Time Warner Takes Stake in ContentGuard
Bill Rosenblatt,
DRM Watch,
Apr 09, 2004
Time Warner has purchased a major stake in ContentGuard, owner of the XrML (now MPEG REL) DRM specification that was just approved by ISO. It gains two seats on the board and obtains enterprise licenses to ContentGuard's IP. Reaction from industry watchers is generally positive, since as this article notes, with with DRM intellectual property in the hands of a few companies, content producers generally shied away and the industry atrophied. This acquisition allows a major player access to the DRM it feels it needs. But I'm not sure this helps. Sure, Microsoft and Time Warner - who have been close buddies ever since the Netscape lawsuit was settled - now have the means to create a nice, private, closed content network. But what about the rest of us? We know how Microsoft acts against competing technology - what happens when this philosophy is applied as well to competing content?
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