Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology is allowing the content creator to make a viable business model built around his content.

There are numerous instances where high value content kept online is viewed and distributed by others who essentially do not own the content. Eventually, the owner of the content, who spent a considerable amount of time and money in generating the content, is robbed of the revenue which has come out of his hard work. Therefore, the economics of putting content online fails to work out, making such business models crumble. In fact, this problem is not only experienced by publishers but also by people in the music, gaming and others in the entertainment industry where the distribution of music, films and games is done by people who do not own the rights. All these have led the entertainment industry to call for the curbing of access to and distribution of the content to people who do not have that right. These increased calls have led to the formulation of the copyrights act as well as for DRM.

DRM is a technology that restricts usage and access to the content. This gives the owner of the content the ability to secure and distribute the content only to the people for whom it is meant, thereby, generating revenues for them and building a robust business model. Though the term DRM is relatively new the purview of it addresses numerous business challenges that companies and individuals have been facing since a long time. The music industry was against the playing of their music by the radio stations way back in the 1940s. Later on, the film industry fought against the use of Video Cassette Recorders (VCRs) as they felt that it would reduce the number of people who would watch movies on the traditional silver screens.

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