DRM stands for Digital Rights Management. This refers to a broad range of activities which are all about controlling access and use of digital media. The following examples are all instances of DRM:
- A video game developer requires you to run special software before playing a game to verify that you have bought a real copy
- An e-book collection that only allows you print 10% of any one book
- A movie studio encodes their DVDs to prevent it them from being copied
One of the most common versions of DRM software you are likely to see with e-books is Adobe Digital Editions. Some e-book collections require you to install and authorize ADE before you can access their e-books. Other collections that don't use ADE can still limit how much you can print, copy or download, and some collections do not allow downloading at all.
McGill has both e-books with and without DRM, and there are DRM free resources listed on E-book webpage: on the Digital Rights page, and on the Explore E-books section of the Introduction page.
