Access Rights Management
While more commonly referred to as
Digital Rights Management the protection process when applied to web pages and documents
(instead of software license protection) would be better
described as Document Rights Management and in the case of
ArtistScope DRM perhaps it should be known as Access Rights
Management because that it what the DRM is all about and more
especially, with ArtistScope DRM you have total control over a
user’s privileges at all times, even after the document has
already been published and delivered to the end user.
A typical explanation of the differences is to compare a
document that has DRM applied which usually means that a non
transferable certificate is provided with the document to
authorize its user for the rights to open and view the
document. In some cases such a certificate can be created at
the time of purchasing the document to identify the computer
used at the time of purchase. While this sounds like a secure
idea it can create confusion, unwanted support time and expose
a hole in what could have been a most secure strategy when the
purchase is made from a computer different to the one intended
to use the document. If the certificate is generic and doesn’t
take into account any uniqueness of a user’s identity, then it
can be redistributed as easily as passing on a password.
With the Access Rights Management that
ArtistScope DRM uses,
certificate replacement will never be required no matter how
many times the user changes computer, even if the certificate
is lost. The certificate cannot be redistributed or hacked
because there is no certificate. The user’s computer is
identified by its unique signature and that signature is
recorded not on the user’s computer, but online in the DRM
database.
Some may argue that involving an online database is not
practical because the user will need to be connected to the
Internet at the time. Yesterday when most used dialup Internet
that could be an issue but today most computers are online
permanently without any disruption of connectivity.
Utilizing an online database for Access Rights Management not
only enhances access policy to ensure that only the authorized
user/s can access the document by doing without a certificate
of authorization, but it also enables the author to have total
control over the media even after it has been delivered to the
end user. Because the media’s reader will check the online
database very time the media is accessed, the reader can
police any changes in a user’s rights to access the media.
Account control
Documents and media published for use by certain users or
groups can be modified at any time to change rights of access.
For example new users and groups can be entitled to access
documents already distributed and should any user or group
breach their terms of usage then their account can be
suspended. Likewise the same user accounts can be managed for
periodic billing and subscription renewals.
Password control
Documents and media distributed with password access
restrictions can be updated if and when needed. For example if
a document has been distributed to a group with a set password
and unscrupulous users distribute that password to others then
the document’s password can be changed in the database which
will take effect immediately.
Expiration control
Documents and media distributed with an expiry date set can be
updated at any time. For example, consider that a document has
been published with a set lifespan and it’s later decided to
extend the expiry date or make good an older edition, then the
expiry date can be changed at the database for immediate
effect.
Usage monitoring
Each time a document is accessed (permission requested for
access) the action can be recorded and logged to document
usage, account usage or simply for keeping track of which user
has accessed a document, such as in the case of enforcing
compulsory reading for students in a classroom.
User access limitations
Documents and media can limited to the number of times it is
accessed or printed. For example you can set a limit of one
print only to particular documents.
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