Sony is testing a new method of Digital Rights Management (DRM) based on blockchain technology. The same technology that powers cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Initially the blockchain-DRM is tested on educational content from Sony's Global Education division. For as now the content only consists of written material.
DRM is a form of copy protection that should prevent distribution of copyright protected material without the consent of the copyright holder. Nowadays, copyright holders have to implement their own form of copyright protection or outsource it to special companies. DRM is implemented on movies, software, games and ebooks.
Usage of DRM is controversial because it sometimes also prevents legitimate users from accessing content, e.g. because they lost a license key or the DRM provider goes bankrupt, making the content inaccessible.
By implementing blockchain technology, Sony hopes to remove those obstacles and make it easier for anyone to implement DRM. This is possible because in the blockchain, users form a large decentralized network themselves. All data is stored in a logbook, from which everyone receives a copy that is always compared with the other logbooks.
“This newly-developed system is specialized for managing rights-related information of written works, with features for demonstrating the date and time that electronic data was created, leveraging the properties of blockchains to record verifiable information in a difficult to falsify way, and identifying previously recorded works, allowing participants to share and verify when a piece of electronic data was created and by whom,” Sony explains in its press release announcing the new technology.
When the technology works as intended, Sony might also use the blockchain-DRM to manage the digital rights of music, films, VR content, and e-books.
