2.2 Why Does DRM Harm the Consumer?............................. 2

Digital Rights Management, or DRM, is a term used for hardware and software that enables a content provider to place restrictions on the content they provide. These restrictions can be “simple” restrictions, like the inability to play/display the content in/on unsupported hardware or software. They can also be more advanced, and provide the publisher with an opportunity to “rent out ” a digital copy, and at the same time feel confident that the copy will be unusable once the rent period is over. This paper will briefly discuss the advantages DRM gives the publishers, and the disadvantages it poses for the consumers. We will also describe a couple of different DRM schemes, most of them applied to audio and video content. Digital Rights Management may sound like a good idea seen from the viewpoint of a publisher, bu