Philips & Sony To Purchase Intertrust DRM Tech

tuxlove writes "Reuters is reporting that Philips and Sony Corp, the parents of the compact disc, teamed up on Wednesday to buy InterTrust Technologies for $453 million -- a deal expected to speed up copyright security for digital media. The acquisition by Philips Electronics and Sony of the leading U.S.-based holder of intellectual property in the field of 'digital rights management' technology is widely seen as a way to prevent Microsoft, which has been embroiled in a legal battle with InterTrust, from grabbing control of the potentially lucrative business. Philips and Sony, the electronics giants who introduced the CD format 20 years ago, said the deal would enable secure distribution of content as more films and music are sold over the Internet and other media in digital format."

Re:Corrupt CDs

[Flyskippy1]

What's this? Another attempt to limit the power of our computers? When will they learn that our computers will do whatever we tell them to do.

Lucrative?

[Quaoar]

...to prevent Microsoft, which has been embroiled in a legal battle with InterTrust, from grabbing control of the potentially lucrative business.

The lucrative business of screwing over the customer? Sounds like Microsoft already has the bases covered.

Kinda ironic

[llamaluvr]

"We come very much from the side of the consumer and we believe the consumer should have the right to reproduce content for their own use," said Philips spokesman Jeremy Cohen.

So you purchased a company that deals in copy protection?!?!

attempt backfires..

[DraconicFae]

The acquisition by Philips Electronics and Sony of the leading U.S.-based holder of intellectual property in the field of 'digital rights management' technology is widely seen as a way to prevent Microsoft, which has been embroiled in a legal battle with InterTrust, from grabbing control of the potentially lucrative business.

Microsoft responds by buying Philips and Sony for 453 billion, grabbing control of a different potentially lucrative business.

Re:Corrupt CDs

[Chris Johnson]

There's no such scheme. The 'foo' Book standards were from back in the day when media formats were invented to be read, not invented not to be readable :D