A Peer to Peer Network Environment for Optimized Digital Rights Management of Digital Cultural Heritage

Abstract

As a general protection measure for copyright violations through digital technologies including peer to peer (P2P), copyright owners often uses Digital Rights Management (DRM) techniques to encrypt and watermark content or otherwise restrict access, totally blocking digital content to be accessed through the Internet and the P2P infrastructure. This paper claims that DRM and P2P can be quite complementary. Specifically, a P2P infrastructure is presented which allows broad digital content exchange while on the same time supports copyright protection and management through DRM technologies.