pieter . van oostrum

DRM (Digital Rights Management or Digital Restrictions Management) is a system to restrict the use of digital media (DVD’s, music, ebooks etc.), usually using encryption technology. This is mainly used by publishers of these media to prevent unauthorized copying and printing of these media. Its purpose is to restrict usage of the media to those people that legally obtained them and to restrict the usage to those actions that the publisher allows and sometimes to a set time period, e.g. when it is borrowed from a library. That looks like an acceptable purpose; however, there are several circumstances when things go wrong and the stuff can no longer be used by the person that legally acquired it. In this post I will collect links to reported cases of these kind of problems. Originally published on Jan 9, 2010. Latest update: Aug. 21, 2010.