Sharlett Gillard

Digital rights management: a delicate balance between protection and accessibility

In the wake of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems are beginning to provide copyright protection for digital content placed online by magazine and book publishers, music companies, software and game producers and business-to-business companies. Creators and providers of digital content are increasingly able to control end users’ use of, and accessibility to, their products, and stand to gain huge profits from this capability. However, as DRM technologies evolve and develop, so does end user concern about restrictions to their access to, and use of, information. The DRM industry must provide a balance between fair compensation for the creators of digital content and the rights of end users to access and use information.

Project Management Communication: a Systems Approach

This discussion analyzes and reviews verbal and non-verbal communication issues that have an impact on information resource project managers. The concepts are presented in a familiar information systems model framework showing open and closed-loop systems as well as a communication flow system. It provides theoretical underpinnings for project managers who strive to develop proactive management of the environmental influences surrounding them to shape a communications environment, rather than having to take a reactive stance to the multiple messages and barriers they encounter. Technology alone is insufficient to improve communication. Technology may be utilized to organize data into information, but information becomes communication only as it is interpreted by a person. Information resource project managers, who can expect to spend a large percentage of their time in communication activities, can develop communication skills as they increase their understanding that communication is interactive and manageable.

Managing IT projects: communication pitfalls and bridges

The complex nature of the matrix organizational structure presents a communication paradigm unparalled by any other management position, creating an organizational environment that is uniquely sensitive to interpersonal communications. This paper discusses the organizational environment typically found in major information systems initiatives as well as some of the interpersonal communications challenges encountered by the IT project manager. Suggestions are provided as bridges to avoid the pitfalls these challenges present.

Information resources project management communication: personal and environmental barriers

Knowledge is more than the retrieval of sets of information: it is the task of explaining them and contextualizing them and empowering the information to change the face or workings of a corporation. Placed in this sophisticated role, 20th century project managers now find themselves revolutionizing the concept of what information and information management means to themselves and their corporations. The Information Resources Project Manager (IRPM), the program/project manager leading a multi-departmental or multi-organizational ad hoc project, is becoming the maker of meaning and can become the driver of organizational learning. The task undertaken by IRPMs often may be to help their organizations make sense of their interpretations of their environment. To flourish in this role, the IRPM must constantly be aware of the barriers to effective communications. This brief theoretical review of communications barriers serves as a checklist for the IRPM whose attention must be directed more and more heavily to audience and the very humanness of communications.

Issues and Opportunities in Digital Rights Management

In the wake of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, of 1998, Digital Rights Management systems are beginning to provide copyright protection for digital content which magazine and book publishers, music companies, software and game producers, and business-to-business participants place online. Creators and providers of digital content are now increasingly able to control end users’ use of, and accessibility to, their products and stand to gain huge profits from this capability. However, as DRM technologies evolve and develop, so does end user concern about restrictions to their access to, and use of, information. The DRM industry will have to provide a balance between fair compensation for the creators of digital content and the rights of end-users to access and use the information they need.