INTRODUCTION
Is there a future for printed books and publications? Or will the emergence of digital space, with its e-books and e-reading tools, take centre stage? This discussion has been simmering among readers, academics, and scholars for a while.
The market for e-readers is expected to reach $16.93 billion by 2035, up from $8.46 billion in 2024. Since e-readers have completely changed how we read and learn, there is a greater need for digital books and publications in general. By making many e-books available for students to use at their discretion, several e-platforms have also made education affordable, accessible, and environmentally responsible.
However, as the amount of digital space grows, we also see a notable growth in cybercrime, which includes theft, evading electronic security measures, unapproved distribution, copying, or selling, and even digital piracy. E-books, like printed books and other offline copies, need some tangible intellectual property protection to maintain their high reputation and to ensure the author’s legal rights are upheld.
The authors and publishers are occasionally plagued by escalating worries about e-book piracy and intellectual property theft. As a result, many laws or protection measures have been adopted to address each issue with an equal response.
To protect eBooks from illegal access, distribution, and piracy, several measures have been put in place. It is essential for safeguarding publishers’ and authors’ intellectual property rights while also making sure that authorized users may safely access and enjoy the material.
DRM tools are one crucial method of safeguarding digital publications’ contents. It is the use of technology to regulate access to protected content. DRM, thus helps creators control who sees their work, or how it is shared.
DIGITAL RIGHTS MANAGEMENT
The Internet is a great platform. But creators do worry about their work being shared without permission. Whether it’s a social media post, or any such written document/book abstract published on a virtual platform.
DRM technology is used to protect these e-contents of the users or the rightful owner, thus allowing them to be viewed, accessed, or shared with certain appropriate limitations. It further features such as licensing procedures, access controls, and encryption methods that efficiently manage the usage and distribution of eBooks. In simpler terms, DRM protects copyrighted materials from any unauthorized use.
The protected content under the DRM software could include any digital assets such as books, website content, blogs, journals, or any other written publications.
In brief, this DRM software adds multiple layers of protection to e-books and keeps them safe, secure, and exclusive to authorized users.
But what does it mean for an e-book/digital reading material to be DRM-protected?
- It stops people from unauthorized sharing, editing, and duplicating
- It restricts the usage only to any approved devices
- The content can be read only with specialized software, such as Adobe Digital Editions.
DRM SOLUTIONS (MEASURES ADOPTED)
ENCRYPTION: Think of an e-book like a locked box. Such a lock can be opened only by a certain key (as encryption in the case of e-books). DRM serves as a lock to such e-book materials, where the key to open and view such books are decryption key. Without this key, the e-books remain unreadable. Thus, DRM keeps e-books safe from people who shouldn’t be reading or sharing them.
AUTHORIZATION: To decode this special key to e-books, the users need to prove that they are authorized to do so. Hence, here comes the username and password system.
ACCESS CONTROL: Authors and publishers can manage who has access to their e-books. This allows them to limit access to authorized users and enables any content creators and copyright holders to prevent or restrict users from editing or saving, sharing or forwarding, printing, or taking screenshots of their content or write-ups.
USAGE LIMITATIONS: Publishers can set usage limits using DRM software, including the number of access devices, the number of views, the duration for which the information is available, or whether they can be downloaded or printed.
WATERMARKING: A top-notch and highly secure DRM system adds a hidden watermark to the e-books. These watermarks can only be identified by any authorized users, authors, publishers, or readers.
FIXED LOCATIONS: This advanced DRM feature restricts e-book features to a specified geographical location. This could be any school, country, library, or city. Here publishers gain control over distribution and content protection.
This is an advanced form of DRM that restricts the e-book’s use to a particular area (IP address or range), which could be a country, a school, a library, etc. Hence, it gives a publisher greater flexibility in controlling e-books and their contents.
AN ILLUSTRATION
AMAZON DRM KINDLE FOR E-BOOKS
- Restricts any printing copying, or converting of such books
- Requires devices to have a special key or be linked to an Amazon account
- It looks any e-books to approved devices (like apps)
This prevents any unauthorized use, access, sharing, or copying of e-book data.
LEGAL MEASURES
DRM solutions for protecting e-content are recognized and protected by intellectual property laws worldwide. They are a standardized and lawful method of safeguarding writers, creators, or even publishers’ rights over digital media, including e-books, especially under copyright laws. The production and distribution of tools used for DRM circumvention, as well as communication about such circumvention, are all illegal under the laws of several nations.
Hence legally, the users aren’t allowed to:
- Access any restricted content without authorization
- Copy or distribute protected content without permission
- Modify or tamper with protected content
- Disable or remove any DRM protections
Several international treaties and laws recognize DRM technology and IP protection under the purview of copyright laws:
WIPO COPYRIGHT TREATY
Article 11 of the WCT states that the contracting states must restrict actions about their works that are not approved by the authors in question or allowed by law, as well as offer sufficient legal protection and effective legal remedies against the circumvention of effective technological measures used by authors in connection with the exercise of their rights under the WCT or the Berne Convention.
Article 12 provides for the member states to provide sufficient and efficient legal sanctions against anybody who willfully causes, permits, facilitates, or conceals the removal or alteration of any digital rights management information without any authorization.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), 1998, The DMCA forbids the manufacture, import, sale, or other trafficking of any product, service, device, component, or part that is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumvention or that has a limited use other than circumvention as described. It also prohibits the circumvention of technologies that effectively control access to works protected.
EUROPEAN UNION
According to the EU regulation, member states must offer sufficient legal protection against the evasion of any technological measures intended to stop or limit actions that are not permitted by the copyright holders.
INDIA
The Copyright (Amendment) Act of 2012, included Sections 65A and 65B, which further authorize and safeguard the measures of DRM. Under these provisions, unauthorized dissemination, change, or modification of the DRM system is punished by up to two years in prison and a fine.
WRAP-UP
A prudent approach to copyright protection for digital media, DRM helps to limit how readers can reproduce content they have read/purchased and thus prohibits any illegal redistribution of digital media/ e-books in any geographical region or virtual space. Using DRM software helps prevent unauthorized users from accessing content, regardless of how it is accessed. It is often used by publishers to safeguard digital products like e-books, academic papers, or, scholarly articles. It helps to restrict the number of devices that can view their material and to manage access. Hence, DRM preserves copyright compliance while enabling the safe dissemination of digital textbooks and course materials in the educational sector. Creators or owners of digital books can earn money off of their online work as long as it is securely stored and handled. By preventing any unlawful and unauthorized copying, altering, storing, and sharing of any section of e-books, DRM safeguards the intellectual property rights of the author/publisher. Further, it also assists authors in informing readers of the acceptable and prohibited uses of materials by the applicable copyright laws. To conclude, we can make an impression that DRM serves as a methodological measure to protect the intellectual property of an individual for any form of digital assets. Today, where high-resolution, paper-free, and adaptable ways of reading are a new lifestyle of this and upcoming generations, the need for adapting high-tech digital protections under the umbrella of legal provisions becomes a necessity to safeguard IP rights.
Author(s) Name: Somya Ojha (The University of Burdwan)
