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Philips & Sony To Purchase Intertrust DRM Tech
tuxlove writes "Reuters is reporting that Philips and Sony Corp, the parents
of the compact disc, teamed up on Wednesday to buy InterTrust Technologies
for $453 million -- a deal expected to speed up copyright security for
digital media.
The acquisition by Philips Electronics and Sony of the leading U.S.-based
holder of intellectual property in the field of 'digital rights management'
technology is widely seen as a way to prevent Microsoft, which has been
embroiled in a legal battle with InterTrust, from grabbing control of the
potentially lucrative business.
Philips and Sony, the electronics giants who introduced the CD format 20
years ago, said the deal would enable secure distribution of content as more
films and music are sold over the Internet and other media in digital
format."
If their DRM is simply preventing people from illegally sharing or possessing copyrighted works, then I'm somewhat in favor of it.
The slightest breech of my "rights" to make backups and view them on any device I wish ends that feeling.
So far, it seems that Philips has been on the side of consumers when it comes to copy-protection on CDs. The big question now is what effect their acquisition will have on their stance.
More specifically, was their earlier stance just posturing until they could lay their hands on some "good" technology of their own, or will they continue to defend the CD standard?
Now, I don't expect Philips to be in the game to befriend the consumers, so it might just be that they want to keep others from doing too much with the CD format before they (and Sony and their other usual bedfellows) can launch their New and Improved(tm) digital media with a DRM system of their own, to secure future income and sew up the market...
Oh well, I pretty much decided to give up on buying music after BMG's announcement the other week. If they're so intent on actively trying to make it hard for me to use the music I pay for, I might as well just save me the money and trouble.
widely seen as a way to prevent Microsoft, which has been embroiled in a legal battle with InterTrust, from grabbing control of the potentially lucrative business
Q.) Why exactly would hardware companies spend almost half a BILLION dollars on a company developing technology that makes products less useful to consumers? Why would they go out of their way to conform to Hollywood's interests? A.) To become the new gatekeepers of media of course! Of course it's a "lucrative business.." not a very ethical one... but hell, it's all about the money these days, right?
Hopefully people will boycott this garbage and it'll go the way of the Divxsaurs. At very least we now have the beginnings of a new format war. Maybe competitors will crack each others DRM systems to prove them insecure and "leak" code through 14-year-old kids in northern europe. (:
Strange times we live in. Vote with your dollars folks!!
I haven't seen too much of that from Sony, just from Philips, and then only because CDDA on non-Red Book silver disks with music on them would be a trademark violation. Trademarks are "defend it or lose it", unlike other forms of IP.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I hate DRM, and all but ... fuck me, a DRM system designed by someone who knew what they were doing? No wonder it cost the wrong end of half a billion.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
"Philips said the companies would start an open licensing program and would encourage content providers to use the technology, which can protect all digital formats, including CDs, MP3 and DVD."
"Some analysts say Microsoft may lose if Philips and Sony are successful at promoting the InterTrust technology throughout the entertainment industry because Microsoft's technology, called "Palladium," would have a tougher time making inroads."
The above says it all. It's all about battling Microsoft's Palladium. Of what I know, Philips and Sony haven't signed up for Palladium, and since they're big time players on the entertainment hardware market, they can afford to develop their own standard without having Microsoft involved in the equation.
"All the major music labels, in particular BMG, Sony Music and Universal Music have been investing heavily in copy-proof technologies to protect their artists."
It's not so much about protecting the artists as it is about protecting their companies. The music industry has been used to having a steady monetary growth each year until P2P was made popular among the general public. Now they won't make as much profit as they used to. What the artists actually gets is peanuts compared to what the record companies gets. The artists sell all their rights to the record companies, and these companies can continue to make money on their music even after the artist has disappeared from the charts. (eg. collection albums)
It might look like MS walked away clear from the antitrust case, but this is the real damage that was done. The trial dragged up all sorts of things MS had been up to, it has been reported widely - in the techie news, of course - but also in places that the suits read. Now world+dog knows what sort of man billg is to do business with, we all now what he done to the PC market. The vendors are just bill's box-shifters, living on razor-thin margins, while MS exceeds its own earnings expectations - during a recession. This is the reason Passport fell on it's face, this is the reason Nokia and all the others have frozen MS out of the phone market, and this is the reason that Philips and Sony are pre-empting them on DRM.
-- Nick "Hallo this is Beel Gates, und I pronounce weendows as
Except for the following problems:
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It eliminates the fair-use rights (affirmed by the Supreme Court) that encourage creativity and make life fun. You can no longer mix your own music or add sound tracks to your home movies.
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It gives the media companies the power to render local law useless. A country no longer has the ability to decide how they feel about rights management because the technology itself mandates it. Might makes right.
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It gives the media companies the power to micro-control your use of the content. They can "nickle and dime" you to death by making you pay per listen if they want. Your discription even mentions this ability specifically.
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It gives the media industry the ability to influence the futures of other technologies or even other companies by deciding who gets approved to use it and who doesn't. Microsoft anyone?
I admit it's my own little dream world, but I believe that technology is supposed to enhance our lives, not restrict them. Sounds like a huge leap backward to me.Devon