Abstract:

The unbelievable speed of technology development initiated a massive scale fancy of technical innovations after the pioneering industrial revolution. It is the very first time people recognized that the positive sectors of new technology benefit their life and at the same time, however, its disadvantages had brought a controversial debate with respect to the interest balance which asked for scholars and legislators’ attention as well. Digital right management (DRM), as a kind of technical tool which protects and manages intellectual property information and material during the process of creation, communication, distribution and exploitation of the digital content, is posing an immense influence especially on physical copyright regime and traditional careful balancing of interest between authors and the general public. The situation that the general public explore copyright materials happened in digital environment seems much knotty to deal with than that in physical world.

DRM scheme strictly controls the public’s access to and further use of digital content as a result that right holders are able to overstep the boundary of their specific right which is protected by copyright. Lacking of standardization is acknowledged by scholars and professional insiders as the crucial problems nowadays nagged by DRM technologies and the matter to be solved promptly by DRM software designers and legislators. Previous researches have explored the relationship between DRM technology and the general public’s access to the copyrighted works and other information knowledge in digital environment as well as the current legal dilemma encountered by various countries’ legislation, but little attention has been paid to the part of DRM technology or technological protection measures (‘TPMs’) which is DRM’s main element in worldwide modern education development.

This paper aims to clarify erroneous remarks about DRM scheme in the context of digital educational environment based on literature analysis and comparative research adopted. The objective of the paper is to state the deficiencies about the present practices on balancing the relationship between the copyright holders’ benefit and the public’ demand of information. As the influence from digital technology on copyright system has not completely revealed and copyright system itself has not yet fully responded to these impact, either. The existing situation that unbalanced interest under educational system and chaotic applicability of copyright provisions is treated the requisite stage towards a perfect copyright world. These findings highlight the potential attention of educational access to digital copyrighted works in spite of DRM’s excessive obstructing.

Keywords:

Digital Right Management Educational Access to Copyrighted Works Balance of Interest Technological Protection Measure.