Digital rights management (DRM)
From The Glossary of Digital Photography
Various technologies used to control access and distribution of various digital media. Technically, DRM refers to all digital media, but the term has evolved to the extent that it is also applied to artistic copyrightable items such as digital images, digital music, and digital art. DRM is the method by which copyright holders and publishers can control access, reproduction, and distribution of their artistic works. This has become important in the digital world because any digital artistic work can be duplicated exactly, unlike early analog works that would degrade with each copy. Each digital copy is an exact copy, just as good as the original.
