Digital Rights Management

Brian P. BaileySpring 2006

Announcements

• Bin Yu speaking this coming Friday

• Send me HW4, evaluation results, and presentation plans via email–otherwise drop off to Anda Ohlsson (3120)

Presentation Schedule (In order)

• April 28– Victor and Daniel– David and Matt

• May 1– Chris and Jay– Sid and Anshul– Michael and Sangjoon

• 15-20 minutes to present your project

Today’s Goals

• Basics of copyright and patent (IP) law– application of IP law to software

• DRM must balance prevention of copyright infringement with allowing for fair use

• Examine two existing DRM systems– MacroVision for VHS tapes– Apple’s FairPlay technology for ITunes

Basis for U.S. Copyright Law

U.S. Constitution (A1, S8, C8) states:

"Congress shall have power . . . to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries”

Origins of Copyright

• Trace to introduction of printing press in England in late 15th century– control (censor) publication of books– maintain registry of legal books

• 1710, passed law to protect authors’ works – prevent another person from re-producing a book and putting their name on it

Balance Two Competing Goals

• Protect works of an author long enough so the author can obtain financial reward

• Allow access to promote public discourse and progress of science and useful arts

U.S. Copyright Law

• Gives exclusive rights for limited time– reproduce the work, derive new works, distribute copies, perform or display it publicly

– set at life of author plus 70 years

• Applies to “original works of authorship” fixed in tangible medium of expression– literary, dramatic, artistic, musical, pictorial, architectural, etc. works

Who Can Claim Copyright

• Almost anyone, but many special cases– e.g., work was produced in a foreign country, or non-citizen produces work in the U.S.

• Applies as soon as original work is fixed– no formal registration is required– employer almost always owns copyrights

• Ownership does not imply copyright

How to Claim Copyright

• Act of publication with notice of copyright– e.g., “© 2006 Name of Owner”– give reasonable notice of claim of copyright

• Act of registration of unpublished works– establishes date of authorship (thus also recommended for published works)

– register with U.S. Copyright Office

Copyright Does Not Protect:

• Works not fixed in a tangible form

• Ideas, procedures, methods, processes, systems, principles, discoveries, etc.

• Work composed solely of common property with no transformative value

Patents

• Gives patent holder exclusive rights to a disclosed invention for a limited time– time is currently set at 20 years

• Inventions– can be products, methods, processes, apparatus, etc.

– cannot be obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the respective domain

IP Dilemma of Software

• Copyright argument– programming is a form of artistic expression

– no two algorithms programmed the same way

• Patent argument– applications represent software products– software implements processes or methods

Fair Use

• Legal use of copyrighted works for education, research, reporting, etc.– must provide transformative value

• Determined by four factors– purpose and character of the use– nature of the copyrighted work– amount of the copyrighted work used– effect on market value of copyrighted work

Two Perspectives

• Affirmative perspective– allows copying in specific circumstances

• Defensive perspective– defend copyright infringement

Examples of Fair Use

• Citing short passages of a book for a term paper

• Making a backup copy of a CD for personal use

• Song parodies

Technology-enabled Infringement

• Unprecedented speed and reach– beyond what has been previously possible

• Technology enables the circumvention of the concept of copyright protection

• Combat with DRM and punitive legislation

Digital Rights Management

• Mission: protect rights of digital media producers while enabling access for fair use– grant exclusive rights in exchange for disclosure

• Reality: DRM is just protection technology, and is fast eroding our rights of fair use– may never be able to reuse parts of any digital content (documents, film, images, audio, etc.)

– hinders progress of science and the useful arts

Protection Technology

• Any technology designed to prohibit access to a copyrighted work– e.g., algorithms for content encryption

• Protects rights of the author, but– prohibits fair use– prohibits public access– never expires

Digital Millennium Copyright Act

• Illegal to develop or distribute any mechanism to circumvent protections– e.g., demonstrating weaknesses in encryption algorithms or posting algorithm to a website

• Education and research on DRM may become dormant for fear of lawsuits– allowed only via exceptions to the DMCA

Research Paradox

• Develop more sophisticated methods to encrypt digital media content

• Erodes our rights to use digital media

MacroVision (1985-)

• Copy protection technique for VHS tapes• Inserts special signals into the vertical blanking interval of NTSC protocol– affects automatic gain control in most VCRs, but is ignored by most televisions

– difficult to remove from the original signal

• Makes subsequent recordings shake and have periods of bright and dark frames

Apple’s FairPlay Technology

• DRM for iTunes– playing, recording, and sharing of files

• Moves beyond “protection only”– allows media to be shared among devices– allows others to listen to (but not copy) music

– allows music to be burned to an audio CD, which loses the DRM protection

How FairPlay Works

• iTunes uses encrypted MP4 audio files

• Acquire decryption key by trying to play song – player generates a unique ID – sends this ID to the iTunes server– if there are fewer than N authorizations in your account, the server responds with decryption key

• The decryption key itself is encrypted so cannot be given to another machine

Discussion

• Is FairPlay too lenient, too stringent, or just about right?

• What is your experience with this DRM?

• What happens if Apple decides to stop supporting FairPlay?