Research Guides: E-books: Digital Rights Management (DRM)

Overview

Digital Rights Management, or DRM - Definitions & Explanations

"The purpose of Digital Rights Management (DRM) is to control access to, track and limit uses of digital works. These controls are
normally imbedded in the work and accompany it when it is distributed to the consumer." - American Library Association

Digital Locks: The pros, cons, and future of DRM
Source: CBC News
Date: 8/7/2009
Perspectives on DRM: Between digital rights management and digital restrictions management
Source: Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology
Date: 2/16/2010
Intellectual Property Rights
Source: Encyclopedia of Management
Date: 2006

Pro-DRM

A Book Author Wonders How to Fight Piracy [NY Times Blog]
"I’m not going to write more books if the revenues will be wiped out by pirates."
Authors and owners: the invention of copyright [Harvard Univ Press]
The notion of the author as the creator and therefore the first owner of a work is deeply rooted both in our economic system and in our concept of the individual.
Study: E-Book Piracy is on the Rise [ReadWriteWeb citing Attributor study]

Anti-DRM

Information Communication Technologies and Framing for Backfire in the Digital Rights Movement [Social Science Computer Review]
In 2001, Dmitry Sklyarov was arrested for his role in designing the Advanced e-Book Processor, the software that cracked Adobe’s e-Book encryption. ...[T]his article focuses on the case of Sklyarov’s arrest to show how the digital rights movement, using online networks, mobilized activists and framed the event in a manner that led to ‘‘backfire’’ against government prosecutors and Adobe Systems Inc.
DRM promotes e-book piracy, and e-book piracy is on the rise [Teleread citing FuturEBook]