Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a technology that allows service and content providers to distribute and sell digital content in a secure way. The content is encrypted and packaged with a license that is enforced before playback is allowed. This thesis covers how a DRM system works and gives some cryptographic background. It also shows how Microsoft DRM for Network Devices can be implemented on an ip-based set-top box.

Abstract Nowadays, content is increasingly in digital form and distributed in the Internet. The ease of making perfect copies of the digital content has created a need to develop a means to protect it. Digital rights management (DRM) relates to systems designed to protect the intellectual property rights of the digital content. The DRM systems try to enable a secure distribution of digital content to the users and to prevent the unauthorized copying, usage, and distribution of the content. This is usually done in practice using encryption and digital watermarking techniques. This thesis concentrates on the problem of protecting and distributing multimedia content securely in mobile environment. The research objectives are: (1) to design an overall DRM architecture which allows an easy content distribution to the user in mobile environment; (2) to develop protection methods that can be used in mobile devices with limited computational capabilities to prevent unauthorized usage of the audio content; (3) to create methods for managing and enforcing the user’s rights and restrictions to the content usage; (4) to study a method for providing the users with an easy access to new digital content and services. The research is carried out by first developing an overall DRM platform to mobile environment. The experimental prototype of the platform is implemented on server side to PC environment and the client runs on a mobile phone. The platform is used to test the functionality and complexity of the content protection methods developed which are based on digital watermarking and encryption techniques. The main results of the thesis are: (1) a DRM platform for mobile devices that supports peer-to-peer networking and license negotiation; (2) audio protection methods utilizing digital watermarking and encryption techniques which support content superdistribution and content preview; (3) methods for counting offline how many times content has been played on the user’s terminal using watermarking and hash chains; (4) a method for adding metadata, such as a web link, into audio content, so that it survives digital to analog to digital transformation and recording with a mobile phone.

Abstract Broadband communication networks and multimedia data available in a digital format opened many challenges and opportunities for innovation. Versatile and simple-to-use software and decreasing prices of digital devices have made it possible for consumers from all around the world to create and exchange multimedia data. Broadband Internet connections and near error-free transmission of data facilitate people to distribute large multimedia files and make identical digital copies of them. A perfect reproduction in digital domain have promoted the protection of intellectual ownership and the prevention of unauthorized tampering of multimedia data to become an important technological and research issue. Digital watermarking has been proposed as a new, alternative method to enforce intellectual property rights and protect digital media from tampering. Digital watermarking is defined as imperceptible, robust and secure communication of data related to the host signal, which includes embedding into and extraction from the host signal. The main challenge in digital audio watermarking and steganography is that if the perceptual transparency parameter is fixed, the design of a watermark system cannot obtain high robustness and a high watermark data rate at the same time. In this thesis, we address three research problems on audio watermarking: First, what is the highest watermark bit rate obtainable, under the perceptual transparency constraint, and how to approach the limit? Second, how can the detection performance of a watermarking system be improved using algorithms based on communications models for that system? Third, how can overall robustness to attacks to a watermark system be increased using attack characterization at the embedding side? An approach that combined theoretical consideration and experimental validation, including digital signal processing, psychoacoustic modeling and communications theory, is used in developing algorithms for audio watermarking and steganography. The main results of this study are the development of novel audio watermarking algorithms, with the state-of-the-art performance and an acceptable increase in computational complexity. The algorithms' performance is validated in the presence of the standard watermarking attacks. The main technical solutions include algorithms for embedding high data rate watermarks into the host audio signal, using channel models derived from communications theory for watermark transmission and the detection and modeling of attacks using attack characterization procedure. The thesis also includes a thorough review of the state-of-the-art literature in the digital audio watermarking.

Content distribution networks deliver content like videos, apps, and music to users through servers deployed in multiple datacenters to increase availability and delivery speed of content. The motivation of this work is to create a content distribution network that maintains a consumer’s rights and access to works they have purchased indefinitely. If a user purchases content from a traditional content distribution network, they lose access to the content when the service is no longer available. The system uses a peer to peer network for content distribution along with a blockchain for digital rights management. This combination may give users indefinite access to purchased works. The system benefits content rights owners because they can sell their content in a lower cost manner by distributing costs among the community of peers.

With the rapid growth of the internet and digital media techniques over the last decade, multimedia data such as images, video and audio can easily be copied, altered and distributed over the internet without any loss in quality. Therefore, protection of ownership of multimedia data has become a very significant and challenging issue. Three novel image watermarking algorithms have been designed and implemented for copyright protection. The first proposed algorithm is based on embedding multiple watermarks in the blue channel of colour images to achieve more robustness against attacks. The second proposed algorithm aims to achieve better trade-offs between imperceptibility and robustness requirements of a digital watermarking system. It embeds a watermark in adaptive manner via classification of DCT blocks with three levels: smooth, edges and texture, implemented in the DCT domain by analyzing the values of AC coefficients. The third algorithm aims to achieve robustness against geometric attacks, which can desynchronize the location of the watermark and hence cause incorrect watermark detection. It uses geometrically invariant feature points and image normalization to overcome the problem of synchronization errors caused by geometric attacks. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithms are robust and outperform related techniques found in literature.

Les Digital Rights Management systems (DRMs) sont des outils privés de protection contre les copies non autorisées et de versionnage des biens culturels numériques. Leur protection légale a constitué l'adaptation principale du copyright et du droit d'auteur dans l'environnement numérique. Dans cette thèse, nous décrivons tout d'abord de façon détaillée l'histoire économique, technologique et juridique des DRMs et de la distribution de musique en ligne aux Etats-Unis et en France, jusqu'au mois de janvier 2009. Cet historique nous permet de mettre en lumière l'évolution surprenante des DRMs dans la distribution de musique en ligne, portés aux nues avant d'être décriés, à la fois comme outils de protection contre la copie, comme outils de versionnage et comme outils juridiques. Nous examinons, selon trois démarches analytiques distinctes, la logique économique de l'utilisation par les maisons de disques des DRMs comme outils de protection contre la copie, puis comme outils de versionnage et, enfin, la logique économique du choix juridique de la protection légale des DRMs comme adaptation principale du copyright et du droit d'auteur dans l'environnement numérique.

<p>The aim of this report is to examine if existing Digital Rights Management systems are useful and satisfying to the consumer, copyright owner and distributor. If not, is it possible to design a useful and satisfying Digital Rights Management system? </p><p>During the past few years, copyright owners of music, movies and other media have seen how piracy has increased with the introduction of affordable broadband technology. Record and movie corporations have pushed for a solution to piracy and one of them is Digital Rights Management. They want their customers to pay for and then enjoy the digital media but at the same time protect the rights of the copyright owner. That is what Digital Rights Management is all about; protect the copyright owner while allowing the consumer to enjoy their digital media. Digital Rights Management can restrict the users rights to copy and transfer the contents to other devices as well as restrict the number of times a user is allowed to use the media. </p><p>The present DRM systems are focusing on preventing digital media from being freely distributed by limiting the ability to copy or move the media. This puts limitations on fair use such as making personal copies of music. Copyright owners and distributors want more consumers to discover DRM, but so far, the consumers have shown little interest. </p><p>This report is based on various resources on the Internet such as white papers on Digital Rights Management, our own experimentation and on Microsoft Media Rights Management SDK documentation. </p><p>We do not believe it is possible to design a DRM system that consumers, copyright owners and distributors are satisfied with. It is not possible to combine the demands of copyright owners and the consumers’ claims of fair use.</p>

<p>Trusted Computing Platform Alliance (TCPA), now known as Trusted Computing Group (TCG), is a trusted computing initiative created by IBM, Microsoft, HP, Compaq, Intel and several other smaller companies. Their goal is to create a secure trusted platform with help of new hardware and software. TCG have developed a new chip, the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) that is the core of this initiative, which is attached to the motherboard. An analysis is made on the TCG’s specifications and a summary is written of the different parts and functionalities implemented by this group. Microsoft is in the development stage for an operating system that can make use of TCG’s TPM and other new hardware. This initiative of the operating system is called NGSCB (Next Generation Secure Computing Base) former known as Palladium. This implementation makes use of TCG’s main functionalities with a few additions. An analysis is made on Microsoft’s NGSCB specifications and a summary is written of how this operating system will work. NGSCB is expected in Microsoft’s next operating system Longhorn version 2 that will have its release no sooner than 2006. Intel has developed hardware needed for a trusted platform and has come up with a template on how operating system developers should implement their OS to make use of this hardware. TCG’s TPM are also a part of the system. This system is called LaGrande. An analysis is also made on this trusted computing initiative and a sum up of it is written. This initiative is very similar to NGSCB, but Microsoft and Intel are not willing to comment on that. DRM (Digital Rights Management) is a technology that protects digital content (audio, video, documents, e-books etc) with rights. A DRM system is a system that manages the rights connected to the content and provides security for those by encryption. First, Microsoft’s RMS (Rights Management System) that controls the rights of documents within a company is considered. Second, a general digital media DRM system is considered that handles e-commerce for digital content. Analysis and discussion are made on what effects TC (Trusted Computing) and DRM could result in for home users, companies and suppliers of TC hardware and software. The different questions stated in the problemformulation is also discussed and considered. There are good and bad effects for every group but if TC will work as stated today, then the pros will outweigh the cons. The same goes for DRM on a TC platform. Since the benefits outweights the drawbacks, we think that TC should be fullfilled and taken into production. TC and DRM provides a good base of security and it is then up to the developers to use this in a good and responsible way.</p>

Για την προστασία της χρήσης ψηφιακών αντικειμένων έχουν αναπτυχθεί διάφορα συστήματα Ψηφιακής Διαχείρισης Δικαιωμάτων (Digital Rights Management). Υπάρχουν πολλές τεχνολογικές λύσεις που μειονεκτούν όμως όσον αφορά τη μεταξύ τους διαλειτουργικότητα. Το Motion Pictures Expert Group με το τελευταίο του πρότυπο MPEG-21 δημιουργεί ένα πλαίσιο που διευκολύνει την διαλειτουργικότητα των εφαρμογών αυτών. Στο μέρος 5 του προτύπου αναπτύσει ένα πρότυπο για μία γλώσσα έκφρασης δικαιωμάτων (Rights Expression Language). Αντικείμενο της εργασίας είναι ένα πρόγραμμα υπολογιστή που υλοποιεί τον πυρήνα αυτού του προτύπου και επιλεγμένα χαρακτηριστικά του. Κατά τη λειτουργία του ικανοποιεί την αίτηση του χρήστη για την παραγωγή μίας MPEG-21 άδειας χρήσης. Η έγκριση και παραγωγή της άδειας εξαρτάται από τους κανόνες λειτουργίας (business rules) που έχουν τροφοδοτηθεί στην εφαρμογή. / For the protection of digital items eist many diverse DRM technologies. MPEG has ndertaken the effort to provide interoperability for such systems as part of mpeg-21 effort. The object of this work is a piece of computer software that realizes the authorization algorithm of mpeg21 part5 and issues a mpeg21 license. It also supports the variables mechanism defined in mpeg21 part5

Zugl.: Frankfurt (Main), Univ., Diss., 2007