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Microsoft to Become Mobile DRM Standard?
An anonymous reader writes "It seems most of the media has missed the significance of Microsoft's recent partnership with DoCoMo to put Windows Media DRM on i-mode handsets. If all the i-mode players adopt Windows DRM, that gives Microsoft access to a significant chunk of the mobile market. Couple this with the more recent MTV Urge announcement and you've got Microsoft set to own the DRM space - at least on mobile devices - by stealth. Telecoms.com has a take on the situation, but also reveals that the GSM Association may be on the verge of recommending Windows mobile DRM to all its members. Puts the French copyright and DRM legislation in a whole new perspective - interoperability issues can be solved by removing the competition."
Microsoft, DRM and Standard in the same sentence!
Dude, be careful with your words, I almost had a heart attack...
Heh, looks kinda funny to see "standard DRM". While standard is all about being open, fair and compatible with others, DRM makes me think more about hiding in the dark, afraid of the light, keeping ones dirty secrets and trying to suppress the breathing of others. Doesn't come together.
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
MTV doesn't even play music. I don't expect them to sell music. MTV is a pointless marketing creation designed to push an image onto a line of mediocre products purchased willingly by an unsuspecting public with way too much money and zero common sense.
That's why I'm sticking with Apple.
but I think it'll be a good thing. Mostly because I'd like to see some kind of set standard, so I can listen to my music from any service on any player. Thats not too much to ask, right?
so this is how Microsoft flirts with open source :)
DRM is far from dead. Right now, they're trying to make it harder to create, distribute, and find pirated material implementing those unfettered formats. What they need to be doing is making DRM-enabled content affordable, accessible, and useable.
What the industry needs is good, common-sense DRM. Today's DRM doesn't allow for things going public domain. It's not flexible enough to allow users to do what they want (and is legal) with what they paid for. They are presently erring on the side of profit...that's not going to work with consumers long-term.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Of all the DRM tools I've encountered, the one that struck me as being most effective has got to be Apple's "Please don't steal music" sticker.
Boy, they know how to pick a loser. Assuming the carriers go along with this, all Microsoft will have is domination over a standard that nobody will want to use. DRM is annoying enough when it comes to file transfers on computers. Can you imagine how annoying it will be with phones? Will your files survive your phone dropping into the toilet? Or will they be easily transferable to a new phone with the same mobile number assigned to it? You know the answer - and of course, you won't be able to redownload files you've paid for.
It's interesting to see what they waste brainspan and dollars on.
Let the media giants DRM what they want. They'll only succeed in pushing people to other alternatives.
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
Use all the Microsoft DRM you'd like, I'm not buying that device.
If I had pile$ of money, it seems to me that there's a Constitutional case here that could play before the Supremes.
Regardless of any specific time limit, be it "eternity - 1 day," the Constitution says that patents and copyrights last a limited time. DRM incorporates NO expiration mechanism, whatsoever. The reason for wanting DRM is that "bits last forever". If so, then those bits will outlast their copyright. The DRM needs to expire, and currently doesn't.
Therefore, current DRM is unconstitutional.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Brilliant. By partnering with bloated, overprotected, "Hey, our shares cost 3 million yen each so the hoi polloi can't buy them" merchants DoCoMo, inventors of the phone-that-is-mostly-only-big-in-Japan, MS have gained a foothold in the crucial 'things that people actively want to not have' market.
Next up, a partnership with Freddy Krueger to gain a foothold in the 'things that shoot razor blades into your hand when you pick them up market'. Followed by a partnership with the earth's ferrous core (a major player in minerals circles) to get into the 'things that are thousands of miles below the earth's surface and vaporize human flesh on contact' market.
And of course, a strong position in the market for technologies that customers actually pay to avoid could also lead to other key advantages, such as losing money (investors are always suspicios of cash-heavy companies) and being widely ridiculed (a new, positive, clown-like image).
'DRM market space', yeesh. Make some forking products already. Where's my sub $100 tablet PC?
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
A Japanese mobile telecomm provider will use Microsoft's DRM on its phones.
Therefore all other DRM systems, portable music players, and Apple, will cease to exist?
Hell, I still can't find anyone who listens to music on their phone.
When people aren't listening to music, they'll need a good charge in case they have to make a long phone call. I think that is reason enough to not worry about "one device to rule them all."
I think the success of the iTunes Music Store has shown that people don't care too much about DRM as long as it is transparent enough. Look at what URGE will offer. 9.95 for unlimited music. Anything you want. For those not willing to break the law to pirate music, or too lazy to do so, or both (this third category includes me) this is an awesome deal. For just 10 bucks a month, it's as if my music collection was essentially infinite. I don't care if I don't "own" the music. Why should I? For movies, it makes even more sense (because the replay value is much lower than for music) to have some sort of subscription-type system so that you just pay a flat fee per month and have unlimited access to unlimited movies. But to have such systems (either music or movies) be viable, it has to be protected so that you can't just have one person be a subscriber and then that person can copy the stuff to the whole world. That's just a fact of life. Because people can't be trusted NOT to copy, there has to be some system to prevent it. Or at least prevent it for the "casual user" that won't go jump hoops to crack it. I think it was Steve Jobs who said "to keep the honest people honest".
The future will have DRM in the main-stream whether you like it or not. Of course you can always choose to get your media through some other channels, but if you think that "5 people" (obviously you didn't mean it literally) will be using DRM at the end of 2006, then you are seriously mistaken.
Peppe
I recently rented a DVD for my family and I to watch. We have our DVD player attached to one of those combined VHS/TV televisions. Apparently the Macrovision copy protection on the DVD prevented it from playing very well. The picture would brighten and darked repeatedly. We weren't even recording onto a VHS tape, so we aren't sure why we had problems.
Regardless, we promptly returned the DVD to the video shoppe, and went to the library. My son and daughters each selected a number of books, as did my wife and I. For the past few weeks, we have been reading instead of watching TV or movies. To be frank, we are far happier. It costs us far less, and the quality of the content is often far higher. We often learn, rather than mindlessly digest.
I wish to thank those who advocate the use of DRM. It has successfully turned us away from using such products, back towards books. We are far better off for that.
Maybe so, in the long run, though I'm not as optimistic as you are. In the short-run, the people who make lots of money controlling distribution of content like DRM, and will do everything they can to get it adopted in order to continue to profit from that control, and lots of people will go along because it will be the easiest way to get access to the most popular media content.
And as they try and invent this future they miss out on the massive amount of money they could make by just giving up on DRM and creating a fair market for digital music. Their insistance to DRM will ensure that illegal copies survive. They have to make illegal downloading not worth it in comparison and the wasy to do that is to make legal downloading easier, not harder (read DRM enbumbered up the wazoo).
Funny thing is that the article seem to miss one small point. They talk about how Microsoft *may* become a standard on DoCoMos FOMA networks. The thing is that the OMA DRM specification already exist and run on millions of phones in Europe. (And anywhere else which has GSM/UMTS phones.)
I fail to see how this new architecture can hope to jump in and replace something which has already been in use for a couple of years.
Of course a lot of people probably don't realise that they have DRM on their phones.
I've been using Microsoft DRM with the Napster subscription service for over a year now on an iRiver H10 hard-drive device. You can't beat the convenience and the price -- the cost of a single CD per month for lots of great music.
It's such a good model I even bought four more iRiver devices for others.
To clarify some points in the original comment:
The pricing and model beats iTunes. Many, many services will end up using Microsoft DRM. When people wake up and look beyond the fatuous Apple image to practical realities, Microsoft DRM will come out the winner.
This really isn't a surprise. Just business as usual. Microsoft has vast monopoly power that will allow it to gain monopolies in any emerging computing connected/related device.
PDA's previously owned by Palm, will soon be a microsoft monopoly.
Gaming. Sony faces the biggest threat ever and yet managed to make incredibly stupid moves that will make the move to microsoft gaming domination even faster. Microsoft is using it's clout with gaming house/publishers and outright buying them if all else fails. The end is microsoft will dominate console gaming. Only when is the question, not if.
Media. Microsoft is agressively pusing it's DRM/codecs everywhere. It managed to get it's codecs into both HD-DVD and Blu Ray standards. It has just about every online media shop except Itunes. Itunes is an anomoly and it will be interesting to see how weathers the microsoft onslaught. I predict in 10 years. More than half the music sold will be using microsoft DRM.
I've been extremely disappointed with 90% of the albums I've purchased over the past decade. One half-way decent song and 7 to 9 other Contractual Obligatory Offerings for $13.95 is just way too out of line with market realities. I guess I'm the last person on the planet who doesn't own an iPod (actually, I've been told there's another person in Mauritania who also doesn't own one), so I'm not buying my music alacarte. I'm not sure that even if I could purchase by the song I would find enough good stuff to be satisified with the Standard Product coming out of the music industry these days.
On the plus side: playing music makes you smarter (pretty sure I've read that research has indicated this; back in the 70's, IBM used to use programming aptitude tests that looked closely at musical skills as an indicator of possible programming aptitude in non-programmers), it's a great stress-reliever and no matter how bad you are as a musician, you'll never be as bad as The White Stripes.
Seriously, though, several friends have told me that an hour of me for free is a better deal than 42:30 of Beck at any price. I tell them to bring the beer and everybody's happy.
It may hold no water on technical details, but it certainly holds water if the mere act of unencrypting DRM is illegal, which I think is the point the grandparent was trying to make...
That said, Sony is just Palm all over again. Sony had a gargantuan lead with the PS2 -- 75% market share or some such. Then they basically rolled over. The PS3 wanders onstage a full year after Xbox 360 (assuming no further delays), costing $600?? Who's going to buy that? By next Christmas, the 360 will cost $300 and have hundreds of games.
Why should Microsoft take heat for Sony being a bunch of idiots?
Yeah, that's what businesses do. Go figure.I'll put it plainly: Movie studios won't accept Fairplay for movies, period. They've gotten burned too many times by software-only solutions. They are looking for a tamper-resistant, hardware-based alternative. So far Intel and Microsoft are the only companies stepping up to the plate.
Microsoft isn't winning the DRM fight because of its "monopoly powers" (the only monopoly in digital media right now is iTunes). It's winning because no one else is in the game. It's easy to win a race when you're the only one running.
Ah well, it's not that bad, so you won't be able to pirate Britney Spears's comeback CD in a couple years.
Buy a guitar, read a book, go to a coffee shop and hang out with freinds etc.
Many people commenting in this topic have realized that all this DRM crap is waking us up to the fact that we don't need any of these products at all.
Want to screw up my television watching habits with DRM? Fine, I'll turn the stupid thing off and take the dog to the park for a walk!
Bavarian Purity Law of Rice Krispie Squares: Rice Krispies, Marshmallows, Butter, Vanilla.