Digital Rights Management in Peer To Peer Cultural Networks

As a general and effective protection measure for copyright violations which occur with the use of digital technologies including peer to peer (P2P) networks, copyright owners from the cultural sector often use Digital Rights Management systems and digital watermarking techniques to encrypt copyright information with the cultural content. In other cases copyright owners restrict or even block access to the digital cultural content through the Internet and the P2P infrastructure. This chapter claims that DRM and P2P can be quite complementary. Specifically, pa P2P infrastructure is presented which allows broad digital cultural content exchange while at the same time supporting copyright protection and management through watermarking technologies for digital images.