From Hindsight to Foresight: Applying Futures Research Techniques in Information Systems

Although much IS research deals with evaluating and improving existing information systems, researchers are also called upon to think about the future, particularly beyond organizational boundaries. Examples include: the potential impact of socio-technical phenomena such as the digital divide, digital rights management, security, and privacy. One way of forecasting the future is to extrapolate empirically observed relations (e.g. Moore’s law). However, such extrapolations assume that the future is an immutable extension of the present and are usually limited to one or two dimensions. Externalities due to disruptive inventions, changes in regulations, tastes, competition, required skills, and more also need to be considered. This tutorial presents and explains three methodologies that take these possible changes into account to improve our understanding of the future: Delphi, cross impact analysis, and scenarios

The Digital Technology Boomerang: New Intellectual Property Rights Threaten Global “Open Science”

There is a serious threat that ill-considered government support for expanding legal means of controlling access to information for the purpose of extracting private economic rents is resulting in the 'over- fencing of the public knowledge commons' in science and engineering. Such a new 'tragedy of the commons' would bring adverse long-run consequences for future welfare gains through technological progress, and re-distributional effects further disadvantaging the present economically less advanced countries of the world. Radical legal innovations in intellectual property protection that seriously jeopardize the effective conduct of open, collaborative science have been introduced by the little noticed European Database Directive of March 1996. This initiative forms an emblematic and substantively significant aspect of the broader set of transformations in intellectual property rights institutions that have been initiated in response to the economic ramifications of rapid progress in digital information technologies. The EC Directive poses numerous contentious issues in law and economics that will create ambiguities for business and non-profit activities in this area for years to come. The terms on which those issues are resolved will materially affect the costs and organizational feasibility of scientific projects that are of global reach and importance, especially those that depend heavily upon the collection, management and analysis of large volumes of observational data that cannot be regenerated. This paper sets out the economic case for the effectiveness of open, collaborative research, and the forces behind the recent, countervailing rush to strengthen and expand the scope of intellectual property rights protection. Focusing upon innovations in copyright law and the sui generis protection of hitherto unprotected content, it documents the genesis and analyzes the economic implications of the EC's Database Directive, and related legislative proposals (H.R. 3125, H.R. 354 and H.R. 1858) in the US. Several modest remedial proposals are advanced to mitigate the adverse impact of 'the digital technology boomerang' upon open science.intellectual property rights, copyright, sui generis protection of expressive material, economics of information-goods, open science, 'fair use,' scientific databases

Managing long-term access to digital data objects: a metadata approach

As society becomes increasingly reliant on information technology for data exchange and long-term data storage the need for a system of data management to document and provide access to the 'societal memory' is becoming imperative. An examination of both the literature and current 'best Practice' underlines the absence to date of a proven universal conceptual basis to digital data preservation. The examination of differences in nature and sources of origin, between traditional 'print-based' and digital objects leads to a re-appraisal of current practices of data selection and preservation. The need to embrace past, present and future metadata developments in a rapidly changing environment is considered. Various hypotheses were formulated and supported regarding; the similarities and differences required in selection criteria for different types of Digital Data Objects (DDOs), the ability to define universal threshold standards for a framework of metadata for digital data preservation, and the role of selection criteria in such a framework. The research uses Soft Systems Methodology to investigate the potential of the metadata concept as the key to universal data management. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore the attitudes of information professionals in the United Kingdom towards the challenges facing information-dependent organisations attempting to preserve digital data over the long-term. In particular, the nature of DDOs being encountered by stakeholders, the reasons, policies, and procedures for preserving them, together with a range of specific issues such as; the role of metadata, access to, and rights management of DDOs. The societal need for selection to ensure efficient long-term access is considered. Drawing on - SSM modelling, this research develops a flexible, long-term management framework for digital data at a level higher than metadata, with selection as an essential component. The framework's conceptual feasibility has been examined from both financial and societal benefit perspectives, together with the recognition of constraints. The super-metadata framework provides a possible systematic approach to managing a wide range of digital data in a variety of formats, created/owned by a spectrum of information-dependent organisations

A First Look at Digital Rights Management Systems for Secure Mobile Content Delivery

Digital rights management (DRM) solutions aim to prevent the copying or distribution of copyrighted material. On mobile devices, a variety of DRM technologies have become widely deployed. However, a detailed security study comparing their internal workings, and their strengths and weaknesses, remains missing in the existing literature. In this paper, we present the first detailed security analysis of mobile DRM systems, addressing the modern paradigm of cloud-based content delivery followed by major platforms, such as Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime. We extensively analyse the security of three widely used DRM solutions -- Google Widevine, Apple FairPlay, and Microsoft PlayReady -- deployed on billions of devices worldwide. We then consolidate their features and capabilities, deriving common features and security properties for their evaluation. Furthermore, we identify some design-level shortcomings that render them vulnerable to emerging attacks within the state of the art, including micro-architectural side-channel vulnerabilities and an absence of post-quantum security. Lastly, we propose mitigations and suggest future directions of research

A First Look at Digital Rights Management Systems for Secure Mobile Content Delivery

Digital rights management (DRM) solutions aim to prevent the copying or distribution of copyrighted material. On mobile devices, a variety of DRM technologies have become widely deployed. However, a detailed security study comparing their internal workings, and their strengths and weaknesses, remains missing in the existing literature. In this paper, we present the first detailed security analysis of mobile DRM systems, addressing the modern paradigm of cloud-based content delivery followed by major platforms, such as Netflix, Disney+, and Amazon Prime. We extensively analyse the security of three widely used DRM solutions -- Google Widevine, Apple FairPlay, and Microsoft PlayReady -- deployed on billions of devices worldwide. We then consolidate their features and capabilities, deriving common features and security properties for their evaluation. Furthermore, we identify some design-level shortcomings that render them vulnerable to emerging attacks within the state of the art, including micro-architectural side-channel vulnerabilities and an absence of post-quantum security. Lastly, we propose mitigations and suggest future directions of research

The interaction between copyright, neighbouring rights and international licensing procedures: The high-wire balancing act of rights management in the digital age - past, present and future of music licensing

The rapidly progressing digital transformation of the music market and an ever more complicated music licensing process is frustrating the user's demand for faster, easier and unlimited access to the entire world music repertoire, providing impetus for concern. This dissertation traces the development process of radio technology from analogue to online streaming services and examines the associated international laws, regulations, and respective licensing practices in order to understand the struggles online music services face when seeking cross-border licences for the online use of musical works. The aim is to find a suitable solution that guarantees sufficient international licensing of musical works and provides for easy access to the world music repertoire. The research focuses on the European Union and the United States of America as both have recently introduced legislation in order to improve online licensing of musical works. However, a special focus is on the development process of the European Directive on Collective Management of Copyright and Related Rights and Multi-Territorial Licensing of Rights in Musical Works for Online use in the Internal Market (CRM-Directive) as the first to introduce standards for the operation of rights managing entities and the general collective management of rights in musical works. One of the key findings is that collective rights management organisations are an important factor for enhancing a global online licensing regime but, due to their national regulation and operation, such a regime needs technical support to make international music licensing possible. Therefore, this dissertation examines the possibilities of an international licensing system that combines regulations from the European CRM-Directive and the American Music Modernization Act of 2018 with an interoperable database system for rights managing entities. This research argues for a harmonised global online licensing system that is detached from specific national copyright regulations and accompanied by an interoperable database system that allows for easy access to international licences while at the same time guaranteeing fair remuneration to all right holders. The main conclusion drawn is that in order to overcome the existing licensing controversies strong and consistent international rights management standards combined with database technology rather than legislation alone could provide for easier cross-border licensing and fair remuneration of right holders

Multimedia delivery in the future internet

The term “Networked Media” implies that all kinds of media including text, image, 3D graphics, audio and video are produced, distributed, shared, managed and consumed on-line through various networks, like the Internet, Fiber, WiFi, WiMAX, GPRS, 3G and so on, in a convergent manner [1]. This white paper is the contribution of the Media Delivery Platform (MDP) cluster and aims to cover the Networked challenges of the Networked Media in the transition to the Future of the Internet. Internet has evolved and changed the way we work and live. End users of the Internet have been confronted with a bewildering range of media, services and applications and of technological innovations concerning media formats, wireless networks, terminal types and capabilities. And there is little evidence that the pace of this innovation is slowing. Today, over one billion of users access the Internet on regular basis, more than 100 million users have downloaded at least one (multi)media file and over 47 millions of them do so regularly, searching in more than 160 Exabytes1 of content. In the near future these numbers are expected to exponentially rise. It is expected that the Internet content will be increased by at least a factor of 6, rising to more than 990 Exabytes before 2012, fuelled mainly by the users themselves. Moreover, it is envisaged that in a near- to mid-term future, the Internet will provide the means to share and distribute (new) multimedia content and services with superior quality and striking flexibility, in a trusted and personalized way, improving citizens’ quality of life, working conditions, edutainment and safety. In this evolving environment, new transport protocols, new multimedia encoding schemes, cross-layer inthe network adaptation, machine-to-machine communication (including RFIDs), rich 3D content as well as community networks and the use of peer-to-peer (P2P) overlays are expected to generate new models of interaction and cooperation, and be able to support enhanced perceived quality-of-experience (PQoE) and innovative applications “on the move”, like virtual collaboration environments, personalised services/ media, virtual sport groups, on-line gaming, edutainment. In this context, the interaction with content combined with interactive/multimedia search capabilities across distributed repositories, opportunistic P2P networks and the dynamic adaptation to the characteristics of diverse mobile terminals are expected to contribute towards such a vision. Based on work that has taken place in a number of EC co-funded projects, in Framework Program 6 (FP6) and Framework Program 7 (FP7), a group of experts and technology visionaries have voluntarily contributed in this white paper aiming to describe the status, the state-of-the art, the challenges and the way ahead in the area of Content Aware media delivery platforms

BlogForever D3.3: Development of the Digital Rights Management Policy

This report presents a set of recommended practices and approaches that a future BlogForever repository can use to develop a digital rights management policy. The report outlines core legal aspects of digital rights that might need consideration in developing policies, and what the challenges are, in particular, in relation to web archives and blog archives. These issues are discussed in the context of the digital information life cycle and steps that might be taken within the workflow of the BlogForever platform to facilitate the gathering and management of digital rights information. Further, the reports on interviews with experts in the field highlight current perspectives on rights management and provide empirical support for the recommendations that have been put forward

Copyright and Promotion: Oxymoron or Opportunity?

Copyright in the cultural sphere can act as a barrier to the dissemination of high-quality information. On the other hand it protects works of art that might not be made available otherwise. This dichotomy makes the area of copyright difficult, especially when it applies to the digital arena of the web where copying is so easy and natural. Here we present a snapshot of the issues for online copyright, with particular emphasis on the relevance to cultural institutions. We concentrate on Europe and the US; as an example we include a special section dedicated to the situation in Italy.Comment: 10 pages, 0 figure