Digital Rights Management

1. Digital Rights Management Brian P. BaileySpring 2006

2. Announcements • Bin Yu speaking this coming Friday • Send me HW4, evaluation results, and presentation plans via email • otherwise drop off to Anda Ohlsson (3120)

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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”

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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of copyright • e.g., “© 2006 Name of Owner” • give reasonable notice of claim of copyright • Act of registration of unpublished works • establishes date of authorship (thus also recommended for published works) • register with U.S. Copyright Office

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. Two Perspectives • Affirmative perspective • allows copying in specific circumstances • Defensive perspective • defend copyright infringement

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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

19. 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

20. 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

21. Research Paradox • Develop more sophisticated methods to encrypt digital media content • Erodes our rights to use digital media

22. 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

23. 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

24. 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

25. 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?