There is "How can content providers protect their assets and maximize their profits in the broadband environment?" by the COO of the MPAA; there is "Enabling a simple connected digital lifestyle: what should the industry do to make content flow?" by the senior vice-president of Microsoft's digital media division; there is "Dumb, dangerous and dire: the case against DRM" by author and former EFF campaigner, Cory Doctorow, and there is some kind of - snigger - 'unbreakable' watermarking algorithm for digital content, presented by none other than the CEO of the company that will usher in this holy grail, where all others have failed.
Perhaps more interesting than the program was what was actually said. I have not been able to confirm whether the MPAA dude actually spoke (his entry was still marked unconfirmed) but the others certainly did. First the Microsoft vice-president. His title is slightly misleading. It should read: "What should the industry do to make paid-for content flow, whereupon the revenues go into Microsoft's coffers?"
Because unless I am missing something, gigabytes of content flow around the Internet every day. And I do not mean unauthorized copies of movies, music and books - I mean original stuff produced by people who want to share. Content is flowing already, and Microsoft wants a cut somehow.
Well if you cannot get people to use your tools to create it, then there is another way: license it out to media device manufacturers. Amir Majidimehr, the aforementioned Microsoft vice-president, explained that device makers will have to pay Microsoft a licence fee for each device that uses Microsoft DRM.
There is also the small matter of a licence agreement that forbids implementing a player in open source and imposes a number of restrictions on the sort of business you can get into. None of this should be terribly surprising. What was surprising was that he came right out and told everyone his company was being deliberately anti-competitive.
According to Cory Doctorow (who was of course listening to this presentation, since he was next on the podium) the licence fee is not intended to recoup the expenses Microsoft incurred in developing its DRM, or to turn a profit.
"The intention is to reduce the number of licensors to a manageable level, to lock out 'hobbyists', and other entities that Microsoft does not want to have to trouble itself with," wrote Doctorow on his blog.
I guarantee that this strategy will not 'enable a simple connected digital lifestyle' any time soon, since it deliberately locks out all of the true innovators - the open source authors and the small coding shops that cannot afford a licence fee, but just want to do something cool with media.
Not that DRM works anyway. In Doctorow's own speech he quoted an interesting statistic. It takes on average 180 seconds for an iTunes track (DRM-enabled naturally) to appear in unprotected form on the peer-to-peer networks.
Yep. DRM works all right.
(Charl Bergkamp is an overworked, underpaid systems support engineer in the Lambda Bureau, the ICT department of the Ministry of Boards, Committees and Working Groups. He would love to hear from kindred spirits in the ICT corporate world. Send tip-offs, hints and blatant accusations to charl.bergkamp@gmail.com).