Microsoft Support INKA Entworks' DRM Interoperability
Name
netadmin
Date
2010-02-12
Count
181
By Bill Rosenblatt
INKA Entworks of South Korea announced on Tuesday that Microsoft has approved its DRM interoperability technology for export from Windows Media DRM. This means that providers of content services that use Windows Media DRM can enable export of DRM-packaged content to several other DRMs, including OMA DRM (both versions 1 and 2) and Marlin, as well as various DRMs used in the Korean market.
INKA has long been a player in the South Korean DRM market, where several proprietary DRM technologies -- from vendors such as Teruten, MarkAny, Fasoo, and INKA itself (NetSync) -- have installed bases in the millions. In addition to its NetSync DRM, INKA also offers DRM Adaptor, a technology for enabling interoperability among DRMs. The newly-announced arrangement with Microsoft is a two-step process: a client-side utility exports content from Windows Media DRM to NetSync, and then DRM Adaptor converts it to the target DRM.
DRM Adaptor has been available in Korea for a couple of years; in addition to the Korean DRMs, it supports one-way interoperability with Apple's FairPlay: users can convert ("transcrypt") files from supported DRMs to FairPlay so that they can play on iPods. Three content services in Korea support this; Apple does not offer iTunes in Korea. INKA's FairPlay interoperability is conceptually similar to RealNetworks' Harmony: it simply encrypts files in the FairPlay format.
With this announcement with Microsoft, INKA stands ready to land a host of deals with the many content services around the world that support Windows Media DRM; INKA is currently in talks with several service providers in Europe.
INKA's technology comes too late to be of much interest to providers of permanent music downloads, most of which are going DRM-free. But it ought to see plenty of opportunity with video services as well as music subscription services, all of which will be using DRM for the foreseeable future -- assuming that rights holders will allow its use.
Music subscription services generally offer "To Go" options that, usually for an extra monthly charge, offer transfer from PCs to portable devices. With INKA's technology, they can support a wider variety of devices. (It would be especially interesting if INKA could support this functionality on the newer iPods that support content expiration; the company says it is looking into this.) These services are under threat from social networking sites like MySpace Music and Datz Music Lounge, which are gradually encroaching on their business models with DRM-free streaming or MP3 content. DRM interoperability for portable devices will help subscription services compete. This is the type of feature that every service will want to adopt once the first service does it successfully.
It will be interesting to see how the INKA/Microsoft approach to DRM interoperability fares against the other currently active approach to interoperability: the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE). DECE's approach eschews DRM-to-DRM translation in favor of making multiple copies (in multiple DRMs) available on service providers' servers. In other words, whereas INKA's DRM Adaptor enables users to translate from one DRM to another, DECE would enable them to simply download a new copy of content for another device from their service provider.
We can see why Microsoft would like the INKA approach better than Open market: it requires service providers to use only Microsoft server software, media formats, and client platforms. That's about as much platform lock-in as Microsoft can hope for these days.
