User-Attributed Rights in DRM

Current Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems lack a functionality that allows a user to have more control over his content licenses to preserve his privacy or otherwise protect his interests. This paper presents an approach to increasing user's control of domain-based protected content without sacrificing content owner's control. The proposed method is based on a specific form of a delegation license and an activation mechanism. The paper also discusses a practical realization of the proposed concept as well as its cryptographic enforcement, architectural aspects and system complexity. The effectiveness and simplicity of the approach are illustrated by a practical realization of several motivating examples.