Category Standards
WIPO Releases Secure Content Timestamping Service
The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) recently announced that it has released WIPO PROOF, a tool for verifying the date and time of a digital file, such as one containing a copyrightable work. For a nominal price of CHF 20 ($21), you can obtain a token–a small file–from WIPO that contains a tamper-proof timestamp with […]
Copyright Office’s Section 512 Report Finds the Balance Askew
Five years ago, the U.S. Copyright Office commenced a study on Section 512 of the copyright law, the section that defines limitations of copyright liability (“safe harbors”) for online service providers, arguably the most important part of American copyright law in the digital age. Last week the Office released the results of the study in […]
STM Publishing’s Identity Management Problem
Most of the talk about copyright and technology issues in the world of scientific, technical, and medical (STM) publishing these days focuses on two issues: Open Access and Sci-Hub. For STM publishers, these represent the Scylla and Charybdis of losing control over copyrights. Open Access is about replacing paywalls and traditional copyright licensing with Creative […]
World Wide Web Consortium Embraces ODRL Rights Language
Last Thursday, a working group of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the web standards body, published a Recommendation for two documents related to the Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL), making ODRL an official web standard. From the vantage point of those of us who were involved in this space 10-15 years ago, this would […]
W3C Approves Encrypted Media Extensions as Web Standard
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) announced on Monday that it has approved Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) as a Recommendation, meaning that it’s now an official standard. This announcement marks the end of a very contentious debate about the role, if any, that DRM should have in web browser environments and open web standards. EME […]
W3C Permissions and Obligations Working Group Solicits Feedback on Specifications
The World Wide Web Consortium Permissions and Obligations Expression (W3C POE) Working Group is soliciting feedback on draft specifications. Renato Iannella, co-chair of the W3C POE WG and inventor of the ODRL rights language on which it’s based, asked me to pass along this statement: The W3C Permissions and Obligations Expression (POE) Working Group are delighted […]
Readium LCP Set to Launch
The 2017 EPUB Summit in Brussels this past week was the venue for the beta launch and first live demos of the Readium LCP DRM technology for EPUB-formatted e-books. I’ve discussed aspects of the genesis and design of Readium LCP elsewhere: here is a summary that I presented at last year’s EPUB Summit in Bordeaux. […]
Conference on Digital Marketplace for Copyrighted Works at PTO
The U.S. Commerce Department’s Internet Policy Task Force will be holding a conference on Friday December 9, Public Meeting on Developing the Digital Marketplace for Copyrighted Works. The event will take place at the Madison Auditorium, Patent and Trademark Office, Alexandria, VA. The objective of this event will be to see what role government can play in areas […]
Guest Post: Blockchains Won’t Change the Music Industry. Only Artists Can.
It seems that every day there is a new article or new platform claiming the blockchain will revolutionize the music industry. There are at least 20 companies developing ways to write write music metadata into the blockchain. The Open Music Initiative has brought together over 120 companies trying to find new solutions to the current […]
Survey on E-Book DRM Licensing
If you have been following this blog for a while, you’ll know that I have been involved in the design and launch of a new open-source DRM scheme for e-books called Readium LCP (Licensed Content Protection). The formal launch of Readium LCP is expected to take place by the end of this year. As I’ve explained, […]
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