Media companies need to
protect their copyrighted materials, but they must improve its portability so
they don't continue to alienate consumers. At least that's what a joint
study conducted by GartnerG2, a research service of Gartner, Inc., and The
Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School suggests.
They even have a conceptual solution dubbed as "Perfectly Portable
Content". What do you think?
 "Given
that content control and copy protection remain top priorities for digital
media publishers, DRM must be intelligently deployed on a mass scale,"
said James Brancheau, vice president of media industry research at
GartnerG2. "To avoid alienating consumers, DRM standards need to be
flexible enough to protect the content, to be replaced when they are
hacked, to accommodate changes in consumer demand, and to support the
tenets of fair use, which can be disrupted by new technologies."
One way to address the difficulties that digital media
companies are having with DRM is to adopt an overarching approach to
content distribution. GartnerG2 analysts have termed this approach
"perfectly portable content." This is a concept intended to balance the
need for access versus control of digital content distributed on the Web.
GartnerG2 analysts said perfectly portable content
allows copyrighted content to move from device to device without
uncontrolled copying. It is content for which there is, at any point, only
one instance (more than one instance is possible, but it depends on the
rules established by the copyright holder or publisher.) where it can be
viewed on a PC, PDA or any other device capable of being authenticated. In
displaying the content and authenticating the digital certificates used by
DRM technologies, content can be protected from piracy while supporting
portability and fair use.
"Perfectly portable content can meet publishers' needs
to control unauthorized and uncompensated copies while allowing consumers
a sense of ownership and the ability to engage in fair use manipulation of
their legitimate digital content," said Mike McGuire, research director at
GartnerG2. |
The Berkman Center and GartnerG2 will host a
one-day seminar in an effort to develop a strategy that can meet content
providers, media companies, and consumers needs. Entitled "Digital Media in
Cyberspace: The Legislation and its Business Effects," will be held September 18
at the Ames Courtroom at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Mass.
Source: mi2n.com
