IP: DRM at `DOS level'

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

>
>[Note:  This item comes from reader Janos Gereben.  DLH]
>
>At 17:52 -0700 7/25/01, Janos Gereben wrote:
>>From: "Janos Gereben" <janos451@earthlink.net>
>>Subject: DRM at `DOS level'
>>Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2001 17:52:30 -0700
>>MIME-Version: 1.0
>>
>>InterTrust DRM takes small steps to mass market
>>Dawn Hayes - www.the451.com
>>
>>London - Digital rights management (DRM) software is a bit like
>>operating system software, and right now it's at the DOS stage. When
>>InterTrust Technologies announced its next-generation product at
>>Jupiter MMXI's Plug.In event for the music industry in New York this
>>week, it became clear just how unwieldy and expensive the company's
>>previous-generation product was. In the same way that DOS never became
>>a mass-market product, DRM won't make the big time until it's easier
>>to use.
>>
>>The new product, called Rights System, allows content owners to sell
>>rights-protected video, audio and text to users of any device.
>>InterTrust's current product, Commerce System, makes this possible
>>only for PCs. But few believe it's as simple as that. On a mobile
>>phone, for example, once content is pumped out into the clear, no DRM
>>company can stop people intercepting it.
>>
>>"The DRM companies, with the exception of Adobe, are very
>>patent-oriented and engineering-driven," said Kirstie Chadwick, CEO of
>>DigitalOwl, an applications company that built its own DRM
>>infrastructure on the grounds that commercial products on the market
>>were too difficult to implement. DigitalOwl's core business is
>>developing DRM applications for publishers.
>>
>>Chadwick also said InterTrust's current generation supports only the
>>PDF format. InterTrust's commercial development manager in Europe,
>>Andrew Robins, claims Rights System and Commerce System support XML,
>>HTML and JPEG as well as PDF. But DRM is a game of smoke and mirrors.
>>
>>Competitors say Rights System is just a repackaged version of the
>>current system, making it easier to use. In fact, that's no mean feat.
>>Consumers unfortunate enough to run into Commerce System - or almost
>>any other DRM software for that matter - having elected to pay for a
>>first piece of content, must spend at least 30 minutes downloading the
>>DRM application to clear the transaction on the server. That's because
>>on Commerce System there's 6MB of it, mainly to enable payments to be
>>processed by a third-party clearing house such as Magex, Mercurix or
>>Bertelsmann's Digital World Services subsidiary.
>>
>>With the new software, content owners can link DRM to their own
>>internal billing systems, which has eliminated a vast chunk of code.
>>Consumers only need to wait about a minute to download the billing
>>software. In most cases, InterTrust says, the software is already
>>installed on Adobe's Acrobat 5 Reader. It will also shortly be
>>embedded in chips in mobile phones from Nokia.
>>
>>The issue of costs is another thorny issue: Rights System costs
>>£100,000-500,000 ($142,000-711,000) to implement. Analysts say
>>Commerce System costs up to a whopping £6m to implement and takes
>>several months of blood, sweat and tears to install; InterTrust said
>>it takes "not much more than four weeks" to install Rights System.
>>That's still too long, but ASPs can get companies up and running
>>quicker.
>>
>>Adobe, Blockbuster, Enron, Nokia and 16 portable device manufacturers
>>have already adopted Rights System, which will become available in
>>September, according to InterTrust. "It's a large-scale system and we
>>expect the music publishers to go for it first," said Robins.
>>
>>Another improvement on Commerce System is that Rights System is
>>modular. Companies in the business of selling video on demand on an
>>outright purchase basis, for example, can ignore the InterTrust's
>>subscription server product. And where Commerce System depends on
>>customers tethering their devices to a PC to transfer content from one
>>device to another, Rights System does not.
>>
>>One of the biggest unknowns for content owners is whether consumers
>>are prepared to pay for content online. What is clear is that they
>>will be even less inclined to do so if that means they must deal with
>>complex software downloads. The companies that dominate the DRM
>>space - ContentGuard, Microsoft, Adobe, SealedMedia and InterTrust -
>>will need to deal with this issue in short measure. Beyond that, there
>>is little to no interoperability between different vendors' systems.
>>There's a long way to go yet in the DRM space.
>



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