Ethics, Digital Rights Management, and Cyber Security

Cloud content hosting and redistribution is enabling convenient and easy access to online content thereby accelerating the adoption and penetration of internet in past two decades. The current Industry 4.0 revolution and adoption and acceleration efforts are leveraging cloud computing as a means to store, retrieve, and share data. This makes the internet a relatively vulnerable to content abuse and increase the demand of clear consent before data consumption and redistribution. The growth of cloud computing and management technologies is penetrating in the market, and digital rights management (DRM) practices are needed for better and ethically safe online space. This chapter talks about state-of-the-art DRM paradigms being proposed in the literature and critically discusses their technical performance, flexibility, and immutability challenges. This chapter will clarify internet governance implementation roadmap for Industry 4.0 revolution by critically analyzing the cloud technology stack and ethical features by advocating Cloud DRM.

Digital access rights management in the information systems of e-libraries and digital archives

The author reviews the basic types of digital document content protection from unauthorized access and dissemination applied by publishers and book trading companies. The principles of digital rights management (DRM) while accessing digital documents. The author suggests that DRM systems are efficient to be applied to certain types and formats of digital documents in libraries and archives. He also reviews several commercial solutions for DRM-systems plied to the most popular PDF-format and substantiates the importance of DRM-systems standardization for digital document friendliness both for the users and rights holders disseminating digital publications. Existing and newly introduced international standards for DRM-systems are discussed. The typology of digital rights protection software as provided for by the standards is presented along with regulated DRM-system features based on data coding. Readium project by international non-profit Readium Foundation exemplifies standard approach to DRM-system design. The project goal is to develop software modules to integrate standard DRM-technology into computer information systems including ALIS.

Blockchain and Cloud to Overcome the Problems of Buyer and Seller Watermarking Protocols

Copyright protection of digital content has become a problem not only for web content providers but also for ordinary web users who like to publish their digital contents on social or user generated content platforms. Among the possible solutions to such a problem, digital watermarking, in conjunction with watermarking protocols, appears to be a valid alternative to current DRM (digital rights management) systems. In fact, watermarking based solutions insert perceptually invisible copyright information into the copies of contents published or distributed on the web in order to track them. Such insertions are carried out according to the watermarking protocols, which have evolved over the years from the classic “buyer and seller” paradigm into a simpler and versatile “buyer friendly” and “mediated” approach. However, such an approach cannot exploit the new technologies that characterize the current Internet. This paper presents a new watermarking protocol able to adapt the “buyer friendly” and “mediated” approach to the use of innovative technologies such as cloud platforms and blockchain. In this way, (1) content providers and common web users can take advantage of the computing and storage resources made available by cloud platforms; (2) the involvement of trusted third parties in the protocols can be reduced by using blockchain without complicating the protection scheme. In fact, these two goals make the protocol particularly suited for the current Internet.

Blockchain Technology in Copyright

Introduction: the paper examines the potential of blockchain technology and blockchain-based smart contracts in respect of copyright. Copyright has long been secured through technical means, in particular, through digital rights management. With the advent of blockchain technology, a new era is expected in the field of administration and enforcement of copyright using computer code, therefore, the author sets the goal of investigating the essence and capabilities of blockchain technology. Methods: the methodological framework for the study is a set of methods of scientific cognition, among which the main ones are the methods of consistency and analysis. Results: based on the analysis of the experience of foreign countries, the essence of blockchain technology and the smart contract is investigated. The paper presents the recommendations on the use of blockchain technology as a form of regulatory ordering, which can express public and private goals. Conclusions: as a result of the study, the role of blockchain as one of the methods of copyright protection and its potential is identified, and also how blockchain technology can affect the ways of distributing copyrighted content in the digital world is considered. It is established that such a technology can provide an unprecedented level of access to copyright information, transparency, and traceability of its subsequent changes. The instant receipt of remuneration and the availability of the technical possibility of sovereign ownership of the produced digital content are attractive to copyright holders. Blockchain technology has gained universal attention as a developing information security system and over the years will become a powerful component of protecting the results of intellectual activity.

A Robust Image Encrypted Watermarking Technique for Neurodegenerative Disorder Diagnosis and Its Applications

The use of Internet technology has led to the availability of different multimedia data in various formats. The unapproved customers misuse multimedia information by conveying them on various web objections to acquire cash deceptively without the first copyright holder’s intervention. Due to the rise in cases of COVID-19, lots of patient information are leaked without their knowledge, so an intelligent technique is required to protect the integrity of patient data by placing an invisible signal known as a watermark on the medical images. In this paper, a new method of watermarking is proposed on both standard and medical images. The paper addresses the use of digital rights management in medical field applications such as embedding the watermark in medical images related to neurodegenerative disorders, lung disorders, and heart issues. The various quality parameters are used to figure out the evaluation of the developed method. In addition, the testing of the watermarking scheme is done by applying various signal processing attacks.

The Pathway Towards Digital Superpower: Copyright Reform in China

After going through four drafts and several consultations in the past decade, the Third Amendment of Copyright Law was finally adopted in China on 11 November 2020. The new Copyright Law will come into effect on 1 June 2021. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the major changes in the Third Amendment, including originality, copyright subject matter, scope of exclusive rights, copyright collective management organisations, digital rights management, and remedies. In addition, this paper discusses unsolved issues in the Third Amendment ‒ namely orphan works and those associated with artificial intelligence technologies ‒ for future copyright reform. By examining the amended provisions in the Third Amendment, this paper illustrates the multiple purposes underlying China’s recent copyright reform.

The evolution and consequences of digital rights management in relation to online music streaming

Streaming services now provide the dominant way in which music is distributed and consumed online. Digital rights management (DRM) lies at the heart of this trend and has evolved alongside a movement from copy-based to streaming-based consumption. This shift poses a number of new and unique issues. Music streaming services have changed the nature of the product offered, with musical content becoming de-bundled and reduced to a series of permissions covered by DRM and associated licences, leaving users trapped in a permission-based system. This may create tension with copyright law principles regarding personal ownership and exhaustion of rights in relation to secondary markets, but through analysing relevant US and European case law it can be demonstrated that there is little, if any, legal opportunity for digital secondary markets to emerge. There are also further specific consequences which may affect artists relating to musical diversity and the composition of popular music and, also, consequences regarding the changing nature of the Internet itself. In this context copyright remains centrally important, but only in establishing the initial proprietary rights that enable subsequent DRM and licence-based online exploitation, indicative of a re-establishment of record industry power that is now allied to streaming platforms.