Digital Rights Management

After downloading the movie on to a PC or Apple TV⁸, the user had 30 days to watch the movie and once he/she started watching the movie, he/she had 24 hours to finish watching. Also, movies downloaded to Apple TV could not be transferred to other devices.

DRM refers to technology-based systems that manage copyright material and its terms of usage. It was regarded as an effective tool to combat illegal distribution of music, videos, computer software and literary works. First introduced in 1983, DRM technologies were gradually adopted by companies in order to protect copyright material from piracy and for other reasons.

They were of the view that incorporating DRM techniques was in fact a violation of property rights. They also cited a number of defects associated with DRM systems and how DRM was actually a futile exercise since most of these techniques eventually got cracked or bypassed.

The proponents of DRM technologies, on the other hand, warned that doing away with DRM would mean encouraging piracy, thus harming the interests of original content providers. According to observers, it would have been ideal if a middle ground could be identified that could safeguard the interests of the content providers as well as the users...