Blockchain-based shadow images to facilitate copyright protection of digital content

An apparatus to support digital rights management, the apparatus comprising:

• at least one non-transitory machine-accessible storage medium;
• and
• a digital rights management (DRM) engine in the machine-accessible storage medium, wherein the DRM engine, when executed by a processor of a client platform, enables the client platform to:
• monitor download operations performed by the client platform;
• in response to an operation to download a digital content item from a remote source, obtain a shadow image for the digital content item from a DRM blockchain, wherein the shadow image comprises (a) a hash of the digital content item and (b) copyright policy settings to indicate security constraints for the digital content item;
• after obtaining the shadow image for the digital content item, automatically determine whether the copyright policy settings for the digital content item allow modification of the digital content item;
• and
• enable a user of the client platform to create a modified version of the digital content item only if the copyright policy settings allow modification of the digital content item.

A method to support digital rights management, the method comprising:

• at a client platform, monitoring download operations performed by the client platform;
• in response to an operation to download a digital content item from a remote source, obtaining a shadow image for the digital content item from a DRM blockchain, wherein the shadow image comprises (a) a hash of the digital content item and (b) copyright policy settings to indicate security constraints for the digital content item;
• after obtaining the shadow image for the digital content item, automatically determining whether the copyright policy settings for the digital content item allow modification of the digital content item;
• and
• enabling a user of the client platform to create a modified version of the digital content item only if the copyright policy settings allow modification of the digital content item.