Microsoft to Become Mobile DRM Standard?

An anonymous reader writes "It seems most of the media has missed the significance of Microsoft's recent partnership with DoCoMo to put Windows Media DRM on i-mode handsets. If all the i-mode players adopt Windows DRM, that gives Microsoft access to a significant chunk of the mobile market. Couple this with the more recent MTV Urge announcement and you've got Microsoft set to own the DRM space - at least on mobile devices - by stealth. Telecoms.com has a take on the situation, but also reveals that the GSM Association may be on the verge of recommending Windows mobile DRM to all its members. Puts the French copyright and DRM legislation in a whole new perspective - interoperability issues can be solved by removing the competition."

Building your own cellphone

[btarval]

Since there's been no coverage of this outside of Silicon valley and the San Jose Mercury News, let me point out that people are starting to build their own cellphones. [revejo.org]

Let the media giants DRM what they want. They'll only succeed in pushing people to other alternatives.

Could be good

[GrouchoMarx]

OK, hear me out before you string me up...

1) MS is a monopoly. Legally defined as such in the US, and I believe EU now as well.

2) MS gets DRM monopoly through wheeling and dealing.

3) Competitors cry anti-competative behavior.

4) A non-corporate-stooge-necon is elected US President. (Let's hope for this anyway, regardless of MS, but I digress...)

5) DoJ sues MS yet again, forces them to open Windows DRM. With a non-stooge in office, they bother to enforce it this time.

6) Open DRM is by definition ineffective. Thus the monopoly DRM system is now effectively useless, as forced by the DoJ.

7) Profit.

OK, so it's a stretch, but a guy can wish, can't he? There's got to be some good news for people who give a damn about freedom.

Re:Neither M$ nor *AA get it . . .

[dpilot]

If I had pile$ of money, it seems to me that there's a Constitutional case here that could play before the Supremes.

Regardless of any specific time limit, be it "eternity - 1 day," the Constitution says that patents and copyrights last a limited time. DRM incorporates NO expiration mechanism, whatsoever. The reason for wanting DRM is that "bits last forever". If so, then those bits will outlast their copyright. The DRM needs to expire, and currently doesn't.

Therefore, current DRM is unconstitutional.

It's 1996

[Anonymous Coward]

"Netscape and its HTML Rendering Engine will be a huge competitor. You can't argue monopoly when, if anyone, Netscape holds the significant market share."

...We're talking about Microsoft leveraging its monopoly power to diminish Apple's strength as competition in this area. And the U.S. D.O.J.--as it is currently staffed--won't do a damn thing to stop it from happening and/or punish Microsoft after the damage has been done.

We've gone back to books.

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently rented a DVD for my family and I to watch. We have our DVD player attached to one of those combined VHS/TV televisions. Apparently the Macrovision copy protection on the DVD prevented it from playing very well. The picture would brighten and darked repeatedly. We weren't even recording onto a VHS tape, so we aren't sure why we had problems.

Regardless, we promptly returned the DVD to the video shoppe, and went to the library. My son and daughters each selected a number of books, as did my wife and I. For the past few weeks, we have been reading instead of watching TV or movies. To be frank, we are far happier. It costs us far less, and the quality of the content is often far higher. We often learn, rather than mindlessly digest.

I wish to thank those who advocate the use of DRM. It has successfully turned us away from using such products, back towards books. We are far better off for that.

Knee-jerk misconceptions

[GringoGoiano]

I've been using Microsoft DRM with the Napster subscription service for over a year now on an iRiver H10 hard-drive device. You can't beat the convenience and the price -- the cost of a single CD per month for lots of great music.

It's such a good model I even bought four more iRiver devices for others.

To clarify some points in the original comment:

• you can download files multiple times (unlike Apple iTunes where you download a file only once and need to copy to other devices)
• it's easy to transfer to multiple mobile devices with Windows Media Player
• there is a limit on how many total times a file can be downloaded, but when I had to wipe a hard drive and re-install the OS on a particular machine a quick call to Napster got me past that issue -- they'll work with you

The pricing and model beats iTunes. Many, many services will end up using Microsoft DRM. When people wake up and look beyond the fatuous Apple image to practical realities, Microsoft DRM will come out the winner.

Re:Neither M$ nor *AA get it . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. DRM is based on encryption. It is therefore limited by how long it would take to brute-force the encryption key. It is therefore, by definition, time limited and not eternal. The DRM on DVDs is worthless because the effective number of bits in the key was brought down to the point where it can now be brute-forced in a reasonable amount of time. Therefore, movies are now traded on the Internet due the DRM scheme on DVDs becoming effectively obsolete.

DRM isn't eternal. It lasts until computers become powerful enough to be capable of brute-forcing it. Your argument holds no water.

Re:Leveraging monopolies, to create more monopolie

[Ancil]

Microsoft has vast monopoly power that will allow it to gain monopolies in any emerging computing connected/related device.

That's the slashdot party line, but even your own examples show how laughable the idea is.

PDA's previously owned by Palm, will soon be a microsoft monopoly.

Even the most hateful of Microsoft bashers will admit that Microsoft never won the PDA market. Rather, Palm lost the PDA market by sitting on its ass for five years and releasing software riddled with bugs. Good for Microsoft. Memo to Palm: You snooze, you lose.

Gaming. Sony faces the biggest threat ever and yet managed to make incredibly stupid moves that will make the move to microsoft gaming domination even faster.

I wouldn't count Nintendo out yet. The Wii's price point is intriguing.

That said, Sony is just Palm all over again. Sony had a gargantuan lead with the PS2 -- 75% market share or some such. Then they basically rolled over. The PS3 wanders onstage a full year after Xbox 360 (assuming no further delays), costing $600?? Who's going to buy that? By next Christmas, the 360 will cost $300 and have hundreds of games.

Why should Microsoft take heat for Sony being a bunch of idiots?

Media. Microsoft is agressively pusing it's DRM/codecs everywhere.

Yeah, that's what businesses do. Go figure.

I'll put it plainly: Movie studios won't accept Fairplay for movies, period. They've gotten burned too many times by software-only solutions. They are looking for a tamper-resistant, hardware-based alternative. So far Intel and Microsoft are the only companies stepping up to the plate.

Microsoft isn't winning the DRM fight because of its "monopoly powers" (the only monopoly in digital media right now is iTunes). It's winning because no one else is in the game. It's easy to win a race when you're the only one running.

Re:ACK!

[lengau]

I'm sorry (not really), but I disagree. MP3 is the MOST POPULAR (what the GPP was talking about). While I agree that WMA is better (smaller and sounds better) than MP3 at the same bitrate (the same going for WMV vs. MPEG), I don't think that they are near the best. AAC and Quicktime video are, IMHO, better. At the same time, I'm most likely to use Vorbis and (Theora|XviD) codecs with (Ogg|Matroska|MXF|etc.) packaging because of a personal bias for (Free|Open Source) Software.

Anyway, going back to a response to you, Windows Media Player's current iteration is TERRIBLE from a GUI perspective. If I were forced to use WMP, I would use the old GUI through (I believe, I don't have a Windows box around to check right now) wmplayer2.exe. Also, have you ever tried to code something around DirectShow? NOT very pretty.