On implementing MPEG-21 intellectual property management and protection

The MPEG-21 Intellectual Property Management and Protection ("IPMP") Components specify a framework for inter-operable and renewable digital rights management based on IPMP tools that implement proprietary digital rights management features. MPEG-21 defines the mechanism by which protected multimedia objects are associated with proprietary IPMP tools, but does not specify the interface through which IPMP tools and MPEG-21 terminals communicate.This paper describes an implementation of the IPMP components including an interface to IPMP tools based on the MPEG Rights Expression Language; dynamic construction of authorisation proofs that permit a principal to carry out an action; and a cryptographic architecture bound to the existence of authorisation proofs. This implementation has been applied to scenarios in copyright protection, privacy protection and corporate document protection, suggesting that ''IPMP'' may be useful in applications other than intellectual property.