by Philip G. Coggin

Created on: January 07, 2009   Last Updated: January 05, 2011

Software protection /Antipiracy

Digital Rights Management

Never could a topic be so important as it is right now, especially to those of us who buy music or play games on a pretty regular basis.

Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a supposed means of protection for those that record/write software/market software and/or recordings or indeed any company or artist that intends to make a profit for either their own efforts or the paid for efforts of others.

Having said that DRM is there to protect those rights of the producers (Hereafter anyone who makes profit from any product shall be known as producers, whether they are the artist or commissioners of a product) but along with that protection has come some very strange and wholly unimaginative side effects, putting this form of protection into use is a very contentious thing to do.

This form of copyright protection has reduced the usage of music in many cases; for example, some music you may buy now may well have limited player usability and or limited time usability, with other potential unforeseen difficulties for the user.

It may also be the case that if PC games or consoles games are your idea of pleasure, then these may have several restrictions placed upon them too, you may only play or record some games to specific machines, that you have registered perhaps with the software manufacturer, these restriction may be one two or a specified number or type of machines.

It is now clear that this form of protection has caused the consumer a great deal of hardship, apart from the restrictions it can also in many cases actually prevent the use of some products totally.

This has lead to a large proportion of material being returned as either being unsuitable for use or simply unable to be used as is intended when purchased.

Some of these restrictions mean that the buyer of some software can only actually install it a set number of times then the medium it is recorded upon is rendered unusable.

I am absolutely certain that many companies now feel that they should not have gone down the road of DRM but they have invested large sums of money to protect their investments/products, many companies have tried to alter or change the DRM protection but no matter how they make these changes, the problems seen to never actually go away, as they remove one problem another or other problems seem to replace them.

Several producers have actually abandoned DRM and sell without protection altogether.

If you read the computer magazines

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