What a difference a day makes. On Monday, I'm at CES watching a panel called "Copyright vs. Consumers" and hearing about how DRM will die in 2007. The room is filled with Washington policy types nodding in agreement. On Tuesday I'm at a session titled "DRM Implementation in Media and Entertainment: From Standardization to Implementation of New Technology Strategies." I recognize no other Washingtonian in the audience, but the room is packed; in fact, I only saw a bigger crowd at Kevin Martin's address. There are six panelists, each and every one of them earning a living in some way connected to DRM. No one talks about DRM dying in 2007. Instead, panelists outline what's happening in DRM standards development and questions from the audience seek predictions of which DRM technologies will prevail over others.

CEA's Gary Shapiro may be quick to bash DRM, but many of his member companies are working in this space, and they're seeking to create the seamless consumer experience Gary wants while also ensuring that content creators are satisfied. It's not as difficult as one would like to believe; it just takes an equal combination of good engineering and savvy business negotiations. (Okay, easy for me to say as some think tanker, but there are folks getting paid a lot more money than me who are making this happen.)

Reed Stager of the Digital Watermarking Alliance outlined quite well the myriad benefits of this most innocuous of technologies, watermarking, from verifying the legitimacy of driver's licenses to helping determine the source of an infringing movie on a peer-to-peer network. Because watermarks are undetectable, they don't trip up consumers lawfully using their content, and that is key, because we have heard time and again at this show that consumers don't want to be bothered.

For example, my wife shares my Napster to Go subscription, but is frustrated when she can't hear her music at the gym because she forgot to sync her songs to renew the licenses; it's that kind of headache that will have to be ironed out for true consumer acceptance of DRM. Perhaps we need an MP3 player that's part of an in-home wireless network with intelligence enough to sync with Napster on a home PC when its song licenses are expiring. (If anyone wants to develop this I'm happy to take a consulting fee.)

Other panelists had differing perspectives on DRM, but agreed that it is here to stay, and many standards and technologies will prosper. Richard LeVine, a consultant for Accenture, said we need to get moralistic language out of the debate. "This is B-school stuff," he said. "There are no bad guys." LeVine said content creators want to make money and retain a level of control, and every one down the value chain also wants to profit. As for interoperability, he said the market will bring that. "Interoperability is Darwinistic... it should be economically driven."

How refreshing this session was. Six panelists, all competing in the market, all seeking to make money, all recognizing that to do that both content creators and consumers must be satisfied. I really, really wish some of these Washington folks I've been seeing at public policy panels could have been at this one.

posted by Patrick Ross @ 8:42 PM | DRM & Watermarks, etc.

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