Portion-Level Digital Rights Management for Granular Access Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional digital rights management (DRM) systems are inadequate as they either grant or deny access to entire digital content, failing to protect different portions with varying access rights, leading to redundancy, increased storage use, and user confusion due to the need for multiple copies and complex management.
Innovation Solution
Implementing portion-level DRM, where specific portions of digital content are encrypted with unique policies, allowing different users to access only authorized sections based on their user identity, enabling dynamic control of access rights and efficient management of digital content distribution.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If multiple copies of the document are created with different DRM policies, then different users can have different access rights, but management complexity and storage requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the digital content into multiple portions with different DRM policies applied to each portion. Instead of creating multiple complete document copies, the system divides the content and applies granular encryption to specific sections, allowing different users to access different portions based on their authorization level.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements local quality by applying different DRM protection levels to different portions of the same digital content. Each portion can have its own encryption policy, allowing the system to provide tailored access rights to different users for specific sections while keeping other sections accessible to all users.
2Adaptability or versatility
If multiple copies of the document are created with different DRM policies, then users can access different sections, but storage space increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges multiple access control policies into a single digital content file. Instead of storing separate encrypted copies for different user groups, the system combines multiple DRM-protected portions into one file, where each portion is encrypted with its own policy but all portions coexist in the same document structure.
3Adaptability or versatility
If access rights change, then a new copy of the document with modified DRM is distributed, but this leads to redundancy and user confusion
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements dynamic access control where DRM policies can be modified without recreating the entire document. The system allows administrators to change encryption keys and access policies for specific portions of the content, and these changes are automatically propagated to authorized users without requiring document redistribution.
4Ease of operation
If conventional DRM is applied to entire digital content, then security is simplified, but fine-grained access control is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments digital content into protectable portions that can be individually encrypted with different DRM policies. This segmentation enables fine-grained access control where specific sections can be restricted to authorized users while other sections remain accessible to all, providing both security and versatility.
Data Source
AI summary
Portion-level digital rights management (DRM) in digital content is described. In one or more embodiments, a selection of a portion of the digital content is received at a computing device. Then, a policy is assigned to the selected portion by adding a markup element with an identifier to the selected portion. Based on the assigned policy, the selected portion is encrypted without encrypting another portion of the digital content. Subsequently, access to the selected portion is controlled based on the policy independently of the other portion. In this way, different portions of a single document can be protected with different policies. Different users may then have access to different portions of the digital content based on their user ID being associated with a particular policy, which improves security and management of distributable digital content.