A Software Architecture to Facilitate the Creation of DRM Systems

Although various publications confirm the need for a generic DRM software architecture, we observe that current efforts to define a DRM architecture do not always provide sufficient support to enable the creation and management of DRM systems and content distribution applications. This is a considerable problem that implies a crucial challenge for the evolution of DRM, given the impact of a software architecture on the functional and non-functional qualities of the implemen- tation. This paper (1) presents a generic DRM architecture, (2) evaluates it in the context of interoperability, extendability, and modifiability, and (3) compares it to related work in the Digital Media Project (DMP). To the best of our knowledge, the proposed architecture is more detailed than related work published so far.