Securing Digital Video: Techniques for DRM and Content Protection

by Eric Diehl

Content protection and digital rights management (DRM) are fields that receive a lot of content owners require systems that protect and maximize their revenues; consumers want backwards compatibility, while they fear that content owners will spy on their viewing habits; and academics are afraid that DRM may be a barrier to knowledge sharing. DRM technologies have a poor reputation and are not yet trusted. 

This book describes the key aspects of content protection and DRM systems, the objective being to demystify the technology and techniques. In the first part of the book, the author builds the foundations, with sections that cover the rationale for protecting digital video content; video piracy; current toolboxes that employ cryptography, watermarking, tamper resistance, and rights expression languages; different ways to model video content protection; and DRM. In the second part, he describes the main existing deployed solutions, including video ecosystems; how video is protected in broadcasting; descriptions of DRM systems, such as Microsoft's DRM and Apple’s FairPlay; techniques for protecting prerecorded content distributed using DVDs or Blu-ray; and future methods used to protect content within the home network. The final part of the book looks towards future research topics, and the key problem of interoperability. 

While the book focuses on protecting video content, the DRM principles and technologies described are also used to protect many other types of content, such as ebooks, documents and games. The book will be of value to industrial researchers and engineers developing related technologies, academics and students in information security, cryptography and media systems, and engaged consumers.

275 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 26, 2012

About the author

Eric is a tinkerer; he likes to make things. Perhaps it began with a custom van built in the long-haired days of the seventies—an old school bus with an engine salvaged from the junk yard. Or with the dozens of motorcycles ridden, broken, repaired and ridden again. Eric has built furniture and guitars; he’s screen-printed t-shirts and he’s used software to created package-design. He’s written software for corporations large and small—for a time working out of the traveling RV he and Sue called home. He built and flew a gyrocopter over the cane-fields and beaches of south Florida.

But of all the avocations in which he’s dabbled, Eric stands most in awe of one. Consider that most elusive of creations—the story. Ink on paper, black on white—a collection of simple syllables woven into a journey bounded only by the imagination.

After more than three decades in south Florida, Eric and lovely wife Susan moved to the Upstate region of South Carolina, where the nearby Appalachian mountains clamor for exploration. Motorcycling remains a life-long passion, and he forever persists in being confounded by the acoustic guitar.