A Novel Digital Rights Management in P2P Networks Based on Bitcoin System

In recent years, digital rights management (DRM) in Peer to Peer (P2P) network becomes more and more important. We propose a novel DRM scheme based on P2P to protect valuable digital content. The digital content is firstly encrypted with a symmetric cryptographic algorithm, and then the symmetric key is encrypted by the RSA scheme such that any unpaid user cannot access the digital content. The symmetric key is only held by the content provider for avoiding the risk of the server leaking the symmetric key. By exploiting Bitcoin system, the content provider and the user have the ability to make a direct payment without relying on the server. Moreover, the payment is a timely payment, that is, when the user’s payment is completed, he/she will obtain the private key of RSA immediately. In our scheme, users can download ciphertext of the digital content from any peer who owns the digital content early. In addition, a payment voucher is used to verify users who have paid for the digital content, which can also against the collusion attack. We anonymize the authentication process for protecting the users’ privacy. The security analysis shows that our scheme can provide message confidentiality, anonymity of users, and can resist poisoning attack and collusion attack. The simulation shows that our scheme is efficient and practical.