Web 2.0 Architectures

The Persistent Rights Management (PRM) Pattern

Also Known As

Digital Rights Management (DRM) is often thought of in the same manner as Persistent Rights Management (PRM). However, DRM is only a small subset of PRM aimed at preventing unauthorized use or placing other constraints on the capabilities of an entity, such as locking a file format to a specific hardware/software platform. DRM has been widely criticized by many people. Much of the ado is because of a perceived intrusion upon the rights of those who have paid for content but have to pay again if they want to port it to another technology platform. For example, if you bought a song on LP, then bought it on tape, then again on CD, and finally on iTunes, you might still not legally be allowed to play the song on a non-Apple MP3 player. Many people consider this a violation of their rights.

Business Problem (Story)

Many digital assets and resources are connected to or can be made widely available on the Web via a variety of methods. Inherit policies and owners’ rights on most of these resources can easily be observed and enforced in the tangible world of paper documents, yet they are extremely difficult to enforce in the digital world. Additionally, owners of digital assets are technically required to control certain aspects of their functionality, but doing so can be difficult when there are multiple copies of a resource or asset.

One problem that may occur is when people participating in a review cycle examine a copy of a digital ...