Digital Rights Management (DRM) has long been associated with techniques that restrict access to proprietary content like music. Today, there are passionate debates and pitched battles between those who dismiss DRM tools as oppressive "content chastity belts" and opposing parties who seek to stop online piracy.

Perhaps not as exciting, but more pertinent to you the enterprise customer, DRM also refers to the process of managing the rights and licensing information of digital assets within an organization. As content technology analysts, we frequently get asked about rights management by customers who are undertaking Digital Asset Management projects. Specifically, they want to know more about the depth of the DRM functionality available in DAM software products in the marketplace and whether/when they need specialist DRM solutions to meet their requirements.

Our just released advisory briefing "Managing Digital Asset Rights in the Enterprise" tries to bring greater clarity to this discussion.

In this advisory, among other topics, you'll find:

• Approaches available to you as a customer to support common DRM requirements
• A comparison of the Rights Management functionality of DAM vs. DRM products
• Considerations to decide when you need a DRM solution alongside your DAM
• An illustrative list of DRM products to jumpstart your vendor research

(As an aside: I referred to the DRM debates in the beginning. To make their point, some clever folks in Sweden got their government to recognize a new religion called "Kopimism",  whose central tenet is the right to share files. Let us just say that at Real Story Group, our central tenet has always been agnosticism. Vendor agnosticism, that is...)

Our DAM research stream subscribers can download the advisory briefing here.