Abstract

The essay is aimed at clarifying whether and on which conditions Digital Rights Management systems can be useful for fostering the development of the broadband market. The starting point of the study is that content providers seem reluctant to use broadband to distribute their contents, because of the fear of Internet piracy. Digital Rights Management systems can provide an effective way to enforce copyright protection, to increase the availability of the broadband contents which users show a willingness to pay for and, as a consequence, to foster broadband penetration. Nevertheless, a more accurate analysis of the characteristics of the broadband contents market shows how such systems could actually cause a delay in the development of broadband in case they make content enjoyment more complicated to users or in case they are designed in order to grant a higher content protection level than the one provided for by the copyright law.