DVB-CPCM

DVB Content Protection & Copy Management often abbreviated to DVB-CPCM or CPCM is a digital rights management standard being developed by the DVB Project. Its main application is interoperable rights management of European digital television, though other countries may also adopt the standard.

How it works

CPCM specifies a way of adding information to digital content, such as television programs, to describe how and if content may be used and shared among other CPCM-enabled devices.

Content providers can use a range of flags stored with the content to describe how it may be used. All CPCM-enabled devices should obey these flags. These flags can allow or deny content to be either moved or copied to other CPCM devices. Content may also be provided for a set time limit, or forbid content to be played concurrently on separate devices.

Domains

CPCM can distinguish between devices inside and outside an "authorized domain" of devices. The authorized domain can include devices both in the home or in remote locations such as cars or vacation homes. It also specifies whether content should remain inside the home (the "local environment") or inside a physical region, such as a country (the "geographic area").

Robustness requirement

CPCM (as do all content protection mechanisms used for Pay TV) contains a "robustness requirement" that demands that manufacturers design their technologies to resist end-user modification, which makes it impossible to implement CPCM in free and open source software like Linux.

Unlike most DRM systems, CPCM (in theory) supports a choice of robustness regimes rather than tying everyone to a single set of conditions.

That said, at this time no regime has been announced, so any restrictions have yet to be identified.

Related technology

CPCM is sometimes erroneously compared to the failed U.S. broadcast flag.

CPCM is only applied in the home after the broadcast has been received, never added to a broadcast signal.

However, it is likely that the DVB will eventually define a European Broadcast Flag of some kind, which could be used to determine (or limit) CPCM behaviour.

It is worth noting that Europe does not have a single regulating authority like the FCC, so an exact parallel to the enforcement rules of the failed US approach is unlikely.

External links

Current standard (Official sites)

• DVB Project and CPCM Specifications
• Electronic Frontier Foundation
  • DVB CPCM Is a Stealth Attack on Europeans' Digital Rights
  • Who Controls Your Television?
• Fastcom Technology Fastcom Technology showed at the 50th DVB-CPT meeting (7-9 February 2007) the first demonstrator of the DVB-CPCM standard and is further developing it.