Digital rights management and watermarking of multimedia content for m-commerce applications

E-commerce has become a huge business and a driving factor in the developme nt of the Internet. Online shopping services are well established and will, with the advent of evolved 2G and 3G mobile networks, soon be complemented by their wireless counterparts. Furthermore, online delivery of digital me dia, such as MP3 audio or video, is very popular today and will become an i ncreasingly important part of e-commerce and mobile e-commerce (m-commerce) . However, a major obstacle for digital media distribution and associated b usiness is the possibility of unlimited consecutive copying in the digital domain, which threatens intellectual property rights (e.g., copyrights). Di gital rights management systems are required to protect rights and business . DRM systems typically incorporate encryption, conditional access, copy co ntrol mechanisms, and media identification and tracing mechanisms. Watermar king is the technology used for copy control and media identification and t racing. Most proposed watermarking methods use a so-called spread spectrum approach: a pseudo-noise signal with small amplitude is added to the host s ignal, and later on detected using correlation methods. A secret key is use d to ensure that the watermark can only be detected and removed by authoriz ed parties. Thus, watermarking is an essential component of modern DRM syst ems. Several standardization bodies are involved in DRM standardization. So me examples, (MPEG-4 SDMI, and DVD), are discussed in this article. Waterma rking as an enabling technology is especially highlighted. Furthermore, the relation between DRM and m-commerce, and the impact on business models for m-commerce are discussed. A common experience today is that Internet e-com merce applications cannot always easily be adapted for mobile telecommunica tions systems. We emphasize, however, that DRM and watermarking can benefit from the additional information available in mobile telecommunications sys tems, and can thus help to improve rights management for digital media deli very.