p2pnet - rss feed: Open System DRM
DRM - Digital Rights Management - is a front burner and a number of systems exist which purport to do the job for copyright owners. But makers’ claims notwithstanding, none of them seem particularly efficacious and worst, they’re frequently coded so they can only be used on specific software - for example, Microsoft’s Windows Media Player.
The Netherlands’ Philips Electronics, however, hopes an across-the-board DRM system being developed by Intertrust, which it jointly owns with Japan’s Sony Corp, will provide at least part of the answer.
"Consumers want an open system, and the electronics industry wants it too," Ruud Peters, chief executive of Philips’s intellectual property and standards unit, is quoted as saying in a Reuters story here.
"The electronics industry recognises that Microsoft is a formidable player, but consumer electronics makers do not want to become dependent on Microsoft," Peters is quoted as saying. "They need an interoperable and independent system.
Due "between now and six months," according to Peters, the new DRM system will be endorsed by a large number of electronics companies and media companies such as film distributors and music publishers, he said.
"Philips is Europe’s largest maker of consumer electronics and the world’s No. 3, while Sony is the biggest. Intertrust is the biggest holder of DRM patents, and all digital music players need Intertrust’s technology to develop their own DRM system" adds the report.
"Philips and Sony bought Intertrust early this year to make sure key DRM patents would be available to everyone in the electronics industry, and also because they saw that DRM technology would become a crucial part of digital media. They have said they would make them available on reasonable terms."
