Windows Rights Management Services
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) is a Microsoft Windows technology included in Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista that is a form of digital rights management for corporate e-mail, documents, and intranet web pages. Companies can use this technology to encrypt confidential documentation, and through server-based policies, prevent the document from being decrypted except by certain people or groups, in certain places. Specific operations like printing, copying, editing, forwarding, and deleting can be applied by system administrators, as well as by the creator of any piece of information.
An interesting feature of RMS is that any Microsoft Office document that is protected, will also have an HTML version of the document embedded with it. The Rights Management Add-on for Internet Explorer allows users who do not have Microsoft Office installed to view these rights-managed files.
In Windows Server "Longhorn", Windows Rights Management Services will be renamed to Active Directory Rights Management Services, reflecting a higher level of integration with Active Directory in the upcoming release of Windows.
[edit] Trivia
It has been noted, to the bemusement of free-speech and anti-DRM advocates, that this product's acronym, RMS, is shared by Richard M. Stallman, a well-known and vocal critic of DRM-like technologies.
