The use of a digital rights management system in a document supply service

Digital rights management (DRM) has had a chequered history. It has been called “the saviour of intellectual property rights” and “completely useless” in protecting digital content. The truth probably lies somewhere in between. The paper describes the use of DRM in providing a secure document supply service, the reasons for implementation of a DRM system by the British Library, the system adopted, with reasons for the rejection of some systems and insight into how the chosen system has been received by users.