Digital Rights Management and Content Development: Technology drivers across the book production supply chain, from creator to consumer

At the beginning of the 21st century our ability to create content, in its many and diverse forms, and to circulate that content through media both new and old, has been greatly enhanced by the development ad widespread use of new technologies.

But the ease with which that dissemination can be achieved brings with it its own particular set of problems. The rights of creators to an appropriate reward for their efforts and the rights of consumers to free and open access to certain kinds of educational and cultural content must both find protection within a system that potentially allows open and free access to anything stored within it.

The digital rights management solution to this dichotomy required development of sophisticated techniques such as granularisation of content, automation of content management and microtransactions within the ecommerce field, to keep in balance the rights of all creative and commercial participants along the supply chain from the creator to the consumer. This book discusses the impact of digital content creation technologies on the world of writing, the ownership of the writing and the commercial management of that writing.

The material in this volume has been developed as part of a wider collaborative research project entitled "Future Markets and Future Products in the Book Production Industry: a Program of New Knowledge Creation, Supply Chain-wide Awareness and Cultural Change", undertaken by Common Ground Publishing in partnership with RMIT University.