NATIONAL SCHOOL OF POLITICAL STUDIES AND [621295]

NATIONAL SCHOOL OF POLITICAL STUDIES AND
PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

Digital Media Copyright Protectio n
Cyber -security

Student: [anonimizat]: Dr. Ana Maria COSTEA

Bucharest 2020

Digital Media Copyright Protection
2

Contents

Abstract ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………….. 3
1. Introduction ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……… 3
2. Related Work ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……. 4
2.1 Presentation ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …….. 4
2.2 Analysis ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………. 6
3. Solution ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………. 8
3.1 Premises ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………. 8
3.2 Presentation ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …… 10
3.3 Effects Analys is………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. 12
4. Solution Testing ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. . 13
5. Conclusions ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ……. 15
References ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. ………………………….. …………….. 17

Digital Media Copyright Protection
3

Abstract

This paper presents the attempt to contribute to the global struggle of reducing piracy by
offering an original solution to the issue. The idea behind the solution is to merge the
advantages of the current related work and to provide alternatives to the involved weaknesses.
So, the solution is produced after a thorough analysis, as a compilation of the current assets
and also tries to bring innovation when gathering the assets in an efficient and suitable way.
The effects of the proposed solution were accurately analyzed, and the conclusions are
highlighted so as to serve as a guideline for future researches.
Keywords: Digital media, copyright, digital media protection, piracy, digital rights.
1. Introduction

Digital media, as opposed to analog media, are usually electronic media that work on
digital codes, that is on series of discrete states of “0” and “1” (the so -called binary numeral
system). Digital media refers to digital audio , digital video and other digital content, like e-
books , images, music, movies, applications, games etc. that can be created, referred to and
distributed via digital information processing machines.
The most notable digital information processing machine is the computer – the cheap and
wide -spread PC. In these conditions, as opposed to analog data, digital data is in many cases
easier to manipulate and the end result can be reproduced indefinitely without any loss of
quality.
Still, in most cases, digit al works are the result of the effort and investments of the
producers (authors) and obviously, the authors deserve special property rights regarding their
products – the so -called copyrights. Copyright is a form of intellectual property that gives the
author of an original work exclusive right for a certain time period in relation to that work,
including its publication, distribution and adaptation.
Still, the laws regarding copyrights retain vague items. The Copyright Act from 1968
presents the copyright infringement scenarios in terms of technologies that were already known
or bein g developed at that time. As could be expected, it makes no reference to “multimedia”.
The question of the protection of multimedia works was briefly considered by the Copyright
Law Review Committee (“CLRC”) in its Final Report on Computer Software Protec tion, which

Digital Media Copyright Protection
4

was released in 1995. Still, there is place for further law amendments, thus for further copyright
law improvements.
Nowadays, we define copyright infringement (or copyright violation or piracy) as the
unauthorized use of material that is cov ered by copyright law, in a manner that violates one of
the copyright owner's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or distribute the
copyrighted work.
In addition to the restrictions imposed by the nowadays copyright laws, other practical
meth ods for preventing digital media piracy were adopted, such as: anti -copying technologies
(built into DVD systems), copy tracking systems (digital watermarking, digital fingerprinting,
copyright management , tracking systems based on encryption and the new o ne based on
blockchain technology ) – all these methods are known as DRM (digital rights management).
The objective of this paper is to present a solution for preventing piracy. In this paper,
first, there are exposed the methods that are currently used so as to accomplish this objective
(those mentioned above). After analyzing these ones and becoming aware of their strengths
and threats, the proposed solution that tries to get closer to the objective is presented. Finally,
the conclusions are expressed so as to highlight the valuable resulting ideas of the project,
derived from the effort of researching, analyzing, creating and designing the proposed solution
– and may constitute a guideline for future researches.
2. Related Work
2.1 Presentation

During the past forty years, the copyright holders responded to digital technology
development with proposals for expanded protection of digital works and restrictions on
personal use rights [1].
In order to achieve digital media copyright protection, it was believed that involving the
complementary legal and technological approaches would be the key of success [2]. Until now,
there were a few legal trials to solve the problem (e.g.: the copyright law) whilst there were
plenty of technological attempts, generically kn own as DRM (Digital Rights Management) [3] .
Gradually, DRM approaches were developed for every digital media category: films, music,
computer games, programs, e-books and images.
In the film domain, the pillars of the DRM approach were encryption, usag e of external
storage disks, such as DVDs (with built -in anti -copying technology) and video streaming. In

Digital Media Copyright Protection
5

the music domain, the DRM approach was based on installing monitoring software on client’s
host, encryption, subscription, price discrimination and au dio streaming. Sony BMG
introduced DRM technology on audio CDs that installed additional software on users'
computers without requiring their confirmation, software that was hiddenly monitoring and
controlling the user’s audio content manipulation. In the Internet music domain, in the
beginning, many online music stores employed DRM to restrict usage of purchased music.
Such was the case of the iTunes store , until 2008, when Apple decided to remove DRM from
the store . Later, it decided to sell higher quality DRM -free tracks for higher prices [ 4].
Nowadays, it sells DRM -free tracks for low prices.
In the computer games area, the principles behind the DRM approach are related to
gaming accounts and online authenticati on. Computer games use DRM technologies to limit
the number of systems the game can be installed on by requiring authentication with an online
server. Such a DRM method was embedded in Steam, an online -gaming platform. Steam
allows users to purchase comput er games entirely digitally. Instead of receiving a box, disc, or
even CD key, purchased software is immediately attached to the user's Steam account. This
happens also in the case of those original games which have their own platforms.
In the software are a, the DRM approach is based on hardware -based copy prevention
and licenses. In the beginning, manufacturers not only made the program disks uncopyable,
but they also required the user to have the original disk in their computer’s disk drive before
they co uld run the program. Later, the hardware -based copy protection method used physical
keys which were required to unlock software applications . Afterward, software companies
insisted that they license rather than sell their products. License terms may pr eclude a buyer
from doing the following to her software: transferring, sublicensing, leasing, copying,
modifying, migrating, translating, disassembling, decompiling or converting to another
programming language.
In the e-books area, DRM restrictions are e mbedded into the e -book viewer programs,
such as Adobe Reader , Microsoft Reader , Apple Books Mac and iOS Application s and Google
Play Books Android Application . The DRM approach is mainly based on encoding the
copyright holders’ protection policies directl y into the digital content. When viewing a highly
restricted e -book with Adobe Reader, the user is unable to print the book, copy or paste
selections.

Digital Media Copyright Protection
6

In the past, in Microsoft Reader for instance there were three types of e-books : sealed,
inscribed and ow ner exclusive. Sealed e-books only prevent ed the document from being
modified. After purchasing and downloading an inscribed e -book, Microsoft Reader add ed
tracking information to the digital work. When downloading an owner exclusive e -book, it
became linked to the computer’s Microsoft Passport account. Thus, the e -book c ould only be
opened with the computer with which it was downloaded.
In the images and documents area, the DRM approach is based on recording tracking
information and steganographically embe dding it into the digital content. There are several
DRM flavors: digital watermarking, digital fingerprinting and copyright management systems.
All modify the protected work to include information that identifies the copyright owner, the
buyer of the work , the distribution chain [ 5]. If the buyer distributes unauthorized copies of the
work, the tracking information can make irrefutable evidence of copyright infringement [ 6].

2.2 Analysis

One of the most important obstacles to achieving digital media copyright protection
was the ambiguous, noncurrent and so inadequate character of the legal approach. This
happened because the legal approach had been always evolving slower than the technological
approach, therefore it couldn’t constitute its complementa ry support. Conversely, the
technological approach had a dynamic evolution, consistent with the digital technology
development rhythm. Still, without a legal support, many adopted DRM methods proved to be
exaggerated, hostile and unfitted, causing the end user’s distrust and dissatisfaction.
In the film domain, the CSS DRM system implementation brought severe restrictions
on sharing digital media that couldn’t be circumvented. But exactly these restrictions were the
incentive for the Norwegian programmer, Jon Lech Johansen, to decode CSS. So, the high
severity of the DRM method translated into the great struggle of the end user to overcome the
restrictions.
In the music domain, specifically when talking about audio CDs, the Sony’s attempt to
reduce piracy b y hiddenly monitoring and controlling user actions led to a huge copy protection
scandal. The effects were that EMI stopped publishing audio CDs with DRM, stating that "the
costs of DRM do not measure up to the results." This was done because the DRM metho d had
been compromised and it appeared to be the only way towards reducing the clients’ frustration
and regaining their trust.

Digital Media Copyright Protection
7

Referring to Internet music, although DRM is prevalent, major labels (like eMusic,
Amazon, Dogmazic , Apple ) ha ve begun releasing online DRM -free music, while still
discouraging music sharing between users. Musicload.de, one of Europe's largest online music
retailers, announced their position strongly against DRM. It stated that three out of every four
calls to the ir customer support phone service are as a result of consumer frustration with DRM.
So, in order to diminish the client’s dissatisfaction, this music company preferred trusting the
clients’ integrity and requiring them not to share the purchased music to i mposing usage
constraints. In case of Apple for instance, in order to improve the user experience and to regain
trust from end users, they implemented an easy way to share the music with the family
members, up to five people. This service was called iTunes Family and this was transferred to
iOS Applications, movies, audio books and e-books . In my opinion, what Apple did was a
logical and justified solution in terms of content sharing, because if one family member bought
a physical music CD it was normal to s hare that CD with the family members in a physical
transfer.
In computer games, the DRM methods embedded into the Steam online -gaming
platform proved to be inadequate. After publishing the first Steam -based games (Half -Life 2,
Counter Strike , Spore), consi derable protest was recorded, resuming in a substantial number of
users seeking a pirated version instead. However, as of 2009 very few games are Steam -based
as game producers understood that DRM was actually inciting people to use pirated copies. So,
it is now clear that constraining the clients actually translates into challenging them to
circumvent usage limitations and that the producers’ offensive attitude determines even more
offensive customers’ reactions.
In the images and documents area, the tracki ng-based methods (like digital
watermarking) are not effective as they can be easily bypassed. Some programs used to edit
video and/or audio may distort, delete, or otherwise interfere with watermarks.
In the software domain, the release of new copy protected program was typically
followed by the immediate release of a new “cracking” program capable of defeating the copy
protection. Software manufacturers and cracking software manufacturers engaged in a type of
endless arms race over copy protection. So, as long as this battle continues it is obvious that
there wasn’t found a viable solution for the issue. Moreover, if referring to the hardware -based
copy protection method, it prevented legitimate copying of the software for archival and
backup purposes. Thus, resentment in the marketplace was so strong that organizations started

Digital Media Copyright Protection
8

boycotting software that used these types of copy prevention. So, exaggerated protection
methods determine a violent rejection a ttitude from the clients.
In practice, all widely -used DRM systems are eventually defeated or circumvented by
the user communities; it is just a matter of time. Finally, after these DRM attempts of bringing
copyright protection, many organizations and comp uter scientists are opposed to DRM. They
state that: "DRM is an example of a malicious feature – a feature designed to hurt the user of
the software, and therefore, it's something for which there can never be toleration."
3. Solution
3.1 Premises

Given the f acts that during the last three decades DRM has proved its inability to offer
a reliable digital media copyright protection and that the centralized distribution business
model imposed by the copyright laws has become obsolete with regards to the Internet, it
emerges that the digital media copyright protection issue needs to be reanalyzed in terms of
verifying the sustainability of the old premises and detecting the real problem. After a thorough
analysis, it comes out that several decisive pieces of inform ation weren’t taken into
consideration in the previous attempts to solving the issue.
The copyright history reveals its mission and philosophy. Copyright is an outgrowth of
the privatization of government censorship in 16th -century England. The first copyr ight law
was designed to serve books ellers and the government, not authors [ 7]. The Stationers profited
from their monopoly [ 8] and the government exercised control over the spread of information
[9]. Since then, the publishing industry has been working very hard to promote the myth that
the copyright was invented by authors to protect their rights and incentivize them to create [1 0].
Also, it has been campaigning for ever stronger laws against sharing in order to maintain a state
of mind that says someon e ought to own products and control who can copy them.
The publishing process is fairly complex and expensive. It encompasses the costs of
vetting the master copy quality, purchasing the physical medium and the expensive machinery
to imprint the content o nto the medium and of advertising. With such investments, it is little
wonder that publishers argue hard for copyright.
But now that the Internet has given us a world without distribution costs, it no longer
makes any sense to impose the same pay -per-copy model and to restrict sharing in order to pay

Digital Media Copyright Protection
9

for centralized distribution. Moreover, the Internet has already proved that authors still create
without centralized distribution.
In these conditions, abandoning copyright regarded as a distribution restric tion is now
not only possible, but desirable. Both artists and audiences would benefit, a much finer -grained
filtering process allowing works to spread based on their merit alone [1 1]. Greater exposure
for a valuable musician would lead to more performance s, so to increased gains. Authors would
benefit from donations of readers who really appreciate their work (like Patreon platform) . But
even if only half or fewer of all readers were to make such donations, authors would still earn
more than they do under traditional royalty schemes. Nevertheless, the authors can implement
the Fund and Release system or get sponsored by commercial organizations.
The flourishing Free Software movement is probably the best example of a post –
copyright world. Instead of prohibi ting sharing, the software's license explicitly permits and
encourages it. A number of others soon caught on to his idea, and because they were able to
share and modify each other's programs without limit, they quickly produced a large body of
working code . Now free software that rivals the products available in the proprietary market is
largely produced. Its copyright serves mainly to identify the original authors, and in some cases
to prevent anyone else from imposing a stricter license. The authors have given up every
exclusive right except the right to be identified as the authors.
New business model s appeared: people downloading the software for free and instead
selling services such as technical support, training , customization s or in app purchases, it brings
an efficient way for paying real programmers competitive salaries to work on free software.
But this trend is not present only in the software area; there are signs of it happening
everywhere. Musicians are starting to release their tracks onlin e for free downloading.
Gradually, creators in other areas are realizing that they can disseminate their works without
publishers or centralized distribution chains, by simply allowing the freedom to copy.

After reanalyzing the digital media copyright pro tection problem, essential premises
come out. First, creators have the normal right and need of being rewarded for their effort of
publishing works. This premise always holds true, especially in the film, computer games and
applications domains because of the major investments in releasing the digital content.
Moreover, it is obvious that creators need their authorship to be acknowledged and also their
publication and adaptation rights to be respected.

Digital Media Copyright Protection
10

Another premise is that publishing works is aimed at d isseminating information, ideas
or messages, entertaining, assisting and supporting the end users in performing their tasks. So,
it can be regarded as a response at the intellectual needs of the human being.
Nowadays, the environment acknowledged as the m ost chargeable with copyright
infringement is undoubtably represented by the Torrent websites. These sites offer millions of
gigabytes of copyrighted digital content for the consumer to download it for free anytime. Even
though the record companies repeate dly strived against these sites, they continued to flourish.
Amazingly, the Torrent sites perfectly accomplish the disseminating information
purpose of publishing and also acknowledge creators’ authorship. The problem is that they
don’t reward the creator s by allowing users to download digital media for free and also that
they aren’t able to guarantee the authors’ publication and adaptation rights. The question that
surely arises is whether these drawbacks can be solved somehow.

3.2 Presentation

The problem that a Torrent site doesn’t reward the authors of the exposed digital media
can be solved by implementing a subscription -based access policy. The provider of the Torrent
service would return a satisfactory percent of the collected subscription fees to the creators.
Both the provider and the creators would negotiate the value of the satisfactory percent so a
WIN -WIN commercial relationship to be built. Also, a small percent of the collected sum
would be paid to the state in the form of publication and distribution taxes.
Under these terms, the slogan of the solution is: “Make pirated content public content
for a fee!”. Therefore, the solution is based on substituting the old copyright centralized –
distribution business model with a Tor rent subscription -based model. “Service the needs
instead of fighting them!” because, psychologically speaking, fighting against a proper need of
an individual means only postponing its accomplishment and worsening the situation.
Still, this solution needs an adequate legal context to sustain its thinking and justify its
actions. Thus, obsolete and restrictive laws like Digital Millenium Copyright Act (that
criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to
circumvent DRM methods) should be abolished and new laws that guarantee the authors’
publication and adaptation rights and also the right of being rewarded is explicitly asked for.

Digital Media Copyright Protection
11

The solution outline is that the users subscribe to a Torrent site and they gain dow nload
permissions in return of paying a modest subscription fee. Download permissions vary with
the subscription type as the provider offers several subscription categories, such as 30 -day trial,
basic, premium and elite. Each subscription category has ass ociated a certain number of credits
to be spent on downloading digital media, thus a download limit. A basic subscription offers
the minimum number of credits, but still a reasonable download limit. Then the 30 -day trial,
premium and elite subscription typ es gradually raise that download limit. The 30 -day trial
subscription is a promotional category; the premium account brings significantly increased
download potential while the elite subscription has no download restrictions anymore.
The price of every do wnload (expressed as a number of credits) would be displayed so
that the consumer would be accurately informed about the download conditions. So users
would be able to download any film, music track, computer game, application, e -book or image
as long as t hey possess enough credit points as defined by their subscription type. After
collecting the subscription fees, the provider would return a percent of these revenues to the
authors of the downloaded digital content.
The technical method needed for implem enting the proposed solution is building
websites capable of indexing .torrent files (resembling current Torrent sites), that support the
subscription -based model and offer online payment facilities. The protocol used should
resemble the Torrent communicat ions protocol, but it should offer some extra functionalities:
extracting the download -specific amount of credits from the account of the user who has just
finished downloading a digital work and also recording the number of downloads for each
digital work . This last functionality would help in computing the revenues that ought to be paid
back to the creators as a reward of their publishing effort.
In order to furnish an accurate credit -based system, the provider should first create a
database that stores t he distribution of credits per each digital work and afterwards repeatedly
update its content according to several indicators like the current prices of the original digital
works, the number of clients’ orders for a specific work, according to the terms t hat have been
negotiated with authors and to the own profit policy. Furthermore, the provider would store in
this database user information such as the chosen subscription type and the remaining
download credits and also download information such as the av ailable works and their number
of completed downloads. The provider should not store information regarding the specific
digital content that a certain client has downloaded in order to respect the user’s privacy rights.

Digital Media Copyright Protection
12

Another idea tested by the applicati on developers is that for instance when an
application becomes available on the market the ads are already integrated within the product
in order to earn money form it, but the users found even in this case alternatives to escape
viewing the adds by creati ng the Add -blocks.

3.3 Effects Analysis

The suggested solution achieves the goal of easily disseminating the information (by
simply using Website access), while still being affordable and satisfactory, by not imposing
frustrating restrictions upon the us er by decreasing the User Experience (UX) quality . Thus
the client's intellectual needs are satisfied and addressed as it should be in a civilized society
and so the individual doesn't feel the urge to protest by breaking the legal agreements in order
to fulfill its thirst for knowledge. As a result, the global education and cultural level rises and
the legal environment better fulfills its role as serving the people as opposed to restricting them.
Furthermore, the authors publishing and adaptation rights are still preserved by the
newly created legal environment. Also, the revenue system based on the providers is in
accordance with the basic needs of the authors. Lastly, the copyright holders finally get their
long-lasting wish of get “pirates” to start p aying (while still a relatively small amount, but at
least something) for their products.
Since the service will be so publicly accessible and fairly inexpensive, people will be
more drawn to use it. This mean s that the providers can make a profit by supp orting the service
and thus a new market is established. As with any free market, a competitive system emerge s,
in which the providers offer more and more convenient services for the clients (smaller fees,
more varied forms of subscriptions, more affordabl e credit systems) in order to increase their
user base and hence their profits.
On the other hand, people who buy hard copies (such as CD's and DVD's) might be
increasingly drawn to this type of service. The publishing market already diminish ed graduall y,
which force s the remodeling of the centralized distribution business model to better suit the
need of the new market. It is assumed that the production level of these producers to drop as to
only serve the collectors. Also, with the decreas ing of their pr ofits, the hard-copy piracy
phenomenon also decrease s, while the internet piracy might further increase.
The main purpose of this subscription -based system is that it will help users accustom
with contributing to the authors revenues by a small amount, paying for content becoming

Digital Media Copyright Protection
13

common practice. Furthermore, people will understand that restricting resource sharing
through the Internet is an improper method of governing and understanding the purpose of the
Internet. The Software as a Service companies (SaaS) experience nowadays issues regarding
the password sharing. An example of this case is REBS company, established in 2013, which
provides SaaS CRM s olution for real -estate companies. In this particular case, according to the
terms and conditions of using the software, the number of employees using the app must equal
the number of existing accounts within the application. What happened is that one cust omer
with ten employees created just one account for all the employees, instead of having ten
accounts. This means that all ten employees shared a single account and a single password. As
a solution for this type of issue, companies developed a new DRM tec hnology called USB
authentication keys , a mean of copyright protection, preventing against unauthorized access
and password sharing and phishing.
In the future, if the distribution system becomes free, the users would understand the
necessity of contributing to the creative effort of the authors and so will widely and seamlessly
adopt donation systems, such as Fund and Release. Thus, this system creates the bases for free,
unlimited and civilized distribution of works, in which both the consumers and the authors
would be satisfied, and piracy would become a nonsensical notion.

4. Solution Testing

The proposed solution is fairly complex as it encompasses a legal context, an economical
means of returning the authors’ investments and also a technical me thod. Therefore, the testing
of the proposed solution should be performed gradually. First, the software solution should be
tested and after its release, the values of several indicators should be analyzed, such as the
information dissemination degree, the degree of return of creators’ investments, the provider
market evolution trend. Also, an analysis should be performed on the efficiency of the manner
in which the legal context would support the economic and technical solution approaches.
The software so lution testing will be performed in accordance with prescriptions of the
FURPS (Functionality, Usability (UX), Reliability, Performance, Supportability) software
quality assurance model.
First, the functionality degree of the software system should be tes ted. So the subscription
functionalities (e.g. login, log out, editing account information, editing subscription type and

Digital Media Copyright Protection
14

credit payment per download) would be tested, then the search .torrent files, download and fee
online payment functionalities would be verified.
The technical testing also encompasses the measurement of several non -functional
quality attributes like: usability (measures how intuitive and easy to use the system interface
is), reliability (measures the availability and fault tolerance of the system), performance
(measures system response time at operations like search and download) and supportability
(measures the testability, maintainability, configurability, compatibility and scalability of the
software solution).
The information disse mination degree reveals how efficient the proposed solution
proved to accomplish the dissemination objective. In order to determine its value, several other
indicators should be monitored, such as the total number of downloads, the distribution of
download s per digital media category: films, music, computer games, applications and e -books ,
the average number of downloads per user, the average download amount per subscription
type, the download distribution per countries, regions, continents.
The return deg ree for the creators' investments would be determined by monitoring the
monthly, quarterly and yearly provider’s incomes and average return of creators’ investments
and also the partner authors’ satisfaction degree.
The provider market evolution trend w ould be determined by monitoring the providers’
services dynamics and quarterly and yearly growth of the number of providers and subscribers.
Moreover, it should be determined whether a competition -based regime has developed in the
providers’ market.
In order to determine the efficiency of the legal context, several indicators should be
monitored such as: the incidence of legally uncovered situations and lawsuits against providers,
authors or users, the average satisfaction degree of the consumer, provid er and creator.
The expected results for the solution testing process are: the software system should
meet all its functional and non -functional requirements; the information dissemination degree
should have a great value in countries with high and medium standards of living and it should
display a slowly rising trend in poorer countries. The degree of return of creators’ investments
is expected to prove satisfactory for authors. Also, the provider market evolution trend is
expected to be a rising one. Fin ally, the legal context should be appropriate for the current
situation and it should bring an important satisfaction degree.

Digital Media Copyright Protection
15

In the case that such results would be obtained in 12 to 18 months after implementing
the solution, it should definitely emerge that the yearly statistics regarding piracy losses like
economic losses, jobs lost, loss in workers’ earnings, loss in tax revenues would change
according to a decreasing trend.
5. Conclusions

In the past forty years, copyright holders used all the possible means to increase the
copyright protection of digital work in order to restrict its unauthorized distribution – the so
called DRM methods. But all widely -used DRM systems were eventually defeated or
circumvented by dissatisfied user communities. Finally, m any organizations and computer
scientists declared to be opposed to DRM. They state that: “What digital rights management
does is to enable the centralized distribution business models”. Currently the recent copyright
laws are pursuing the same purpose.
But, the Internet has given us a world with no distribution costs and it no longer makes
any sense to restrict sharing in order to pay for centralized distribution. Furthermore, the
consumer's intellectual needs have risen strongly during the past decades, thus the demand of
stronger information dissemination has considerably grown. Therefore, it is reasonable that
these needs are to be served and not fought against, as was tried by DRM.
In this context, it is proposed as a temporary solution, the creation o f a subscription -based
legal system of downloading .torrent files. This would assure a large scale dissemination of
information and acknowledgment of the authorship for the creators.
This solution could be extended in the future after performing the effici ent analysis of
several indicators such as: information dissemination, investment returns and provider market
evolution trends. Thus the expansion would mean determining the possible issues /
opportunities to improve the solution that may arise and resolvi ng / undertaking them.
The issue with investment return for the authors will be solved by fees paid by subscribers
to the offered services. The purpose of this solution is to gradually accustom users into
contributing with a modest sum in paying back the a uthors, and thus becoming common
practice. During this time, free publishing methods for music, e -books , games and free software
will be developed and established. In the future, when the distribution system becomes free,
users will be used to the idea of contributing to the authors’ effort and so would widely accept
and promote donations and systems such as Fund and Release as ways of paying back the

Digital Media Copyright Protection
16

authors , like Patreon for instance. Therefore, this system creates the bases for free, unlimited
and civili zed distribution of works, in which both the consumers and the authors would be
satisfied, and piracy would become a nonsensical notion.

Digital Media Copyright Protection
17

References

1. GOLDSTEIN , Paul. Copyright’s Highway , From Guttenberg to the Celestial Jukebox .
New York: Hill and Wang, 1994 .
2. McDANI EL, Jeff A . Copyright Protection on the Internet . Austin, Texas , 1996.
3. REAM, Dale J . Copyrighted Works & Computer Networks: Is Protection Possible ?
Kansas: J.L. & Pub. Pol’y, 1995.
4. GOLDSTEIN , Paul. Copyright’s Highway , From Guttenberg to the Celestial Jukebox .
New York: Hill and Wang, 1994 .
5. PORT, Otis. Halting Highway Robbery on the Internet . Intellectual Property, Business
Week, October 24, 1994.
6. PORT, Otis. Halting Highway Robbery on the Internet . Intellectual Property, Business
Week, October 24, 1994.
7. KAPLAN, Benjamin . An Unhurried View of Copyright . Columbia University Press,
1967. p. 4-5.
8. KAPLAN, Benjamin . An Unhurried View of Copyright . Columbia University Press,
1967. p. 7-9.
9. KAPLAN, Benjamin . An Unhurried View of Copyright . Columbia University Press,
1967. p. 6.
10. PATTERSON, Lyman Ray . Copyright And `The Exclusive Right' Of Authors . The
Journal of Intellectual Property Law, vol. I, no. I, 1993.
11. STEI NBERG , S. H . Five Hundred Years of Printing . Maryland , Balt imore: Penguin
Books L td., 1955.