Have we carefully considered the ramifications of any use of Digital Rights Management (DRM) tools?

Although it might be tempting to use DRM to guard your intellectual property, you need to weigh the costs and benefits carefully. Google, Microsoft, Virgin Digital, Sony, and Major League Baseball have all made costly mistakes in rolling out DRM.

Google: In 2007 Google became the target of public outcry when it tried to close down its video service that incorporated DRM technology. Because users would have been unable to continue to use their previously purchased content once Google terminated the service, Google was forced to fully refund all payments for the service as well as keep the service active for an additional six months.

• Consider the long-term financial costs of DRM. The upfront costs of DRM are fairly obvious: the financial outlay and time spent on acquisition or implementation. The long-term costs are more difficult to measure. DRM can force your company to choose between maintaining a distribution model or authentication system that you would rather abandon and alienating users who purchased content that is suddenly unusable. In addition, the administrative costs of maintaining DRM are likely to continue to grow.
• Evaluate the impact of DRM on your users. Users may be dissuaded from using your product or service if their freedom is constrained by DRM, especially if there is not enough "breathing space" to allow your customers to create new content or find new uses of your products or services that you never envisioned. In addition, user trust in your product may erode as customers realize that DRM is interfering with their expectations.
• Evaluate the benefits and effectiveness of DRM. Rather than providing strong protection for intellectual property, DRM often simply presents a speed bump that will quickly be circumvented. With this in mind, your company might benefit more from encouraging broad distribution and creative uses of your property rather than by attempting to retain tighter control.