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igital multimedia work. including music, photographs, and movies, have proliferated during the last decade with the advent of the World Wide Web, e-commerce, and broadband connectivity to the home. This technical and economic revolution has ushered in a brave new world for content creators, publishers, distributors, and consumers. Thc advantages of digital media are many, including efficient storage and manipulation, fast and incxpcnsive distribution, and the ability to customize the media to each unique user. However, these advantages are tempercd by serious concerns regarding illegal copying, the viability of new e-commerce business models, and the uncertainty surrounding newly enacted copyright laws.

Digital rights management concerns itself with all these issues. While rapid advances in technology have created the current situation (where illegal digital copies can be created at virtually no cost and …