DRM in its most complete form will manage the rights of a piece of rich media content throughout its lifetime thus enabling ‘super-distribution’ in which a consumer is an end-user as well as a node of distribution. Furthermore, the availability of such technology will spur the deployment of home wireless networks. While the majority of these networks are used to share broadband connections or wirelessly access the Internet, Datamonitor expects that by 2009, 23 million of them in Europe will be used to exchange audio/video content – boosted by the lower prices of networkable CE devices and improvements in DRM.
From today to tomorrow: copy protection to super-distribution
Today much of the work on DRM is focused upon copy protection, from the RIAA and MPAA trying to sue consumers and outlaw peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, to placing software onto music CDs which prevent unwitting consumers from legally copying songs to their PC. But basic copy protection solutions are only one part of a DRM solution.
DRM in its most complete form will manage the rights of a piece of rich media content throughout its lifetime. The end-game is to enable ‘super-distribution’. In super-distribution a consumer can share, and/or pass-on, content to other devices or friends, with the rights passing with the content and the friend will be charged for that content – if it is premium content.
Big hitters to drive market developments
If one considers that consumers will be able to watch a film, legally copied from a DVD and sent wirelessly to, say, their laptop or PDA, or send content to a friend’s PDA or email address, with a billing system seamlessly handling any necessary payment to the content owner, one can appreciate the significance that interoperable DRM will have on consumers, manufacturers and content owners/distributors.
It should come as no surprise that all the big name technology vendors and manufacturers are heavily investing in this market. Apple and Microsoft, due to their online music format dominance, will play leading roles, but so too will Philips, Thomson and Sony. The leading intellectual property holders, ContentGuard and InterTrust, are likely to find their patents inside almost every DRM-enabled device that is sold.
Consumer awareness will need strong marketing message
The new, DRM-enabled, CE devices will offer consumers unparalleled flexibility and choices, but they will need to be marketed in such a manner.
At present, consumers are wary of copy protection solutions and phrases such as ‘rights management’. Partly because of their interest in free content, and partly because they do not want to be unfairly limited in what they can and can’t do with content they have bought. Such a system, in which a consumer is an end-user as well as a node of distribution, will require content owners and distributors to radically re-think their marketing plans. It will also offer the consumer more freedom to do what they want with their content, where to do it and when.
Interoperability will be crucial
Due to the immaturity of the DRM market, and the fact that almost everyone is offering DRM solutions, suggests that there will need to be consolidation, and perhaps more importantly, interoperability between competing systems.
If one CE manufacturer uses one DRM system, and another a competing solution, the two devices will not be able to share content and consumers will be unhappy – as with Apple’s iPod and songs from other online music stores using Windows Media Audio format.
Initiatives by the Coral Consortium, the Content Reference Forum, Marlin JDA, the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) and the Secure Video Processor (SVP) alliance are likely to prove highly influential in the adoption of interoperable DRM solutions.
