Digital rights management (DRM) is any system used by producers, publishers, and vendors to embed technological controls on what users can do with electronic files – ebooks, movies on DVDs, and other media. Specifically, DRM systems are designed both to enable access and use of digital materials and to restrict copying, sharing, reformatting or otherwise changing electronic media. These restrictions can range from “active” DRM, which marries ebooks to a brand of ereader to more “passive” DRM, like watermarking a digital file with the purchaser’s name and email address. A familiar example of DRM employed in libraries is the patron library card that uniquely identifies a library user authorized to check out a book.
What are the Legal Ramifications of DRM?
DRM can be used to make unauthorized copying more difficult. In the U.S., the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA) makes circumvention of technological protection measures like DRM, a civil offense, and when done for commercial purposes, a federal crime. Some kinds of copying are legal under copyright law. However it is not certain whether bypassing technological protection measures to move an ebook from one ereader platform to another is. While many DRM methods and structures can be easily thwarted by tech savvy users, many of these acts of circumvention are violations of the DMCA.
For example, even though Barnes & Noble’s Nook and Apple’s iBooks both use EPUB files, they use different DRM. A Nook ebook can’t be read in iBooks and vice versa. Consumers who own iPads must use the Nook app to access Barnes & Noble ebooks. DRM can also restrict what libraries and consumers can do with their ebooks. DRM can be used by vendors to automatically delete files after a loan period has ended. This maintains the “one reader, one ebook” lending model. DRM can also be used to restrict readers from loaning an ebook they have purchased to someone else, or it can be used to only allow them to loan a purchased ebook a certain number of times