Features of DRM

Digital rights management is, of course, about more than just protecting music and movies. DRM is a technology all of us would like to use in certain circumstances. For example, when I send my Social Security Number to my bank, I'd like to be able to control how it is used. As another example, wouldn't it be nice to be able to send your credit card number to an online merchant and attach specific rights to it: the right to use it to facilitate a single purchase and not be stored or transferred. All of us have digital information that we'd like to be able to send to someone else without giving them unlimited rights.

SealedMedia, a DRM vendor, lists some important features that DRM systems should have to be effective.

A perfect DRM system with all of these features does not exist. You will likely have to prioritize these properties for your particular application and evaluate solutions on that basis. The next section describes a reference architecture that shows how some of these features can be accommodated.