A New Approach to Digital Rights Management for the Enterprise
As organizations accelerate digital transformation and data collaboration across global ecosystems, protecting sensitive information has become increasingly complex. Traditional Digital Rights Management (DRM) solutions built on encryption-heavy, tethered architectures have struggled to meet enterprise demands for flexibility, scalability, and usability.
NextLabs’ whitepaper, “A New Approach to Digital Rights Management: Enterprise DRM,” examines why legacy DRM systems fall short and outlines a modern, zero trust-aligned framework for protecting enterprise data wherever it resides.
Why Traditional DRM Falls Short
Conventional DRM systems are rooted in static, user-defined policies and closed, license server–based models that restrict how information can be shared and accessed. These limitations often lead to:
- High complexity and cost from key management and policy maintenance
- Poor usability and limited offline access
- Vendor lock-in from proprietary policy languages
- Low end-user adoption due to workflow disruptions
The result is that organizations either under-enforce data protection or abandon DRM altogether, leaving intellectual property and regulated information at risk.
The Next-Generation DRM Model
The whitepaper presents a new, identity-driven, content-aware approach to Enterprise DRM that enables persistent control of information without compromising business agility.
Examples of key capabilities include:
- Format-agnostic protection: Works across all file types and applications, including CAD, source code, and text files.
- Dynamic, identity-based policies: Access decisions adapt automatically as user roles or contexts change.
- Content awareness: Automatically classifies and protects sensitive data based on content and context.
NextLabs SkyDRM: Enterprise-Ready E-DRM
NextLabs’ SkyDRM supports 100s of applications, delivering on next-generation requirements with a scalable, policy-driven architecture designed for the modern enterprise. It enables continuous control over who can view, edit, print, or share information anywhere it travels while reducing administrative overhead and ensuring compliance.
With SkyDRM, organizations can:
- Protect sensitive data – Control access to sensitive data based on attributes such as data classification, environmental information, user roles, metadata and location.
- Improve business agility – Works natively with application and externalizes authorization, slashing application development time and automating change management processes.
- Improve time-to-market and reduce costs – Eliminates the need to implement and maintain costly customizations to meet security, compliance, and governance requirements.
- Streamline Compliance – Automates the process of auditing authorization and data access to demonstrate compliance to auditors, regulators, and customers.
Learn More
Download the full whitepaper to explore how SkyDRM transforms traditional DRM into a scalable, identity-aware, and Zero Trust-ready solution.
