Libraries in Germany – Expert Discussion

How useful and effective is copy protection for digital media? In an interview with goethe.de, jurist Julius Mittenzwei assesses the benefits of digital rights management systems. He is a member of the Chaos Computer Club, which is committed to cross-border freedom of information.

Mr. Mittenzwei, many digital media such as music and video data or e-books have a digital rights management system. Why?

In the pre-digital era, works were bound to their physical carrier. Music was pressed on vinyl records, literature printed in books. Making copies was possible, but always bound up with a loss of quality. Because of the digital revolution, copies can now be produced and distributed without loss of quality and in any amount desired. Traditional business models financed by the sale of physical carriers therefore find themselves in danger.

Digital rights management systems are an attempt to artificially restrict the free availability of media files so as – as the media industry puts it – to restore the balance.

Conceptual weaknesses

How do these systems work? DRM systems try to limit the free copying of digital content such as e-books, MPG files and videos on computers or other digital reading devices. To this end, the data is encrypted. Only a special player software possesses the key that can make the files readable. The software checks whether the user of the playing device has authorized access to the media data. This access is thus tied to the user or the device and makes unauthorized playing difficult.

Unfortunately, DRM systems have many conceptual weaknesses. For example, DRM-protected works are always tied to the playback software of a particular manufacturer. A work with copy protection from Apple can’t be played on a MP3 player from Microsoft. Customers who have once opted for a DRM system thus remain strongly tied to its provider. If they change their playback system, they may no longer be able to play their previously acquired products. This so-called “lock-in” effect distorts competition.

Can such systems protect the rights of authors?

DRM systems were and are being sold to authors as the solution to their problems. But the problems of copyright in the digital age are more complex. I’m very pessimistic about whether DRM systems can solve these problems. In my opinion, they are largely counterproductive because they restrict the customer’s use of digital content.

Business models that rely on DRM will always have to contend with file trading and – what is permissible under German law – the free exchange of works in a private setting. Charge-related models for the distribution of digital content can therefore be successful only if they have a better product to offer than that of the illegal competition. Here parameters such as quality, range of choice, service and availability play a role, but also the question whether the acquired works can be played on all players and with all kinds of player software.

No optimal security

How safe is such copy protection?

All DRM systems have a fundamental problem. Although you can certainly encrypt digital content, if a customer is to be able to play purchased works, his player software needs access to the key in order to open the digital lock. Suppliers of DRM systems try to make it difficult to access the key by hiding it deep in the software, but access can never be permanently and effectively prevented: every DRM system always contains all the tools needed to break the protection.

Once you’ve broken a DRM system of a supplier, it’s easy using this knowledge to get around every other such system. An attacker who has effectively circumvented copy protection can make available a small program that performs this procedure in any other system with a mouse click. In the Internet this phenomenon is pithily called “break one lock – all are open”.

New business models for the digital world

Where then are such systems useful at all? The suppliers of DRM systems will have to decide for themselves whether such systems make sense. But I assume that in every market governed by competition the better product will ultimately succeed. Systems without DRM or copy protection are invariably more customer-friendly and will therefore be successful in the long run.

It’s a naive to duplicate business models and processes from the real world in the digital world. Instead, suppliers should develop business models tailored to digital requirements.

So in your opinion copy protection has no future?

In the field of music, copy protection is already as good as dead. All the major suppliers have now switched to file formats without copy protection. In the long term we’ll also see the same development in the field of film. It will be interesting to see whether the publishing industry will learn from the errors of the music industry and come up with viable business models before all segments of the market have been lost to file trading.