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Microsoft Awarded Patent For Peer-To-Peer DRM

Posted by kdawson on from the in-it-for-the-royalties dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Music DRM might not be as dead as previously thought. InformationWeek reports that Microsoft has been awarded a digital-rights management patent for a distributed DRM system that works over peer-to-peer networks and uses encrypted public and private keys as the licensing mechanism. The author claims that patent number 7,594,275, entitled simply 'Digital rights management system,' is significant because, while centralized music stores like iTunes don't use DRM anymore, the Microsoft patent makes it possible that peer-to-peer networks could reemerge in the future as a viable, albeit protected, source of content."

2 of 151 comments (clear)

  1. idiots by Tom · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "embrace" and all that?

    Look:

    it possible that peer-to-peer networks could reemerge in the future as a viable, albeit protected, source of content."

    re-emerge? they're already here, and not going away
    viable? check, they are today
    source of content? check, massively

    protected? who wants that? There's no demand on the customer side. Unprotected will always win. Heck, I've downloaded cracks for games that I bought and I'm sure if I were to ask for a show of hands, it would be huge.

    How about making content more convenient instead of more troublesome? Maybe then you'd stand a chance, you know?

    --
    Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
  2. Re:Simple question by IBBoard · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There's no place for DRM in the world. It's fundamentally flawed at its principles.

    Just to play devil's advocate, there is a place for DRM in the world, just not in the consumer space. While I hate DRM on my music/games (especially since I use Linux and other alternate devices) it could be suitably applied on corporate documents to enforce access controls. In that situation it could still be cracked, but you've then got a very obvious and often quite large legal entity to point the finger at and sue for breach of confidence or contract or whatever, which means that they're far less likely to crack it (plus you're likely to trust them to some degree anyway, since you have a business relationship with them). For "B2B" situations it would provide extra protection on top of a contract that would stop accidental leaks (or at least make the leaked document less usable)