The Long March to Interoperable Digital Rights Management

This paper discusses interoperability of digital rights management (DRM) systems. We start by describing a basic reference model for DRM. The cause of interoperability is served by understanding and circumscribing what DRM is "in the whole." Then we outline and contrast three different approaches to achieving interoperability. One approach relies on flexible network services to provide functionality where it is needed, perhaps by bridging different systems. We describe an experimental service orchestration system (NEMO) that enables such an approach.