Digital Rights Management Guide

In the fall, I completed an online course on Digital Content Management (being offered again in the spring). So anything on the topic attracts my attention.

The American Library Association just came out with a new publication entitled Digital Rights Management: A Guide for Librarians.

"(D)igital rights management is a collective name for technologies that prevent you from using a copyrighted digital work beyond the degree to which the copyright owner (or a publisher who may not actually hold a copyright) wishes to allow you to use it. The primary purpose of this paper is to familiarize librarians, archivists, and others with DRM and how it works. Secondarily, this paper will outline certain legal and policy issues that are raised by DRM -- issues that will continue to have an increasing impact on the ways in which librarians and libraries perform their functions. To put the matter bluntly -- understanding the basics of DRM is becoming a necessary part of the work of librarians."

Another excellent guide was created by the Australian government Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. It is called A Guide to Digital Rights Management.

For a Canadian perspective on digital rights management, see the DRM section of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic website.