Digital rights management

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Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a way to make it impossible to copy music, movies, and computer programs. It is used to make people follow copyright laws. It works by using computer technologies.

Companies such as Sony, Microsoft and the BBC use DRM. Other companies also use DRM.

Some people do not like Digital Rights Management. They think that DRM makes copying harder than copyright laws allow. The Free Software Foundation suggested that Digital Restrictions Management is a better name.

People can break DRM. If someone breaks a DRM technology then copying is possible. All common DRM technologies have been broken. Making a DRM technology that can not be broken is very hard. Some people say that all DRM technologies in the future will be broken. In the United States it is illegal to break a DRM.