Dave Horvath
11 Jan 2007 8:04
Many experts in the field of digital technology held a discussion at this year's Consumer Electronics Show over the future of Digital Rights Management and what direction it needs to go in order to succeed. There has been a debate going on for over 5 years over the virtues and necessities of DRM technology associated with digital media such as music and movies. There appears to be an agreement between the panel that DRM needs to reach some sort of standardization as digital consumption becomes more and more prevalent today.
DRM which was originally employed to protect copyrighted materials in music has become a lot more conveluted as consumers purchase and download more than just music these days. Experts agree that a standard employed by one organization supplying one form of digital entertainment is not necessarily best suited or in the best interest of everyone for a different form of entertainment.
Apple and Microsoft both employ DRM technology on their media, but in different ways. Apple is hellbent on protecting the media downloaded by their successful iTunes service, but at the price of only allowing said media to be played on Apple's own iPod. Microsoft takes a different spin on it with its Windows Media DRM by allowing files to be transferred to multiple third-party devices with the licensing of a program called Plays for Sure. In contrast, however, Microsoft's own Zune product is the only device that will play media downloaded from the Zune Store.
This is good for the developer, but poor for the customer. What happens in a situation where the consumer isn't completely happy with the device they download the content on. For instance, a consumer pays for music and downloads it to their iPod. If the consumer wishes to listen to it elsewhere but lacks the extra periphrials (which have to be purchased additionally) to listen to it elsewhere, s/he is left without any other option for the content at which s/he rightfully paid for. This type of lockdown of media purchased legally by consumers only frustrates and leads to more illegal downloading of the same content with no restrictions.
Movies and television shows appear to have come to a common ground with DRM as they've found ways to allow the downloaded media to be played on multiple display devices while still offering the protection required. Music, however continues to be a sore spot in DRM debates.
Ex-executive for the RIAA, David Leibowitz commented that music used to be provided to the public in an open format that could easily be copied and distributed without many problems. Tapes and compact disks could easily be reproduced but still saw market shares soar. "In the music industry, this was a unique environment where the global product which was out there was an unprotected media format," he said. "After 20 years of unprotected media format free to be replicated and shared, introducing rights management technology into that market is proving to be extremely difficult."
Source:
InfoWorld