Extension to MPEG-21 REL and DIP for multimedia DRM in an MPEG-21 multimedia framework

Abstract

MPEG-21 is now an on-going project of the Moving Picture Expert Group (MPEG), which includes standard parts such as the digital item declaration (DID), right expression language (REL), and digital item processing (DIP), etc. All these parts are intended to form a framework to enable transparent and augmented use of multimedia resources across a wide range of networks and devices. In this thesis, an MPEG-21 test-bed is implemented to deliver and consume the digital items in a secured way. The content provider provides the digital items in the form of MPEG-21 DID. Once the digital items delivered to the terminal, it is processed according to the processing function which is from MPEG-21 DIP and license description from MPEG-21 REL which are embedded in the DID. The test-bed is built based on MPEG-21 DID and DIP with extension to the REL. The REL extension is made by a rights-description model with logic proposition to express different rights on the combinations of resources in different usage orders. The proposed rights description model generalizes the current MPEG-21 REL description model by such an extension without modifying the existing structure so that the extension could be applied the REL descriptions directly and guarantee the harmonization of the current REL scheme. In order to realize the relationship between MPEG-21 REL and MPEG-21 DIP, in this thesis we proposes some DIBOs called REL-DIBO to reflect the usage of MPEG-21 REL in the MPEG-21 DIP. By having REL-DIBO, the User can to put a license checking and validation process so that the rights of all parties that are involved in the content consumption are obeyed. The proposed DIBOs have been accepted and included in the MPEG-21 DIP Final Committee Draft specification. The result of this study shows that, with some combination of MPEG-21 parts, we can develop applications of authorized multimedia delivery and consumption in more flexible ways.