Consider a situation where I want to send a business proposal to a potential investor. I want this investor to be able to read the proposal but I do not want him to be able to print the document or send it to anyone else. In other words I want to restrict what he can do with the document I send him. If this document is wrapped in a good DRM (drm related: mp4 drm removal ) then I could easily accomplish this. Historically I would just encrypt the document and send it securely over email; however, once the document is decrypted the user can do whatever he wants with it.

This B2B document management is generally referred to as Enterprise Rights Management (ERM). However, we have doubts that it will work as advertised, and the ability to implement this technology is beyond most small entities.

So what would we want to accomplish by using DRM or ERM? There are really only two ways to accomplish this. One is to use a stand alone document reader application that reads the documents and enforces the DRM(drm related: wmv drm removal) that is embedded into the document. The other is to use a document reader application that “phones home”for its license.

Let us consider the phone-home method. To accomplish this you must have three pieces of software: a server, a client, and a producer. The server software would run on a publicly available machine that can be connected to across the internet; think specialized web server. The client is designed to run on the end-user’s computer. This software allows the end-user to read and print the documents but will always connect to the server to make sure the person has the proper rights to do so; think Media Player 10 for documents. Finally there is the producer software which is used to actually create the document. The document would be uploaded to the server and the server would wrap the document in DRM (drm related: drm remover ) and serve it to the end-user.

Now let us consider the stand-alone option. To accomplish this you need only two pieces of software: a client and a producer. The producer would create the document and embed all of the DRM information into the document. The client would read the document and allow the user to access the document according to these embedded rules. To get a document to an end-user, a person would just email it or send a disk. This system is simpler than the phone-home system but does not allow for changing DRM rules after the document is created. Also, to lock the document to one end-user, the producer would have to have that end-user’s client access key. Without this access key then anyone with a client could access the document.

We do not see any reason that ERM or DRM could not be used for sending business documents between users. However, the problems and limitations of the technology must be fully understood before it is embraced. DRM is like a locked door; it will not keep out the real criminal, but it will convince honest people to stay out. A determined person with rights to read the document could just use a pencil and paper to copy the protected document. In this regard, the file is safe but the content is not protected. A determined person without any rights would just find a way to crack the DRM encryption scheme. In the end if a digital copy of a document exists, even if it's protected with enterprise rights management, it is susceptible to being read, printed, and shared.

Source: drmblog.com