Author-Level Digital Rights Management (A-DRM) can be considered the linchpin technology in the Common Point Authoring™ (CPA) System and in all Data Banking systems that Pardalis develops.

A-DRM was invented to address major obstacles to information sharing in large, fragmented information supply chains:

• Fragmentary Information
• Ownership Rights and Control
• Privacy and Confidentiality
• Traceability and Accountability
• Marketability and Due Credit

Fragmentary Information

Over 1 million beef producers generate information about 100 million head of cattle on a daily basis. Millions of healthcare providers generate many billions of records annually. Tens of thousands of government operatives and agents produce huge volumes of time-critical data in the war on terror.

Bringing this information together in usable form would provide enormous benefit—greater assurance of animal health and food safety, improved patient care, and stronger national security. The challenge is that these very high volumes of information are produced in millions or billions of small, fragmented units. And industry and government are resistant to merging fragmentary information without assurances that the other issues can be overcome. A-DRM provides that assurance.

Ownership Rights and Control

As its name indicates, A-DRM is a type of Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology. While standard DRM protects ownership rights to finished digital content such as MP3 music files and software, A-DRM was invented to protect ownership rights of multiple information “authors” in complex information supply chains. 

When a producer-author registers an information element in the CPA System, A-DRM technology “locks” that information in a digital wrapper by assigning it a Unique Digital ID, as represented in Figure 1. By means of these Unique IDs, each producer-author has complete control over unlocking his or her information, distributing it to recipients, and assigning permissions regarding its use.

Figure 1. A-DRM “Locks” Information Element and Assigns a Digital ID

Whether a part of a private- or public-sector Data Bank, every producer-author wthin the System retains ownership of, and control over, the information they produce, as represented in Figure 2.

Figure 2. A-DRM Protects Ownership Rights of Multiple Producer-Authors

Privacy and Confidentiality of Information

By wrapping information and assigning unique identifiers managed by the individual producer-authors of information, A-DRM provides the most effective, fail-safe assurance of the confidentiality of information and the privacy of its producers. Information cannot be accessed or pirated by any unauthorized entity, and producer-author identities remain unknown. Yet the information remains in the System, ready to be shared when the author-owner is ready.

Traceability and Accountability

The Unique Digital IDs also provide the mechanism needed to track the movement of information within the supply chain and ensure the proper accountability of all parties. A-DRM traceability and accountability ensure that producer-authors receive proper remuneration or credit for the information they provide to others in the system—that they can account for their information and its value. A-DRM traceability and accountability also ensure that information cannot be misused and that authors’ privacy cannot be breached, since all movement and usage is recorded in an unalterable audit trail.

Marketability and Due Credit

By protecting information ownership, the CPA System and its A-DRM technology make information a marketable commodity in private-sector supply chains and ensure that producer-authors in the public sector receive appropriate “credit” for the information they produce for the public good.

By solving the problems of ownership, confidentiality, traceability, and accountability, the CPA System encourages and enables information sharing.