Summary
This post provides a structured analysis of digital rights management, outlining its role in safeguarding copyrights in the digital environment. It discusses key DRM functionalities and highlights international legal frameworks, including the WIPO Copyright Treaty, DMCA, and European directives. The post also details Indian copyright law, specifically Sections 65A and 65B, which address DRM circumvention and rights management information. The analysis underscores the significance of these provisions for industries relying on DRM to prevent infringement and ensure proper use of digital content.
What is Digital Rights Management?
Laws alone cannot eliminate copyright infringements. For copyright law to take its course, there must be effective detection of infringements and identification of infringers. As with any property rights, owners of copyrighted content are expected to take certain measures to protect their copyrights before relying on law enforcement. Digital Rights Management (DRM) and effective technological measures (ETMs) are among the tools a copyright owner is expected to deploy to protect copyrights in the digital environment.
The term Digital Rights Management broadly refers to a set of policies, techniques and tools that guide proper use of digital content. A DRM system manages the appropriate use of content. Its major functionalities include: packaging raw content into an appropriate form for distribution and tracking; protecting content for tamper-proof transmission; guarding content from unauthorised use; and enabling specification of rights that define the modes of content consumption. DRM systems also facilitate delivery of content offline on CDs and DVDs, on-demand delivery over peer-to-peer networks, enterprise networks, or the internet, and provide means of determining the authenticity of content and rendering devices. Common controlled access techniques include encryption, electronic signatures, and digital watermarking.
International Legal Framework
Article 11 of the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) requires member nations to enact laws against DRM circumvention, and has been implemented in most member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization. The American implementation is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), while in Europe the treaty was implemented by the 2001 European directive on copyright, which requires member states of the European Union to implement legal protections for technological prevention measures. In 2006, the lower house of the French parliament adopted such legislation as part of the DADVSI law, but added that protected DRM techniques should be made interoperable. The Tribunal de Grande Instance Paris concluded in 2006 that the complete blocking of any possibilities of making private copies was an impermissible behaviour under French copyright law.
The Indian Position
In India, Sections 65A and 65B were introduced by the Copyright Amendment Act, 2012 to address circumvention of DRM and ETMs. Section 65A provides that any person who circumvents any effective technological measure applied for the purpose of protecting any of the rights conferred by the Act with the intention of infringing such rights shall be punishable with imprisonment which may extend to two years and shall also be liable to fine. Section 65B provides that any person who knowingly removes or alters any rights management information without authority, or distributes, imports for distribution, broadcasts, or communicates to the public without authority copies of any work or performance knowing that electronic rights management information has been removed or altered without authority, shall be punishable with imprisonment which may extend to two years and shall also be liable to pay fine. Civil remedies are also available. These provisions are of particular value to the electronic publishing industry, music industry, and gaming industry, where authors rely on DRM systems to protect against infringement.
Disclaimer
This article is for general information and does not constitute legal advice. Readers should consult a qualified attorney before acting on any matter discussed here.