Archive for December, 2009

A Simple Publisher’s Introduction to DRM

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

Digital Rights Management, or DRM, is an important technology for publishers to understand as they begin to offer electronic versions of their products. Here is a gentle introduction, without a lot of the controversy and fluff that surrounds this sometimes confusing topic.

DRM is simply electronic copyright protection.

The Digital in the title refers to computerized content, be it online HTML documents, word processing files, PDFs, Flash files, or any other electronic file.

Digital content, being much easier to copy than traditional printed content, is far more prone to copyright infringement and abuse.

There are 2 types of DRM, soft and hard.

Soft DRM is analogous to the methods used in print today. Copyright information is clearly embedded in the file, but there is nothing physical to prevent copying. A common soft DRM method is to simply embed Watermarks in the content pages.

Hard DRM is implemented as a computer technology that helps to prevent unauthorized use.

There is no such thing as foolproof DRM.  All rights technologies can be unlocked, sometimes called “hacked”.

However, DRM can be made sufficiently complex to discourage copying by typical users.

There is considerable opposition to DRM by many “Freedom of information” advocacy groups and in response some large content providers have made their products DRM-free.

Customer service problems can increase due to DRM-related difficulties.

There are a number of competing DRM technologies. Fortunately for publishers and consumers, a few are beginning to dominate, such as Adobe Content Server (ACS4).

To learn more, here are some excellent links to follow:
http://www.drmwatch.com
http://www.drmnews.com
http://www.drmblog.com
http://www.peterindia.net/DRM.html

Another introduction to DRM:
http://www.howstuffworks.com/drm.htm

A very good primer on ebooks:
http://activitypress.com/2007/10/10/a-basic-ebook-primer/

A current comparison of ebook formats that includes some DRM information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_e-book_formats

The generally recognized formal body for digital publishing:
http://www.idpf.org

A controversial review of current eReaders:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/181226/the_best_of_todays_ebook_readers.html

HTH,
Keith

PS:  Despite all the negativity out there in the industry about DRM, it really isn’t reasonable to expect commercial publishers to forgo their intellectual property rights.

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Customized output for different media made easy with XML

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009

Now that many publications are online, does it still make sense to have them identical? For many publishers, the cost of printing has meant that some content is not as rich as it could be.  However, when a publication is reproduced online, the enriched content can be easily added back since the online document doesn’t have the same space limitations.

Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about and how it can be a simple matter to achieve, when the source is in XML.

Here is some sample XML:

<TABLEOFCASES>
<ENTRY>
<CASE><SOC>Wolf v. Wolf</SOC>, <CITATIONS>41 R.F.L. (3d) 391, 1992 RoweBC 562 (S.C.)</CITATIONS></CASE>
<PAGES>301, 336</PAGES>

</ENTRY>
<ENTRY>
<CASE><SOC>Wong v. Yee</SOC>, <CITATIONS>2004 RoweBC 153, 2004 BCSC 113 (Master)</CITATIONS></CASE>
<PAGES>228, 234, 317</PAGES>
</ENTRY>
<ENTRY>
<CASE><SOC>Wood v. Legge</SOC>, <CITATIONS>2004 RoweNS 380, 2004 NSFC 12, 11 R.F.L. (6th) 171, 227 N.S.R. (2d) 74, 720 A.P.R. 74 (Fam. Ct.)</CITATIONS></CASE>
<PAGES>20, 269</PAGES>

</ENTRY>
</TABLEOFCASES>

In print you may not want the potentially extensive citation information and only want the case name (aka Style of Cause), so the printed output may look like this:

Wolf v. Wolf……………………………………………………………………….. 301, 336

Wong v. Yee………………………………………………………………… 228, 234, 317

Wood v. Legge……………………………………………………………………… 20, 269

However, online you want to provide additional information for your readers

Wolf v. Wolf, 41 R.F.L. (3d) 391, 1992 RoweBC 562 (S.C.)…………………….. 301, 336

Wong v. Yee, 2004 RoweBC 153, 2004 BCSC 113 (Master)……………. 228, 234, 317

Wood v. Legge, 2004 RoweNS 380, 2004 NSFC 12, 11 R.F.L.
(6th) 171, 227 N.S.R. (2d) 74, 720 A.P.R. 74 (Fam. Ct.)…………….20, 269

So what is involved in generating the different outputs? Nothing more than a 1 line change to the XSLT that generates the output.

This block:

<xsl:for-each select=”CASE/SOC“>
<fo:inline>
<xsl:apply-templates/>
</fo:inline>
</xsl:for-each>

becomes:

<xsl:for-each select=”CASE“>
<fo:inline>
<xsl:apply-templates/>
</fo:inline>
</xsl:for-each>

This simple change will add all the citation information back in and make for a happier online user.

Simple things like adding more content to your online documents can help speed the transition to a fully online subscriber-base and bring the day of eliminating expensive printing and distribution costs one step closer.

BTW, with just a few more tiny changes, this program could use parameters to determine the correct output, but that is for another post.

Take care,
Keith Matthew
“Think simple, achieve more”

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