Digital Rights Management: Technological, Economic, Legal and Political Aspects

Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a topic of interest to a wide range of people from various backgrounds: engineers and technicians, legal academics and lawyers, economists and business practitioners. The two conferences on the issue held in 2000 and 2002 in Berlin, Germany, brought these people together for fruitful discussions. This book continues this process by providing insights into the three main areas that DRM in?uences and that DRM is influenced by: technology, economics, and law and politics. Looking at the first results of the two conferences we would like to emphasize three aspects. Firstly, DRM is a fairly young topic with many issues still - resolved. Secondly, there is still an acute lack of objective information about DRM and the consequences of using (or not using) DRM in our Information Society. And, finally, only open discussions amongst all the interested parties and people from different scientific and practical backgrounds can help to create a foundation on which DRM can actually become useful.