Inaugural conference puts digital rights and risks under the spotlight

Nov 03, 2005

We have all heard that the downloading of music is having a negative impact on the industry as well as being a breach of copyright. But how do we stop it? The ease of copying digital content through a variety of mediums is posing major threats to ownership rights and copyright holders all over the world. But what can we do about it?

The inaugural international conference titled 'Digital Rights Management (DRM): Technology, Issues, Challenges and Systems' took place this week (Monday 31 October - Wednesday 2 November) and was the first of its kind to be held in the Asia-Pacific region.

DRM is a multi-faceted area of research and development that provides controlled access to digital content and protection for copyright materials.

Researchers from the University of Wollongong's Telecommunications and Information Technology Research Institute (TITR) played key roles in organising the conference including Program co-Chair, Professor Rei Safavi-Naini and General co-Chairs, Dr Wanqing Li and Dr Nicholas Sheppard.

The conference featured speakers from Australia, Asia, North America and Europe and was held in co-operation with the International Association for Cryptologic Research (IACR) and the IEEE Computer Society Task Force on Information Assurance. A number of international companies sponsored the event including global ICT leaders, Motorola and Infosys as well as the ARC Research Network for Secure Australia and Smart Internet CRC.

Dr Sheppard, said the conference focussed on current threats to ownership rights.

“The conference looked at all aspects of DRM systems including issues faced by holders of digital rights who want to protect their intellectual property rights and consumers who seek to protect their privacy and to preserve their traditional pattern of access to media under existing copyright law.”

“The issue of downloading versus purchase and the music industry versus the consumer is an ongoing one. One of the papers being presented discussed how there is not a clear dichotomy between downloading and purchase.

"From the users perspective the activity of downloading is transformed to the activity of accessing and exploring music. The issue is controversial, particularly as there is now significant revenue from legal music downloads in the United States and Europe.”

Themes covered in the conference also included cryptography, digital watermarking, rights expression languages, trusted computing, fingerprinting and image authentication and software tamper resistance.

Invited guest speakers included world leader in cryptography and security from the Weizmann Institutein in Israel, Dr Moni Naor; UOW mathematics/law graduate and senior associate from Blake Dawson and Waldron, Karen Gettens and program leader from National ICT Australia (NICTA), Dr Renato Iannella.