The 800 Pound Gorilla

Posted by: ErikL on 03 January 2004

A buddy recently interviewed for a job at Microsoft, working on HighMAT. Post-mortem (Microsoft product management interviews can be a slow death), he had a lot of interesting comments about the company's plans for CD's, hifi, digital rights management, etc. Based on his comments and my recent discoveries in the world of copy-protected discs, I did a little research.

You might find these stories interesting, as well as this list of DRM licensees (mainly BMG, EMI, Sony, Universal, Warner/whatever).

What do you think will happen?

(Sorry if I'm covering something already dissected.)
Posted on: 03 January 2004 by ErikL
Semi,

I'm not an expert on DRM by any means.

From what I gather, you'd need to play back on hardware with the embedded Microsoft DRM software (whether a PC, portable, multi-format disc player, etc). Copies would not be allowed. The bright side- if Media Player DRM is like the rest of Microsoft's wares, it will be easily hacked. Wink

Whether it happens, we'll need to wait and see. From what friends tell me, Microsoft's DRM is far more robust than the competition. This has given them leverage with the music companies. At the same time RealNetworks is gaining supporters with its Helix DRM. It supports multiple file formats (MP3, MP4, etc), but that won't matter if all content is in WMA in a few years time.

[This message was edited by Ludwig on SUNDAY 04 January 2004 at 01:59.]
Posted on: 04 January 2004 by matthewr
AFAICT from the HighMAT webstite HighMAT is just a way of formatting CDRs and DVDs so that they can be read and can provide fast indexing, rich information, playlists, etc. It doesn't mention DRM anywhere and even talks about being designed for relatively dumb devices with constrained hardware resources -- which doesn't sound particularly DRM friendly.

Of course .WMA already has DRM and has for a while but there is nothing in HighMAT that obliges you to use it from what I have read. Indeed one presumes that HighMAT supports all media formats not just WMA so even if WMA makes DRM obligatory (highly unlikely) you could always use MP3 rips instead.

Personally I think it sounds like a reasonable idea -- but to have much chance of success it needs support from a lot more people than just MS, Pansonic and Fuji.

Matthew
Posted on: 04 January 2004 by ErikL
Matthew, I think you mistook my mention of HighMAT as something more than a reference to my buddy's painful interview. I understand that its a separate entity from DRM. But I think I've confused DRM protection of, well, digital media with copyright protection of broadcast and recorded media.

Interesting nonetheless is a look at Macrovision and what they're doing in both areas.

Okay, I'll be going now...