of content from an experience of “a few” to one of “many”. DRM and Copyright Limited ability to produce, reproduce, and distribute widely in bygone days Innovations from the printing press, foundries, computers, and the internet has dramatically enabled and facilitated the (faster and economical) production, reproduction, distribution, and redistribution of objects Over time laws and norms were developed to protect the creators and owners of products and inventions Copying was excluded from copyright until 1909 when a US law included it. 100 years on, copyright is the “default”, creating a complex world for managing the creation and consumption of content especially in the digital world Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a broad church of technologies trying to help manage this complex world spanning art and commerce DRM is controversial; fundamental on one side; anti-competitive the other

4. DRM and Copyright Advanced computing power has made content creation and manipulation easy A plethora of new devices make it increasingly easy to view and experience digital content any where any time Easy to access, modify, reproduce, or repurpose digital content Cost of storing and accessing content getting cheaper all the time A multitude of market niches can now be served through the Long Tail Once content has a digital manifest, it can be replicated and (re)distributed ad infinitum New business models, new technologies, new approaches needed to address a new world. New opportunities await! Technology has completely and irrevocable changed the methods and dynamics of creating and distributing digital copyright material New approaches and new technologies needed that is fair to creators, owners, and consumers of content

5. DRM and Copyright DRM today is a sledge hammer-type technical solution Different and often contradictory needs across the creator/consumer spectrum that cannot be catered for by today’s DRM Original aim of DRM was to make digital artifacts more like physical artifacts DRM offers an absolute rather than a flexible solution DRM reinforces the worst vagaries of the copyright system DRM adds complexity DRM can’t distinguish between commercial and non-commercial use DRM today is technology enforcement part of the Copyright System Most critically DRM today prevents lawful “fair use”

6. DRM and Copyright Laws and customs based on the physical world regarding art and commerce Copyright law confers ownership, therefore control needed both for commercial and non-commercial use Copyright holders have power to veto use, therefore they must also worry about misuse Since DRM technology can be circumvented, process dictates a “command and control”, all or nothing, approach to enforcement DRM is a tool not the complete solution to copyright There are many fundamental problems with DRM as currently used. Control is the mantra. Sometimes less control can make sound business sense

7. DRM and Copyright We have been warned before! DRM manages “freedom” the same way a prison system manages freedom - very restrictive

8. Creator/Consumer Conundrum A copyright system that is cognisant of, and deferential towards, the needs of the main actors within the creator/consumer spectrum is needed A system needs to address the digital realities of the 21st Century Consumer Creator Chasm Consumer Creator Ownership - corporate or otherwise Control Collaboration Community Revenue identification, sharing, distribution Commercial & Non-commercial use Derivative works Unencumbered by the letter of current copyright system

9. Creator/Consumer Conundrum Lawrence Lessig presented this to help bring clarity to a vexing problem (Remix, L Lessig, Nov 08, Penguin Press) The inability of the copyright system and therefore of DRM to distinguish between commercial and non-commercial use is a fundamental deterrent to creating a system for the 21st Century European and US legislators need to drive the “legal” update. free ©/free Amateur ©/free © Professional Remix “ Copies”

10. Fair Rights Management (FRM) DRM today does not distinguish between commercial and non-commercial use DRM today prevents lawful “fair use” DRM today doesn’t encode the business wishes or rules of the licensor and cannot enforce its downstream use DRM today is unable to offer “fair use” functionality as it doesn’t know a user’s social network DRM today is rigid whereas flexibility and adoptability is needed DRM of the future needs to address the above limitations and include “fair use” functionality as standard Distinguishing between commercial and non-commercial use is a key requirement of any future copyright system Fair Rights Management™ is a key requirement of users.

11. Fair Rights Management (FRM) SeDiCi - Se cure Di gital C redent i als Incorporates a user’s social network into DRM Adds flexible and expandable business rules across the creator/consumer spectrum including a user’s social network Enables enforcement Greatly enhance current DRM offerings Critically enables Fair Rights Management™ (FRM) and differentiates between commercial and non-commercial use Funded by SFI and Enterprise Ireland Is an innovative and breakthrough patent-pending technology SeDiCi is a technology being developed at DERI in NUI Galway that enable FRM™ SeDiCi through its FRM™ technology brings DRM and Copyright into the 21st Century `