Managing Rights Management

Two DRM Patent Applications

On Thursdays the USPTO publishes new pending patent applications. Both of today's Spotlight Applications concern aspects of DRM. Assigned to ConDel, the first application discloses techniques for performing interoperable digital rights management among different operating system platforms. The second application discloses techniques for copyright detection and protection, no assignee given.

Microsoft and Nokia DRM Patents

On Tuesdays the USPTO publishes new patents. Both of today's Spotlight Patents concern aspects of DRM. Assigned to Microsoft, the first patent concerns techniques for converting content protection from conditional access to DRM systems. Assigned to Nokia, the second patent concerns techniques for dynamically enforcing digital rights management rules.

The CCIA On Interoperability and DRM

As noted, the Federal Trade Commission will hold a public hearing in Seattle on DRM and it's impact on consumers. More than 800 submissions were received, including several from various vendors and trade associations. Among the latter submitting written comments from the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), a trade association dedicated to open markets, open systems, and open networks.

Among the arguments presented by the CCIA is that legal restrictions on reverse engineering under the Digital Millenium Copy Right Act (DMCA) are too severe and are being used by some vendors to place restrictions on competitors and to prevent interoperability.

Adobe Opens Up RTMP But Keeps DRM Under Wraps

Ars Technica reports that Adobe is opening up its Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP), its widely used streaming media protocol. At the same time, Adobe is taking legal steps to protect the DRM components used in conjunction with RTMP.

Adobe has declined publish details about RTMP's DRM mechanism and will expressly forbid implementation of DRM circumvention measures in the license that governs the official RTMP specification.

"To benefit customers who want to protect their content, the open RTMP specification will not include Adobe's unique secure RTMP measures, nor will the license that accompanies the specification allow developers to circumvent such measures," the company revealed in a statement.

InformationWeek - Another Apple Anti-trust Law Suit

InformationWeek reports that another anti-trust suit requesting class action status has been filed against Apple. To promote interoperability, part of the suit demands that Apple open its platforms to other DRM standards and media formats. But in all these cases the first order of business is to assert that the company in fact has one or more monopolies:

The complaint against Apple claims that the company controls 75% of the online video market, 83% of the online music market, more than 90% of the hard-drive based music player market, and 70% of the Flash-based music player market.

Digital Living Network Alliance to Issue Interoperable DRM RFP

EE TImes says that the Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) will issue an RFP for interoperable DRM perhaps based on the work of the CORAL Consortium.

Scott Smyers, president of DLNA, said he has seen evidence content and service providers are beginning to work with Coral's technology. An increasing number of the companies have been actively participating in DLNA recently. They have formed their own task group within DLNA and have been engaged in the DRM effort, Smyers said.  Coral essentially described a method in which content or service providers can express in a standard manner the digital rights a user has purchased with a piece of content. Those rights can then be transferred from the DRM used in one system to the DRM in another.

Standardizing rights expression is, of course, an important prerequisite for interoperability. More important and difficult problems result from the fact that classes of devices and members of the same device class may vary in their abilities to enforce the rights associated with protected content. For example, there needs to be agreement regarding what happens when content shows up on a device that lacks the sophistication to enforce the associated rights. Does the device refuse to play the content? Are the rights ignored?