Analysis of Technical Methods for Copyright Protection

Preface:

The recent incident where a copyright protected white paper from our firm was made freely available on the web is an issue of concern. Our business model is based on providing customers with details of economics, finance, natural resources, and other critical information about specific global markets in the form of research reports. These reports are made using our vast network of data collection and our extensive number crunching abilities. Availability of the same for free not only undermines our work but also has a crippling impact on our business.

Current set-up:

- All the current reports and documents we deliver to our customers are generated on fly in adobe acrobat pro 8.

-We don’t use password protection to avert copy, print or modification of documents

-No use of digital signatures

-Visible water marks are used at top and bottom of all the pages in a report.

We have relied on our customers to be responsible and self aware to protect the copyrighted material we provide them. The only copyright infringement deterrent we have used so far is a copyright notice included at the end of every report. However since this has failed to act as a deterrent in some cases, I will present a few other options that may be deployed to protect the firms interests.

Soft content protection measures:

Based on the analysis of our current system, the table below lists the options we have to protect the content using soft measures as well as their pros and cons:-

S.No	Soft Measures	Cons	Pros
1	Presenting one page at a time	Frustration for customer Just a deterrent.	Easy to implement
2	Obscuring print or save functionality	Frustration for customer Just a deterrent.	Easy to implement
3	Limit on number of downloads in one session	No control after download, over head of monitoring session info.	Easy to implement
4	License agreement acceptance before download.	No control after download	Deterrent, might work with average user

Table 1.1: Soft content protection measures

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As most of our customers are subscribers and they pay for these reports the first three options are not advisable to the subscriber section, but can and must be implemented for the small section of guest users. The 4^th option of adding a step of accepting Licensing agreement should be implemented globally.

Hard content protection measures:

These options are based on recent developments in technology which will involve use of some form of cryptographic measures. To implement these options further investment in Software solutions and associated Hardware will be needed. Table 1.2 below lists some of the options available.

S.No.	Hard Measures	Cons	Pros
1	Copy Paste prevention	Document as whole can still be shared	Very easy to implement Current acrobat pro supports this
2	Secure container Method	- Require customer side client for access - Current license violation - Does not do license based management(Uses access base management)	Tie document to single machine Password based access control - Use Controls - Specific use actions: copy, paste, save, print, email - Extent of use: amount and duration - Current vs. subsequent use - Individual vs. group
3	DRM solution	- Uses client server authentication (access to network /internet is needed) - Hidden watermarking availability is not specified - Viability in light of current user license agreement.	- Inherits all functionality of TRM o Prevent copy, save print, number of prints - Specify security o Policies, Revocation o Expiration, Auditing o Watermarking(PDF) - Select recipients by: o Individual or Group

Table 1.2: Hard content protection measures

Viable Solution:

A DRM solution will be a good option to implement; I am advocating this solution based on these observations:

- DRM system will give us more control over how and where the research/white papers provided by us are used / accessed.

- We can control number offline views. (No connectivity to our servers necessary).

- User will have the option to buy license if he receives document from other source

- Batch automation of PDF protection and DRM controls - no user input required

- Each download can be linked to specific user

- How many times documents can be viewed

- How long documents can be viewed. (Days, months...)

- Printing documents (including the number of times your documents can be printed)

- Use of Windows print screen and screen grabber applications - stop users taking screen shots of documents.

- Printing to file, email, PDF format (Acrobat distiller, etc.), common image printers, etc. are automatically prevented

- Watermarking will be integral part of the system to prevent print /scan problem

An added advantage will be that the customer will still have the freedom of use within the guidelines of the license agreement, and the system can be implemented in different stages.

We have the option of following two DRM solutions.

1. Adobe LiveCycle Enterprise Suite

2. Lizard Protector web content security

Both of these systems support PDF documents and the first option even supports windows word. Final selection will however depend on the pricing, scalability with our current system and degree of flexibility offered in implementation (partial feature implementation).

References:-

- Eschenfelder, K.R. (2007) Every Library’s Nightmare? Digital Rights Management and Licensed Scholarly Digital Resources. University of Wisconsin-Madison School of library and Information Studies.

- Adobe solutions for digital rights management, www.adobe.com.

- http://www.locklizard.com/digital_rights_management_products.htm

- http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technologies/rightsmgmt/default.mspx