Digital rights management or DRM is an old approach focusing on digital media copyright protection. Businesses, including entertainment companies, went crazy about the potential DRM kept in store ten years ago.
From today’s perspective the whole concept looks like something used in the dark ages of Internet.
The biggest reason why companies tried to implement DRM was because they were afraid employees will accidentally share sensitive information with their respective client base.
eDRM systems are hard to implement and have multiple limitations:
- Not supporting multiple formats,
- Difficult to use and customize,
- Expensive deployment and maintenance.
Companies started realizing this soon after DRM hit the stage, but they still believed how this is the right way to keep their data safe.
After Verizon released their 2016 Data Breach Investigation Report, where “accidental sensitive data sharing” accounts as the main reason behind a security breach for less than 1% of the total number of incidents; companies started reevaluating their position on digital rights management.
Why DRM Can Become the Right Choice Once Again?
Companies quickly started switching from enterprise DRM software to an easier model of sensitive data sharing. Most businesses today sign a contract with their partners and share their documents via a third party cloud based app similar to Google Drive or Dropbox.
You may trust your partner because of that contract, but what happens when someone breaches your security fence from the outside due to the low level of security cloud solutions offer?
This is where eDRM software providers saw an opportunity and they quickly started:
- Improving usability,
- Creating affordable pricing plans,
- Solving various compliance requirements.
Resulting in an estimated double digit growth for vendors operating on the US market ranging from 10% to 100%, which is a huge spike no matter the business you’re in.
Who Can Use DRM?
All companies working with sensitive data that needs to be shared with outside parties till some extent.
You must share a document with some of your partners or employees, but at the same time you need to be certain the person receiving the document has certain limitations.
FinalCode is the most recent example of a successful DRM solution and it’s main goal is to limit the printing or sharing of documents. The best part is FinalCode, as an encryption product, can be easily deployed in a DropBox looking platform.
That’s what makes DRM a perfect solution for organizations operating in the financial, government and healthcare sector; where dynamic sensitive data sharing between multiple entities is a daily routine.
Will Digital Rights Management Succeed?
It’s hard to generalize data security methods and define reasons why they’re good or bad for your business. Absolute online security is more of a philosophical concept rather than a future goal set by security software vendors.
The point is to create the perfect solution for a targeted group of potential users, and it seems like DRM has found its perfect customer in the likes of hospitals, banks and government organizations.
Usability is still a concern. It’s hard for digital rights management software developers to create a solution offering high level of security to the end user and be as functional as Google Drive at the same time.
Creating a web based DRM solution is still a far fetched idea only because vendors don’t want to compromise on security, and cloud SaaS offers are known to have multiple security breach points of risk.
At the end of the day it all comes down to deciding how important security is to you. If you have tight budget yet you need high security protection for some of your files, combining public cloud solutions like Dropbox and Google Drive with a more refined DRM software is always a solution.