A system and method for data rights management across multiple data rights management architectures is disclosed. The system and method solves the problems posed by multiple incompatible data rights management architectures. In particular, a data rights management clearing house is provided that generates permits, permit classes, and enables content packaging across multiple data rights management architectures. Consumers may acquire rights to content packaged with different data rights management architecture from the single data rights management clearing house. Additionally, the system and method enables content packagers to package content with multiple data rights management architectures. Finally, the data rights management clearing house provides consumers with a single location from which to manage data access rights and restore data access rights that have been lost.

Hollywood studios will cross a significant technological and psychological frontier this week when they offer the first downloadable movies that can be legally burned to a DVD.

Coupled with the CinemaNow agreement, a deal with Apple would cement the internet as a viable distribution vehicle.

Although studios have offered online movies since 2002, piracy fears have kept them locked to computer hard drives. That restriction has limited the market for legal downloads.

CinemaNow's service employs relatively new anti-piracy technology, which prevents the burned DVD from being recopied. Because that technology is still being tested, the initial batch of titles [are] what's left "at the video store when you arrive too late and the shelves are picked clean".

DRM sits at the nexus of technical, legal and commercial considerations and offers a systematic way of approaching new developments in digital content. It can be a valuable tool for multimedia creators and developers. It has the potential to reduce much of the time currently spent in locating and negotiating with copyright owners and can reduce transaction costs upstream to rightsholders and downstream to users. Most DRM systems also include features to protect content from copyright infringement.

A Guide to Digital Rights Management

DRM technologies are touted as a solution to the messy problems associated with copyright - there being no central registers like there are for patents and designs and trade marks.

We, the consumers/users, are told that DRM will reduce costs and those will be passed on to us. Sorry, we're no longer so gullible. Cigarettes, Petroleum. Private Healthcare Just a few examples of industries where cost savings are not passed on. But any excuse to pass on a "cost" is readily taken up.

There are many problems with DRM technologies, not just technical. Thought he technical ones aren't a bad place to start. Sony rootkits ... hijacked by malware manufacturers within a very short time - probably sooner than the true nature of Sony's DRM were made public. Apple iPods and iTunes .. oh grow up Apple. How much sleep do you thing coders lost over finding ways around the iPod's software. iTunes is big, but neither monolithic nor monopolistic. Microsoft XBox ... cheap PCs ... for Linux.

A range of groups actively advocate against DRM: http://defectivebydesign.org/, http://freeculture.org/, http://stopdrmnow.org/, http://www.eff.org/IP/fairuse/, http://stopdrm.info/ (in French) are just a few.

I doubt DRM will go away anytime soon. Creating new technologies is much easier than talking to customers. Certainly finding new ways to impose upon us, or to capture (trap?) us, is more profitable in the short term than adapting or changing old business models to take advantage of technologies already in the marketplace.

Such a short-sighted approach is typical of mundanes, but really - is it so hard to stop and learn a little? Belligerence is not the way to win friends, whatever you read last week by Dale Carnegie ...

Once again, it's easier to try to lock us into old stuff you already own, and to try to flog it to us again and again, than to do something actually innovative - to capture us with content - to provide a really compelling reason to buy your shit.

Bruce Schneier is well regarded in IT security circles. Reading one of his recent(ish) posts has helped crystalise a few thoughts I've been circling around lately.

He argues that there is a battle for ownership over your personal computer - between you, who paid for it, and organisations and people who'd like to control what you can do with it ...

He argues that the actions and efforts of a variety of vested interests are significantly undermining the security of our property in pursuit of their interests - in particular efforts such as DRM and similar technologies [A couple of his examples have been cogently criticised but his main argument is still sound]:

There is an inherent insecurity to technologies that try to own people's computers: They allow individuals other than the computers' legitimate owners to enforce policy on those machines. These systems invite attackers to assume the role of the third party and turn a user's device against him.

Remember the Sony story: The most insecure feature in that DRM system was a cloaking mechanism that gave the rootkit control over whether you could see it executing or spot its files on your hard disk. By taking ownership away from you, it reduced your security.

June 27, 2006
Spain outlaws P2P filesharing
(Daily Variety Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)
MADRID

A Spanish intellectual property law has finally banned unauthorized peer-to-peer file-sharing in Spain, making it a civil offense even to download content for personal use.

The legislation, approved by Congress on Thursday, toughens previous provisions. An early May circular from Spain's fiscal general del estado, or chief prosecutor, allowed downloads for purely personal use.

Now Spaniards caught grabbing content from, say, eMule, will have to reimburse rights holders for losses --- although such losses will be difficult for authorities to track.

But the government is going after Internet service providers; it's a criminal offense for ISPs to facilitate unauthorized downloading.

The law also introduces a small tax to be levied on all blank media --- from a blank CD to mobile phones and even a memory stick. Computer hard disks and ADSL lines have been left out of the legislation despite their widespread use for illegally copying music and films. The money collected will be paid back to the owner of the copyright.

Spain's greater antipiracy clarity received a thumbs-up from the Motion Picture Assn.

"Compared to some European countries, Spain has some way to go in enforcement," said Duncan Hudson, the MPA's Brussels-based VP and director of operations for antipiracy, even though Spanish police closed 17 illegal Web sites in a nationwide raid April 8.

"But the new intellectual property law is a definite step forward, placing obligations for instance on ISPs to provide information. Hopefully, it will help us to get some injunctions," he added.

Spain's telco giant Telefonica reports 90% of usage on its broadband lines is Internet traffic, up from 15% five years ago. Of that 90%, a massive 71% is P2P traffic.