Cambridge-MIT researcher reveals how DRM fails in practice

March 28, 2006

It seems like after several years of trying to fight piracy with DRM and proposing new laws without any major success would give a hint that restricting paying customers is not the correct approach. Well, a senior research manager at the Cambridge-MIT Institute in England, Ian Brown partly covered DRM technologies in his doctoral thesis and reveals how DRM technology is so heavily flawed. When content providers want to restrict content from illegal file sharing, they accept DRM as their answer without considering the issues, never mind trying a new business model.

He explains how DRM is very simple in that the content gets encrypted and possibly watermarked also. However as it must always be converted back to an analogue picture (for video) and audible sound, no matter how sophisticated the DRM may get, determined bootleggers will simply use a microphone and video camera if it means that this is the only way to copy the content and share it. Adding watermarks is currently ineffective either as most watermark algorithms are still primitive, which can be extracted by a motivated programmer.

In fact, the only time he sees DRM to be effective at all is for live events (such as live sport) where the content cannot be easily redistributed until the DRM has been overcome. Unfortunately, no matter how much criticism DRM gets, the industry is simply moving to more sophisticated DRM measures, which mainly target paying customers. For example, Microsoft's upcoming OS, Windows Vista will make use of TPM (Trusted Platform Module) chipsets for hardware level DRM to enforce content restrictions. However, no matter how restrictive they get, they are not even justified by copyright law.

DRM won't protect the music and film industries, which have spent the last decade lobbying for new laws to protect their content but neglected trying to find better ways to monetize their offerings, he said. Bands such as U2 and the Grateful Dead use their music more as a promotional tool, relying on touring and merchandise for revenue, he said.

"It's the business models that need changing, not the technology," said Brown, whose doctoral thesis in part covered DRM technologies. He spoke at the Changing Media Summit in London.

DRM technology is simple but making it work is difficult, Brown said. The data has to be decrypted to be used, and the "analog hole" remains--the ability for determined bootleggers to use a microphone or regular video camera to record content for posting on file-sharing networks.

Besides trying to fight piracy, there may be other reasons behind the use of DRM in music. For example, as some artists rely on their music being heard as a way of promoting concerts, merchandise and so on, there is a good chance that it is only the labels that don't want audio tracks being freely distributed as the means of promoting music, even if some artists are happy to have their music spread around. On the other hand, picking on the paying customers and suing those who try avoiding the restrictions by using P2P just shows the label's way of keeping up their bad business model.

For example, virtually all streets on the road have speed limits and in most countries, it is illegal to drive without a seat belt on or while intoxicated. I have seen a TV program several years ago where they demonstrated a car that can obey the speed limit (based on GPS), require a breath test to start and require the seat belt to be fastened to drive off. However, we don't see car manufacturers putting all these restrictive gadgets into cars. If any try, chances are that these are not going to be good selling points and this is likely why not everyone is suddenly changing over to music download services if they have to face the restrictions. Of course, by cars lacking these restrictions does not mean that all drivers constantly disobey the law, thus the same would likely apply to online stores if the labels would at least try doing away with DRM.