Archive for February, 2010

DRM died and went to the iPad

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

During a secret meeting with Wall Street Journal, Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, listed the “obsolete” technologies that were thrown away when making Apple newest invention, the iPad. Reporting on this meeting Ryan Tate of the Business Insider mentioned the following technologies: Flash – the Web animation software, floppy disks, old data ports (including Apple’s FireWire 400), LCD screens and CDs. Surprisingly DRM (Digital Rights Management) did not appear on the list.

Apple Logo

Apple Logo

It was Jobs that only three years ago, wrote in his famous blog post, “Thoughts about Music”, “If anything, the technical expertise and overhead required to create, operate and update a DRM system has limited the number of participants selling DRM protected music. If such requirements were removed, the music industry might experience an influx of new companies willing to invest in innovative new stores and players. This can only be seen as a positive by the music companies”. The rest was history. In the following year after the publication of this blog post, iTunes and then the rest of the Web based music stores became “DRM Free”.

3 years have passed. The issue is no longer music but rather eBooks, applications (aka “apps”) and videos. Surprisingly content protection and DRM are no longer persona-non-grata in Apple kingdom. Apple as well as others in the market, realized that the battle to protect illegal copying is almost lost (that was the essence of Jobs article in 2007), however it was a mistake to classify DRM as a copy protection technology. DRM is the technology that enables a large number of business cases and helps content stores differentiate themselves with different business models.

Today no one launches content service without the ability to offer subscription service in addition to the traditional “download to own” model, and the ability to share the content between different consuming devices of the same owner. All of these business models are enabled with DRM.

So Apple ditched lots of “obsolete” technologies but somehow the DRM technology that Jobs “obsoleted” in 2007, is still alive in kicking in iPad of 2010.

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The Right Price for an eBook…Let the Consumer Decide

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

The recent war of words between Apple and Amazon regarding the correct way to price an eBook says a great deal about Apple’s brand value and their ability to leverage success in music market. Ironically in this case the roles are reversed with Amazon charging $9.99 for a best-seller and Apple planning to $12.99 – $14.99. By pricing eBooks aggressively Amazon hoped to stimulate demand, an important lesson learned from Apple’s success in music market. What is not clear is whether Apple’s pricing for eBook’s will proved to be as successful as their 99c per song and whether the download-to-own is the correct approach. Both vendors are deploying in-house content protection technologies.

Just looking at the sheer volume of second hand books available for sale on Amazon.com, my guess is that any eBook pricing model that does not allow the owner to resell the content is not likely to succeed. Moreover, the business model for eBook needs to correctly reflect the way people consume and acquire books. For example support an electronic book library or so-called subscription based models is an important requirement. The ability to share a book with friends and family, typical of books clubs all over the world is another model that must be supported. Text books also pose a serious challenge to the monolithic download-to-own model. This is to say nothing of the different types of devices, with either fixed or removal storage and a multitude of operating systems (e.g. Android, Symbian).

What is clear is that a one-size-fits-all approach (download-to-own) will not allow the eBook market to reach its full potential. Any viable content protection technology for the eBook market needs to support the full range of business models.

OMA DRM 2.1 is such a scheme, providing an ideal solution for eBook market. As an open DRM scheme it enjoys the support of content owners and service provides alike. The scheme is very robust and widely deployed. Moreover the scheme supports all the enhanced business models required by the eBook market.

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Discretix to Provide Android and Windows Mobile DRM Security for Sony Ericsson

Monday, February 15th, 2010

Discretix Multi-Scheme DRM Client Will Secure Subscription-Based Music and Video Services on Sony Ericsson Android and Windows Mobiles Phones.

FIRA de BARCELONA, SUITE 4.7HS22 / BARCELONA, SPAIN — (February 15, 2010) — Discretix, the leading global provider of embedded Windows Mobile and Android security DRM, today announced that Sony Ericsson has chosen Discretix’ Multi-Scheme DRM Client to protect distribution and consumption of multimedia content on select mobile phones and for its PlayNow services.

Discretix’ Multi-Scheme DRM Client has been deployed on select Sony Ericsson mobile phones based on the Windows Mobile and Android operating systems.  The embedded technology enables a wide variety of business models including subscription-based music and video services for the consumer market.

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