Content owners pursue DRM despite Sony climbdown

By Bernhard Warner - Rome, Italy

Posted on 31 Jan 2006 at 16:58

Despite mounting consumer gripes about DRM, music fans and film buffs can expect to see more restrictive digital rights technologies attached to the songs and movies they buy, technology industry observers said at a conference here dedicated to the future of digital media.

The controversy around DRM hit a crescendo late last year after it emerged major music label Sony BMG copy-protected millions of CDs of its top artists with a technology that left consumers vulnerable to hackers if they played the disc on their computers. Sony admitted it sold 2.1 million of the dodgy discs. They contained a type of 'rootkit' software technology believed to have infected hundreds of thousands of computers, including government and military machines.

Facing a slew of lawsuits, Sony BMG has begun settling with the various parties. But many doubt that the media industry has seen this embarrassing incident as a sign to curtail their DRM initiatives.

'There will be more Sony BMG rootkit issues over time, I would argue. As long as these companies continue to stick this type of technology (on their products), more of these cases will happen. This will continue to be a challenge for the user community,' said Prof. Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and Ecommerce Law at the University of Ontario.

Indeed, at this two-day OECD-sponsored event billed as 'The Future Digital Economy: Digital Content Creation, Distribution and Access', many major media companies and industry bodies such as the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) called for continued implementation of tight digital rights controls to prevent unauthorised access and duplication of copyrighted works expected to occur as broadband usage continues to grow.

Rita Hayes, deputy director general of WIPO suggested media and technology companies begin to work on standardising DRMs in the future. She said without such protections, valuable artists' works would be in jeopardy to pirates and counterfeiters. 'I understand the limitations of DRM,' she said, but urged consumers be patient. 'This is an ongoing process that changes every day.'

Geist believes there is a sliver of hope for disgruntled consumers. Noting the quick Sony BMG legal settlement and a series of legal cases where courts have ruled that some DRMs' limitations are clear consumer abuses, the bar on what is and what is not acceptable with these technologies will come clear.

But that could take some time. Even major media companies gripe that the tangle of interoperable technologies is hurting the market for online distribution of music, movies and books.

'A lack of interoperability is absolutely strangling the industry (for music downloads),' said Barney Wragg, senior vice president of Universal Music's eLabs. 'I think it is entirely unreasonable that a customer cannot buy a download from a Microsoft store and play it on their iPod.'

'There may be a role for regulators to step in if this is not resolved at some point soon,' he said.