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I dont know where to start...

Open DRM does exist. Its called Marlin. Okay nobody uses it, but it proves its doable. If Apple was coming out tomorrow saying: "we will now use Marlin for our DRM needs", this would take off.

The article has a good overview of how iTunes works. But nothing in how-it-works proscribe a licensable or open
DRM.
And you know, they all work the same. The Zune DRM, the PlayForSure DRM, FairPlay and this Marlin, they could all be explained with the same slides. You have a master key for the content, and you encrypt the master key with a user's key.

FairPlay and Zune: Non Licensable and Proprietary
PlayForSure: Licensable and Proprietary
Marlin: Open

The reason why FairPlay is winning has nothing to do with the fact that it is proprietary and completely closed. Its winning because they were there first, and executed very well.

Apple need to control the DRM? Why?

So it is more secure ? Not really: they are not protecting their own IP, their are just doing it for the studios. So what's so crucial to protect the content that bad. The studios dont even care that much. Look, FairPlay is broken as is PlayForSure, did the studio sue them? No. Did Apple actually fixed iTunes? No, the current iTunes is still vulnerable. I heard Apple is already ready with the next iTunes generation but are holding off the upgrade until they take heat from the studios or they have another reason to upgrade.

For the liability ? Actually, I think if the Studio approved an open-drm and Apple respected the Robustness rules, then why would Apple be bothered? Right now Apple is shouldering alone the legal responsability for the design and their implementation. If they were using an open-drm they would only be liable for their own implementation.

To keep it simple? Trust me, I saw an implementation of Marlin, running on a PSP, and actually tested it. It was very very very user friendly. I know the demo I used was polished, but it means it is possible, and I would not believe that Apple could not do the same. Please somebody send a journalist to Intertrust (the people who demoed this to me) to witness what they can do.

To keep cost down ? I believe it is cheaper to implement a spec than to write your own spec, and implement it. Apple is still hiring more people in the fairplay team. It is still costing them developers. If Apple was using an open interoperable DRM on their iPod, they could connect to any store. And since Apple does not make any money from the store (right?), they would save even more money.

More information about the Marlin DRM: http://www.marlin-community.com/
Intertrust is the company behind it: http://www.intertrust.com/

I thought I'd do a quick Google search and see if good ol' Microsoft has ever "appropriated" any code themselves. In just a few minutes, I found eight instances where Microsoft lost court battles over the code they stole. Here you go:

As a response to Digital Research's DR-DOS 6.0, which bundled SuperStor disk compression, Microsoft opened negotiations with Stac Electronics, vendor of the most popular DOS disk compression tool, Stacker. Stac was unwilling to meet Microsoft's terms for licensing Stacker and withdrew from the negotiations. In the due diligence process, Stac engineers had shown Microsoft some Stacker source code. However, Microsoft chose to license Vertisoft's DoubleDisk instead of Stacker.[2]

Soon, MS-DOS 6.0 was released, including the Microsoft DoubleSpace disk compression utility program. Stac successfully sued Microsoft for patent infringement regarding the compression algorithm used in DoubleSpace. This resulted in the release of MS-DOS 6.21, which had disk-compression removed. Shortly afterwards came version 6.22, with a new version of the disk compression system, DriveSpace, rewritten to avoid the infringing code.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS

A new patent battle is brewing -- this time over Microsoft's (Quote) claim over Caller ID for E-Mail.

F. Scott Deaver, owner of Failsafe Designs, says Microsoft is guilty of the "outright theft" of his product name and intellectual property (IP), and will seek legal and financial redress from the Redmond, Wash., software giant and anyone else that uses his technology that verifies e-mail is coming from the domain it claims.

http://www.internetnews.com/security/article.php/3 393891

Alacritech® Inc., the innovator of Dynamic TCP Offload(TM) data acceleration solutions that enable the highest performance and efficiency in networked systems, today announced a U.S. District Court granted Alacritech's motion for preliminary injunction to prevent Microsoft Corporation (Nasdaq: MSFT) from making, using, offering for sale, selling, importing or inducing others to use Microsoft's "Chimney" TCP offload architecture slated to be available in both the "Longhorn" version of the Windows® operating system and in the Scalable Networking Pack for Windows Server(TM) 2003.

Alacritech sued Microsoft in Federal District Court on August 11, 2004, alleging that Microsoft's existing and future operating systems containing the "Chimney" TCP offload architecture uses Alacritech's proprietary SLIC Technology® architecture. The suit is based on two of Alacritech's fundamental patents relating to scalable networking, U.S. Patent No. 6,427,171 and U.S. Patent No. 6,987,868, both entitled "Protocol Processing Stack for use with Intelligent Network Interface Device."

http://www.alacritech.com/html/041305Alacritech_Gr anted_PI.shtml

In April 2001, Intertrust initiated a lawsuit against Microsoft. The lawsuit ultimately accused Microsoft of infringing 11 of Intertrust's patents and almost 130 of the company's patent claims.

The lawsuit centered on accused products based on the following technologies:

DRM and product activation technologies .NET and related security technologies
Trusted and reliable operating system technologies
In bringing the patent infringement lawsuit, Intertrust believed that Microsoft's forward-going technology infrastructure significantly relied on Intertrust's inventions for DRM and trusted computing.

http://www.intertrust.com/main/ip/settlement.html

(Redwood Shores, CA, December 15, 2005) - Visto Corporation has filed a legal action against Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) for misappropriating Visto's intellectual property. The complaint ass

Well hopefully software patents will soon be legislated out of existence in Europe and it takes a lot of cash to get, maintain, defend and prosecute patents anyway. They're also pretty useless against companies like Microsoft and IBM unless you don't produce any software yourself. If things go badly for us in Europe though, your idea is a good one and it should be easy to make a *lot* of money parasitising the proprietary software industry.

http://www.investors.com/breakingnews.asp?journali d=27910020&brk=1
http://www.intertrust.com/main/ip/patentportfolio. html

Not very ethical or good for innovation etc. but since there are already lots of "IP companies" like InterTrust appearing now who don't give a monkey's about FLOSS (or any kind of software), it may well be worth considering as a means to salvage something from the mess.

MGM ought to talk to InterTrust. They figured out how media companies can make money on P2P networks in the early '90s. Revenue streams from viewing, revenue streams from sharing, protected content, etc. MGM and the rest of those ostriches are missing out on some big dinero by not dealing with InterTrust.

......... kris

For those interested:

Intertrust holds alot of United States patents. Those are listed at the USPTO office

They also have a patent litigation against Microsoft covered by Slashodot earlier

For those interested:

Intertrust holds alot of United States patents. Those are listed at the USPTO office

They also have a patent litigation against Microsoft covered by Slashodot earlier

Microsoft Patent Infringement Overview In April 2001, InterTrust commenced a patent infringement lawsuit against Microsoft. Since that time, InterTrust has continued its investigation of Microsoft products and expanded the litigation to now include eight InterTrust patents and many patent claims. Overall, InterTrust's current assertions against Microsoft can be characterized as relating to:

Now you know why they were included.

As one of the named inventors on a pending software patent application, I call BS on this. The patents you usually hear about, particularly on Slashdot, are bad. But that doesn't mean that "almost all" software patents are for stuff that was obvious when they were filed. In 1999, was the use of stego to encode digital watermarking information really obvious? The first academic conference on stego-related issues wasn't even created until 1996. I know some of the people who worked at Intertrust during its heyday - and they're damn smart crypto and security researchers. Look at some of the research papers from Intertrust. If you know anything about security, you'll recognize some very good computer scientists in there. Martin Abadi invented the logic used to analyze security protocols. Robert Tarjan quite literally wrote the book on advanced algorithms and data structures.

Now, contrast that with something like "a patent on the use of a web server to sell things" -- well, duh. But a patent that describes the method by which you use the high frequency components of an audio signal to digitally watermark an audio sample? It sounds kind of obvious in 2003 because that's how everyone's doing it, but the technology was quite new five years ago, and Intertrust was doing some of the preeminent research on it.

Don't blast all software patents because some are stupid. The system has a problem - a big one - but the fundamental concept of software patents isn't as silly as you might believe.

You can find specific patent numbers they claim MS is in violation of, such as US Patent No. 5,940,504 which I guess is about product activation. (I'm to feeling lazy right now so you go look up the patents.)

I'm not feeling that lazy so here's a quick cut and paste of MS's stuff they claim is violating their patents.

# Xbox
# My Services
# Windows Hardware Quality Lab and Windows Logo Certification
# Windows File Protection System
# Windows XP Home
# Windows XP Professional
# Windows ME
# Windows XP Embedded
# Windows CE.NET
# Office XP Standard
# Office XP Professional
# Office XP Professional with FrontPage
# Office XP Developer
# Access 2002
# Excel 2002
# FrontPage 2002
# Outlook 2002
# PowerPoint 2002
# Project 2002
# Publisher 2002
# Word 2002
# Windows Media Player
# Microsoft Reader
# Digital Asset Server
# Internet Explorer 6.0
# ASP.NET
# .NET Framework
# .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR)
# Visio 2002
# Visio Enterprise Network Tools
# Visual Studio .NET Enterprise Architect
# Visual Studio .NET Enterprise Developer
# Visual Studio .NET Professional

I wonder if they missed one?

You can find specific patent numbers they claim MS is in violation of, such as US Patent No. 5,940,504 which I guess is about product activation. (I'm to feeling lazy right now so you go look up the patents.)

I'm not feeling that lazy so here's a quick cut and paste of MS's stuff they claim is violating their patents.

# Xbox
# My Services
# Windows Hardware Quality Lab and Windows Logo Certification
# Windows File Protection System
# Windows XP Home
# Windows XP Professional
# Windows ME
# Windows XP Embedded
# Windows CE.NET
# Office XP Standard
# Office XP Professional
# Office XP Professional with FrontPage
# Office XP Developer
# Access 2002
# Excel 2002
# FrontPage 2002
# Outlook 2002
# PowerPoint 2002
# Project 2002
# Publisher 2002
# Word 2002
# Windows Media Player
# Microsoft Reader
# Digital Asset Server
# Internet Explorer 6.0
# ASP.NET
# .NET Framework
# .NET Common Language Runtime (CLR)
# Visio 2002
# Visio Enterprise Network Tools
# Visual Studio .NET Enterprise Architect
# Visual Studio .NET Enterprise Developer
# Visual Studio .NET Professional

I wonder if they missed one?

Do you live on an island or something? :P

http://www.google.com/search?q=trusted+computing.

NB. or if you like an original explaination; http://www.intertrust.com. ;)

Fortune magazine has an article in their most recent issue covering Vincent Shear, InterTrust, and the recent DRM patents lawsuits with Microsoft. I wonder if RealNetworks' DRM suite relies on similar technology...

Didnt InterTrust develop 'Trusted Computing' - why are they not mentioned on the TCPA Website?

..and has been for a while now.

Although they may at first appear too small to matter, don't count them out - they have the backing of at least one large corporation that wants alternatives to MS.

..and has been for a while now.

Although they may at first appear too small to matter, don't count them out - they have the backing of at least one large corporation that wants alternatives to MS.

InterTrust

Do a find for InterTrust on your computer. The player probably encodes the stream as it saves it then uses that to decode it as it replays. The original file will be needed to get the key if the key is missing. It is a good solution for one-time recording.

This is just a guess from an observation of public files. :)

InterTrust Disputes Microsoft Ownership of Important Trusted Computing Technologies.

InterTrust press release announcing "action to assume ownership of key Microsoft operating system patent claims."

At issue are Microsoft's two Digital Rights Management Operating System patents, discussed in this previous article. The patents are viewable here and here. Microsoft's idea of "trusted computing" is to secure the computer against the owner. If we're lucky this will get tied up in the courts for years.

The press release may be two months old, but I haven't seen it mentioned on slashdot. Instead we get these stupid April fools day articles and this gets rejected.

-

InterTrust Disputes Microsoft Ownership of Important Trusted Computing Technologies.

InterTrust press release announcing "action to assume ownership of key Microsoft operating system patent claims."

At issue are Microsoft's two Digital Rights Management Operating System patents, discussed in this previous article. The patents are viewable here and here. Microsoft's idea of "trusted computing" is to secure the computer against the owner. If we're lucky this will get tied up in the courts for years.

The press release may be two months old, but I haven't seen it mentioned on slashdot. Instead we get these stupid April fools day articles and this gets rejected.

-

The music formats supported by the Nokia Music Player are AAC (Advanced Audio Coding), secured with InterTrust digital rights management technology, and MP3.

By providing AAC within InterTrust's DRM system, distributors can not only rest assured that the codec will be used appropriately, but they may now offer innovative DRM-based licensing models for the technology.

Nokia 5510 * Availability: Europe, Africa, Asia * Operating frequency: EGSM 900/1800 networks in Europe, Africa, and Asia Pacific
No mention of a US version as far as I can find.

Sounds like this item is pretty much inline with RIAA rather than being their nightmare.

A press release discussing most recent additions to the suit can be found here. (This is an extension of a previous suit which covers Windows Media, Microsoft Reader, and many other MS products, which are mentioned in the last paragraph of the press release. Unfortunately, I can't find a description of the original suit at the moment.)

You mean like this?

I wonder how many of Microsoft's current and potential DRM partners are aware this is underway?

Iomega is already pioneering media storage copy protection schemes with its "HipZip Digital Audio Player" ... From the corporate profile:

"The HipZip player recognizes MP3 format and Microsoft Windows Media(TM) Format (WMA) actively and is upgradeable to additional formats. It supports digital rights management (DRM) technology to secure commercial music content to PocketZip disks, offering artists and publishers protection from the unauthorized distribution of commercial content."

This is "phase one" in a larger project. Take a look at a document from InterTrust outlining the plan it is implementing along with Iomega.

(Don't know InterTrust? Read what CEO Victor Shear had to say to the US Senate just yesterday in this pressrelease.)

While the claim is made in that document that "Iomega and InterTrust are removing the roadblocks for consumers," it's clear that they're really just building their own roadblock around the corner: the consumer will download an mp3 or whatever from an InterTrust-enabled service directly to a Zip disk; the consumer is then free to carry that mp3 around from device to device on that disk; the consumer is NOT free to copy the mp3 to any other storage medium. Once all the "good" music is safely stored away behind InterTrust-enabled walls, an Iomega-branded disk then becomes the carrier-medium of choice (the LP or CD of the future!), and Iomega cleans up on the digital-content revolution. That would seem to be the long-term vision anyway. ;)

So: Iomega benefits from increased sales to end users (Bob needs an Iomega disk to store his download of Britney Spears' latest hit and play it in his ZipWalkman, his ZipCarstereo, etc). Iomega benefits from industry kickbacks which reward this kind of stuff, directly or not. Iomega benefits from sales of "solutions" to other companies. Iomega benefits from CPRM adoption because it makes the whole Iomega/InterTrust scheme that much easier to implement.

In short, Iomega wants to position itself as a "key component" in the "civilizing" of digital distribution networks, and CPRM and similar initiatives would seem to be crucial to achieving that end.

I imagine that many of the others in the yay column have similar vested interests.

Iomega is already pioneering media storage copy protection schemes with its "HipZip Digital Audio Player" ... From the corporate profile:

"The HipZip player recognizes MP3 format and Microsoft Windows Media(TM) Format (WMA) actively and is upgradeable to additional formats. It supports digital rights management (DRM) technology to secure commercial music content to PocketZip disks, offering artists and publishers protection from the unauthorized distribution of commercial content."

This is "phase one" in a larger project. Take a look at a document from InterTrust outlining the plan it is implementing along with Iomega.

(Don't know InterTrust? Read what CEO Victor Shear had to say to the US Senate just yesterday in this pressrelease.)

While the claim is made in that document that "Iomega and InterTrust are removing the roadblocks for consumers," it's clear that they're really just building their own roadblock around the corner: the consumer will download an mp3 or whatever from an InterTrust-enabled service directly to a Zip disk; the consumer is then free to carry that mp3 around from device to device on that disk; the consumer is NOT free to copy the mp3 to any other storage medium. Once all the "good" music is safely stored away behind InterTrust-enabled walls, an Iomega-branded disk then becomes the carrier-medium of choice (the LP or CD of the future!), and Iomega cleans up on the digital-content revolution. That would seem to be the long-term vision anyway. ;)

So: Iomega benefits from increased sales to end users (Bob needs an Iomega disk to store his download of Britney Spears' latest hit and play it in his ZipWalkman, his ZipCarstereo, etc). Iomega benefits from industry kickbacks which reward this kind of stuff, directly or not. Iomega benefits from sales of "solutions" to other companies. Iomega benefits from CPRM adoption because it makes the whole Iomega/InterTrust scheme that much easier to implement.

In short, Iomega wants to position itself as a "key component" in the "civilizing" of digital distribution networks, and CPRM and similar initiatives would seem to be crucial to achieving that end.

I imagine that many of the others in the yay column have similar vested interests.

Am I missing something?

Possibly. The latest version of WinAmp has copy protection (misleadingly referred to as "digital rights management") designed by InterTrust Technologies.

It's quite possible your shiny new version of WinAmp will refuse to play your ripped MP3.

More broadly, the RIAA and MPAA's strategy is to collude with electronics and software vendors such that copy protection-free systems never reach consumers. A quick look at the roster of attendees of the Copy Protection Technical Working Group should illustrate this.

Schwab

A company devoted to regulating content is Intertrust who have been developing a file format (DRM) that purports to be able to contgrol how many times a given file is read(!!!). It seems to me that this is impossible to implement without rewriting your OS and locking your computer inside a safe. (I guess that means it's good for embedded systems like personal mp3 players but not for PCs.) Does anyone have any thoughts about this? Or is it just a scam to raise investment money from scared content providers?

www.intertrust.com

Basically it will allow downloading of commerical content, and stop transfering of it to other players, or allow downloading of play X number of times mpegs.

And if I say any more I'm breaking a nice big NDA!

Here's a URL containing the info-sheet on the technology the new Rio purports to use:

Some points of note:

• It's not entirely clear whether the extensions to MP3 make files using the extensions unplayable on ordinary MP3 players
  
• The SDK is (sigh) only available on Windows platforms
  

Hmm. what will prevent Joe Average from ripping songs off his CDs? nothing. But... if the next standard that comes out (I know this is being tossed around for DVD-audio) uses an excrypted format, then when Joe Average tries to buy the DVD and encode it, he'll just hear a bunch of garbage, because the music cannot be listened to without the key. I'm pretty sure that several companies are working on a standard for this. I know that InterTrust is working on it, because my neighbor across the street works for them. Check out their site. It might answer a few questions for you.

Samsung's new Yepp player will have Secumax installed on it, which is apparently different from Intertrust's stuff. Standards are good, so more standards are better, right?