Use of standards for implementing a multimedia information protection and management system

In the multimedia content life cycle, the provision of trust to content creators, content providers and distributors is a key issue. The fight against piracy, and, in general, against unauthorized usage of multimedia content should lie on the protection of content, that helps to guarantee only authorized usage, respecting the rights that users have over the content. Some standard initiatives, like MPEG-21, are trying to provide a framework where trust and protection can be defined and associated to multimedia content. The MIPAMS (multimedia information protection and management system) architecture is our starting point to address the solution to this problem. We are enhancing our initial MIPAMS by adding standards-conformant tools for content protection. In some cases, we conclude that current standards need to be adapted to new applications. In this context, the FP6 programme AXMEDIS project will provide tools and demonstrators to show how to provide trust and protection for the whole distribution chain.