The Use of Peer-to-Peer Networks in Copyright Protection

As a general and effective protection measure for copyright violations which occur with the use of digital technologies including peer to peer (P2P) networks, copyright owners often use digital watermarking techniques so as to encrypt copyright information to the content or otherwise restrict or even block access to the digital content through the Internet and the P2P infrastructure. This paper claims that DRM and P2P can be quite complementary. Specifically, a P2P infrastructure is presented which allows broad digital content exchange while on the same time supports copyright protection and management through watermarking technologies for digital images.