Managing digital rights

Digital rights management is a hot topic in the entertainment business as record and movie companies try to figure out how to protect their content from piracy and mass distribution by way of file-sharing services such as Kazaa and Morpheus. But DRM does more than protect movies and music. It also can have a profound effect on the way corporate data is used and shared.

DRM is not necessarily a single product or service, but a means of extending corporate security to digital content that is easy to move around. The premise behind DRM is relatively simple: Users are given rights to a piece of content based on certain conditions (such as they can view it once, for a set period of time, or can use it only on a particular machine or device).

Data format. Various types of data (documents, spreadsheets, rich media) need to be secured in corporations. "[Organizations] should take inventory of those formats and make sure the technology that's picked can cover all of them," says Paul Rettig, director of digital media development at IBM. "You don't want five or six different solutions to cover all the areas you need to protect."

When thinking about what product, vendor or service to use in a DRM implementation, Rettig says it's important that the ability to define rights is generic across all media types. With that said, there will always be some idiosyncrasies on how those rights are managed and implemented based on the delivery method and format. For instance, streaming media files could have a right that says whether they can be saved after they're streamed or not, where a document can be read-only or read-write-print.

Puzzle pieces. Any DRM system put in place needs to be integrated with the existing enterprise infrastructure, including file management systems, databases, e-mail and Web servers.

"You're going to need some sort of database if you're going to be managing licenses and accounts. And if you're going to issue passwords via e-mail, you'll need an e-mail server to send users something," says Ezra Davidson, co-founder and vice president of business development at SyncCast, a content delivery and DRM service provider. "Think about how you're going to issue licenses and what type of server and complementary technology within your enterprise you may need. It's like if you buy a new car, you still need the gas to run it."

Support the user. Rettig says that like any type of security infrastructure, you need the right support to manage problems such as lost passwords or transitioning workers. When DRM locks a piece of content to a specific PC or person, what happens when a user gets a new PC or the worker takes a new position? The license needs to be moved to the machine or employee taking over the job task.

At Jane's Information Group, a Alexandria, Va., company that publishes titles such as "Jane's Fighting Ships," offers access to its online library on an individual and corporate basis. Jane's would like to be able to offer a single logon to an individual that also contains the rights that person's employer might have paid for as well, says Lisa Koenigsberg, eServices manager at Jane's.