Decentralising the digital rights management value chain by means of distributed license catalogues

Abstract

Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems' interoperability is becoming one of the main obstacles for their wider adoption, especially from medium and small size users. Interoperability issues affect, among others, the management of content usage rules by third parties (authorities) and the automation of licensing procedures upon the purchase of digital content. The fundamental question of who is handling content licenses in the national or global DRM value chain is complex, with business, social and technological extensions. In this paper, we discuss current trends in DRM systems technology and business modelling and briefly present a proposal for handling digital content licensing, Distributed License Catalogues (DLCs). The DLC concept, borrowed from web engineering, makes available ("advertises") content or services concerning DRM functionalities, enabling multi-party DRM eco-systems. © 2006 International Federation for Information Processing.