Controlled sharing of personal content using digital rights management

This paper describes a system which allows controlled distribution of personal digital content by users. The system extends an existing Digital Rights Management system for the protection of commercial copyrighted content by essentially allowing users to become content providers. This fact, however, makes the system vulnerable to illegal content distribution, i.e., distribution by users who do not own the content. To solve this problem a solution is proposed which involves the compulsory registration with a trusted authority of a user’s personal content. During registration, the association between user identity and content is securely recorded by the authority, but users have the possibility to remain anonymous towards any other party. Moreover, in case the initial content identification fails and content is illegally registered, the authority can ensure user accountability.