Emerging Areas of Digital Rights: How Current and Future Trends might Change the Nature of Digital Rights - Research Paper Example

Emerging Areas of Digital Rights: How Current and Future Trends might Change the Nature of Digital Rights John F. Roddick - style "Author" School of Computer Science, Engineering and Mathematics - style "Affiliation" Flinders University of South Australia PO Box 2100, Adelaide 5001, South Australia John.Roddick@flinders.edu.au - style "Email Address" Abstract Without a doubt, the emergence of the Internet has changed the way data and information are stored in the 21st century. However, the transition from paper based approach of storing data to digital content management has raised various concerns. There are significant challenges that organizations and individuals face when these contents are digitalized. This paper discusses the current and future trends of digital rights and how these rights are managed. This paper also discusses the latest solutions that are being adopted to deal with digital rights management. Keywords: As required. 1 Introduction In the past few years there have emerged a large number of attractive technologies that have revolutionized the entire world. However, the invention of the Internet brought real innovation in this world. With the emergence of this wonderful technology the entire world has become a global village. In view of the fact that the Internet has brought a large number of opportunities and benefits to the entire world, on the other hand it has also raised various serious concerns that have forced governments and security agencies to seriously think about these concerns. Without a doubt, the use of the Internet allowed all kinds of users to distribute and receive data in the form of digital contents. On the other hand, it has caused the creation of a huge amount of digital content that needs to be protected from prying eyes and theft. Basically, the need to implement strict security measures has emerged because of two reasons. The first reason is the increase in incidents of information theft and piracy issues. In fact, the majority of researchers argue that due to information theft and piracy of these digital contents the content industry faces a loss of millions of US Dollars. In some researches these cost is further higher however the exact figure cannot be determined due to unavailability of some empirical research on this. Actually, due to the advancements in technology like that the invention of CD (compact disk), peer-to-peer networks, rewritable devices, lack of strict authorized standards and implementations, and lack of smart business models for end-users are believed to be some of the key reasons that allow people to copy, store, and share a wide variety of digital contents in various forms and formats, billions of intellectual property files on the exposed, unprotected network like that the Internet. In this scenario, it becomes the responsibility of the governments and law making organizations to prevent and take actions against significant piracy of billions of copyrighted content. The other most important point that raises the need for the implementation of strict security actions is the significant increase in the amount of private data and information that organizations communicate via digital technologies[Mar02]. This pap discusses some of the important aspects associated with digital rights management. 2 Digital Contents and Emerging challenges Digital crime is actually unlawful act that is done by using a computer. For past few years this activity has increased all around the world drastically. For this reason law enforcement agencies are required to learn from the past to predict the upcoming digital crimes. There is a need of new technology and training to stay up to date with this problem. This is because as the technology is evolving, people are using these advance technologies to do unlawful activities and this problem will only increase with the passage of time. To know about the future digital crime and terrorism large number of analysis and data collection is being done all over the world to minimize the digital terror (Taylor, Tory J. Caeti, & Eric J. Fritsch, 2006). People are finding new ways to stay protected from such crimes which are unethical. The eight forecasts that can help stop these crimes are as follows: As the number of cyber-crimes increases, the number of reports will also increase drastically. For this reason officers need to be trained with respect to the new emerging technologies. Also, the attorneys and judges should have more knowledge about these crimes. Recent studies show that that officer in computer crime department are overworked and are stressed. Therefore they need better training to cope up with the technology. Many reports have been received about people complaining that they are getting hurtful comments from unknown individuals. For this reason new laws are being developed to prevent and challenge these crimes and attorneys and judges are being acknowledged (Raisinghani, 2004). The second forecast is the major threat to people which is the internet fraud. Large number of people will be affected by this terror in many ways such as identity theft. Identity theft can be done from a stranger or even a member of family. It is usually done for financial gain. Now days when everyone has internet at their homes people use internet to buy many products. This brings up the identity theft problem. For this reason it is necessary to notify individuals about the emerging problem (Taylor, Tory J. Caeti, & Eric J. Fritsch, 2006). The third forecast is to create new laws and also to come up with new methodologies to fight these crimes, that is, people should have more education about them, how to prevent such crime and also how the investigation should be done. As very soon these crimes will occur in larger of numbers. For example: cyber stalking. It is the act of harassing people electronically through text messages, email etc. it is more common these days than physical harassment. Cyber stalkers tend to treat victims without showing them their true identities. This is done through social networking sites (Barrett, 1997). As the time is passing many computer hacker groups are improving their skills through various guides, tutorials and software. Due to the increase in number of software that helps these hackers it has become very difficult to control this act. For example a hacker built tools on the internet which were soon adopted by other hacking groups. To prevent these markets should not allow selling such tools and products but it is beyond control. Also, underdeveloped countries do not have laws for such crimes which make it more complicated to confront these hackers (Neto & Brasileiro, 2007). Large crime groups will use digital terrorism as their criminal instrument. Here are number of ways of carrying out these crimes such as counterfeit currency and documents, illegal immigration, black market etc. due to increase in technologies such as color scanners, graphics software etc. counterfeit currency production has become an easier task all around the world. These are also very difficult to detect and prevent. For example a US dollar bill was impossible to counterfeit but now it has become possible. Also in this way counterfeit passports can be made. Gambling is also one of the organized crime of these days which is also increasing with the technology. Gambler need to provide their credit card number to access these websites. Hence instead of going outside people can login to these websites (Grabosky & Smith, 1998). People have found means of getting illegal immigrants in the country. Also counterfeit products such as DVDs books, software are being stolen and sold to individuals without rights. Individuals, identities are being used for illegal purposes to make money. Telecommunication frauds are also becoming very popular these days as it has very low risks and high profits. This can be either theft of credit card numbers, hacking of calls or phone theft. Studies shows that call hacking have been decreased whereas credit card fraud has increased immensely. Global networking is now used by terrorists. This is the actual cyber terrorism. Extremist groups are using computer technology to carry out crimes. There are different types of cyber-attacks such as information stealing websites, attack on banking websites etc. Many countries of the world have immense technical capabilities to disrupt the US information infrastructure. Viruses and other unwanted software can be sent to individual through computer. Terrorist groups use this kind of software to gain access to information (Casey, 2011). 3 The need for Effective Management of Digital Contents In order to ensure the protection of this data it is essential that this data must be securely processed, stored, or transmitted inside and within companies. Along with the ever-increasing security need there is dire need for the implementation of strict measures and controls in order to ensure the privacy of private and critical data such as personal content, medical records, financial statements and contracts. Basically, this trend is driven by a wide variety of similar needs such as increasing number of firms, organizations, and users using the extranets, intranets, and the Internet, and the increasing authorized reception of e-commerce, e-banking and associated transactions by a large number of businesses all over the world. These two reasons associated with digital contents force the law making organizations and governments to set same standards for the digital contents as they have established for other physical contents particularly for the reason that the reproduction of digital contents is easy and almost free. With the passage of time, the majority of organizations dealing with digital contents have started to think about the security and privacy of their digital contents. In fact, this trend has given birth to a new field that is known as digital rights management. In this scenario, digital rights management deals with producing, controlling, managing, securing, and keeping track of digital content as a central individual and business requirement[Mar02]. 4 What are Digital Rights? With the emergence of latest technologies the ways data and contents are stored and managed have been changed. Digital rights are applied on contents that are stored digitally. There are many ways these digital rights are applied. Some of the basic applications of digital rights are outlined below[How14]: Making sure that the content is only accessible to a particular computer or a particular user Making sure that the content is accessed only a specific number of times. Ensuring that the content is accessed between a particular time span. Setting the timeline of a particular content. Allowing or disallowing the printing of the particular content. Ensuring that a particular number of copies are printed. Allowing or disallowing the copy/paste options to a particular document. Allowing or disallowing the saving or editing options to a file. Setting protection against copying files. Setting the expiry dates after a particular timespan. Setting expiry after reading a document a particular number of times. Allowing the users to copy specific sections of a document in particular timespan. Allowing a particular number of pages to be printed in a given number of days. In addition, the digital rights management offers a large number of opportunities along with the above mentioned options. With the latest digital rights management systems the business are able to establish and implement new forms of business models to make effective use of digital rights[How14]. 5 Digital Rights Management The emergence of digital rights management is believed to be a new trend however the concept of digital rights management is not new as it has already been in use for a long time in different forms and with different names. Basically, some of the large size firms and various government organizations started research on electronic copyright management in the beginning of 1990s, which were sponsored by the European Community. This research led the development of the first digital rights management system known as DRMS. In the beginning people used it as an electronic rights management system however after a few years they started using it digital rights management system. Until that time, there was no standard and unique definition of digital rights however at the present it is defined as a system that consists of the operation of a control system in order to observe, control, and charge each following usage of a digital content in the form of media content, like that audio, video, print or photos. However, different researchers have discussed the concept of DRM in different ways. In fact, they have discussed various different components of digital right management systems. However, the most important thing is the context in which a DRM system is used. In other words, managing rights in the digital setting means managing rights all the way through the whole value chain[Mar02]. According to [Jea12], digital rights management is a collection of various software services and hardware components managing and ensuring the approved usage of digital content as well as controlling any concerns as a result of that usage all the way through the whole life cycle of the content. In reality, it is an excellent method for permanently encrypting digital ‘content’ with the intention of its perspective use can be indistinguishably knotted to a specific portion of software, hardware, a particular user, a well-defined series of authorizing settings, or a pay-per-use economic plan[Jea12]. 6 Effects on Industries The exploitation of digital content is not limited to music or media industry at the present it exists in almost all the industries at huge level. Up till now, a large number of researches have been performed to see the impact of digital rights exploitation in different industries. The research shows that due to digital content exploitations different industries face different losses for instance software industry bears a yearly loss of 13billion USD due to digital content exploitation. In the same way, movie industry bears a loss of 4 billion USD and standards industry has to bear a loss 1 billion USD every year. However, the digital content exploitation is not limited to only these industries. 7 Powerful Technology: How to use it? In the past traditional ways such as paper was used to process and store data and the entire data was kept in large size files and stored in physical locations. Even though, with the traditional methods the enforcements of standards was difficult but the establishment of standards was a great deal much simpler than digital contents. Basically, the emergence of a wide variety of digital devices and technologies allowed the organizations and users to generate and process a wide variety of digital contents. As a result of this extended diversity, it has become a serious challenge for the law makers and governments to define and implement a radically prolonged variety of applicable digital rights. In fact, this challenge is further surrounded by a large number of challenges for instance how the digital contents can be licensed, and how to define similar standards for a wide range of digital contents and how to enforce these laws and standards in diverse industries. Unluckily, law makers and government organizations successfully implant these standards the enforcement will become much easier in a digital environment. In this scenario, it is also the responsibility of IP owners that they take careful measures in parallel with these standards. Additionally, there is need for the implementation of a business model that is capable of balancing their requirements in conjunction with the legal expectations of the end-users. It is expected that the disturbing usage of digital rights management technology can lead to substantial consumer opposition. In this scenario, the change from a paper based environment to a digital environment is not a straightforward process. There can be serious problems due to this transition. One of the basic problems can be a direct conflict between the new digital environment and old paper based environment[How14]. 8 Why Digital Rights Management? In the past few years the DRM has emerged an attractive technology for the organizations that are moving away from traditional approaches to content management and making their intellectual property available using the latest technologies such as the Internet. However, at the present, almost all the nationwide and worldwide organizations have made their contents available for immediate access using the Internet. In this scenario, previous standards had required from the end-users to wait for days by post, or they had to face a variety of inconveniences in order to visit a bookshop that is now available online in the form of digital contents[How14]. With the passage of time, the concept of digital rights management has also changed. At the present, digital rights management is defined in a broad sense and researchers also try to distinguish between what digital rights management is and what is not? Though, DRM is not a single technology, however it is a mixture of various interlinked technologies. Additionally, it is also not a substitute or replacement for legal and copyright constraints. Basically, a digital rights management has two most important aspects. The first aspect is the management of digital rights. This aspect considers how a digital content (no matter it is a film, book, software or music), with rights connected, is managed. It is also the licensing and definition of rights. The second aspect is the digital management of rights. This aspect of digital rights management emphases on security. This aspect sees how the rights connected to the item can be imposed by methods like that watermarking, encryption and various additional types of usage and access control[How14]. In addition, the additional aspect of a successful digital rights management is that it must be permanent and unique component of the digital rights it secures. In other words, it is a digital fingerprint, with the intention that when a particular content is retrieved, its digital rights management system makes sure that simply approved usage is allowed. 9 Conclusion Without a doubt, the technology has brought considerable changes in the ways data and information are stored by the business organizations and individuals. The traditional ways of storing contents have been replaced with digital contents. However, the processing and management of digital contents requires extensive knowledge of digital rights and intellectual property rights associated with these digital contents. In this scenario, it is essential for the organizations that they ensure proper training of their staff members. They should teach their staff members regarding these changes. In addition, necessary education and training regarding rights and intellectual property must be provided to staff members and end-users. 10 References Barrett, N. (1997). Digital Crime: Policing the Cybernation. England: Kogan Page Ltd. Mar02: , (Fetscherin, 2002; Ray, 2004), Mar02: , (Fetscherin, 2002; Han, 2004), How14: , (Paul, 2014; Han, 2004), How14: , (Paul, 2014; Fetscherin, 2002), Mar02: , (Fetscherin, 2002), Jea12: , (Boucqueau, 2012), Jea12: , (Boucqueau, 2012; Paul, 2014), How14: , (Paul, 2014), Read More

2 Digital Contents and Emerging challenges Digital crime is actually unlawful act that is done by using a computer. For past few years this activity has increased all around the world drastically. For this reason law enforcement agencies are required to learn from the past to predict the upcoming digital crimes. There is a need of new technology and training to stay up to date with this problem. This is because as the technology is evolving, people are using these advance technologies to do unlawful activities and this problem will only increase with the passage of time.

To know about the future digital crime and terrorism large number of analysis and data collection is being done all over the world to minimize the digital terror (Taylor, Tory J. Caeti, & Eric J. Fritsch, 2006). People are finding new ways to stay protected from such crimes which are unethical. The eight forecasts that can help stop these crimes are as follows: As the number of cyber-crimes increases, the number of reports will also increase drastically. For this reason officers need to be trained with respect to the new emerging technologies.

Also, the attorneys and judges should have more knowledge about these crimes. Recent studies show that that officer in computer crime department are overworked and are stressed. Therefore they need better training to cope up with the technology. Many reports have been received about people complaining that they are getting hurtful comments from unknown individuals. For this reason new laws are being developed to prevent and challenge these crimes and attorneys and judges are being acknowledged (Raisinghani, 2004).

The second forecast is the major threat to people which is the internet fraud. Large number of people will be affected by this terror in many ways such as identity theft. Identity theft can be done from a stranger or even a member of family. It is usually done for financial gain. Now days when everyone has internet at their homes people use internet to buy many products. This brings up the identity theft problem. For this reason it is necessary to notify individuals about the emerging problem (Taylor, Tory J.

Caeti, & Eric J. Fritsch, 2006). The third forecast is to create new laws and also to come up with new methodologies to fight these crimes, that is, people should have more education about them, how to prevent such crime and also how the investigation should be done. As very soon these crimes will occur in larger of numbers. For example: cyber stalking. It is the act of harassing people electronically through text messages, email etc. it is more common these days than physical harassment.

Cyber stalkers tend to treat victims without showing them their true identities. This is done through social networking sites (Barrett, 1997). As the time is passing many computer hacker groups are improving their skills through various guides, tutorials and software. Due to the increase in number of software that helps these hackers it has become very difficult to control this act. For example a hacker built tools on the internet which were soon adopted by other hacking groups. To prevent these markets should not allow selling such tools and products but it is beyond control.

Also, underdeveloped countries do not have laws for such crimes which make it more complicated to confront these hackers (Neto & Brasileiro, 2007). Large crime groups will use digital terrorism as their criminal instrument. Here are number of ways of carrying out these crimes such as counterfeit currency and documents, illegal immigration, black market etc. due to increase in technologies such as color scanners, graphics software etc. counterfeit currency production has become an easier task all around the world.

These are also very difficult to detect and prevent. For example a US dollar bill was impossible to counterfeit but now it has become possible. Also in this way counterfeit passports can be made. Gambling is also one of the organized crime of these days which is also increasing with the technology.

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