01 03 2001
WORLD-INFO FLASH
CPRM Content Protection
by World-Information.Org

++ New Extent of Copyright Control ++

ICT-equipment and software producers are teaming up with the media and entertainment industry to enforce the protection of copyright in the digital space. The intellectual property behind the new technology CPRM (Content Protection for Recordable Media) is owned by the 4C Entity, which comprises Intel, IBM, Matsushita and Toshiba. CPRM is designed for controlling the copying, moving and deletion of digital media on a host device, such as a personal computer, or other digital players. It is already used in specific removable media such as DVD, but has now been proposed for inclusion in the ATA specification for hard drives. Further information on the subject is available at the web-site of NCTIS (National Committee for Information Technology Standards)T.13 technical committee: http://www.t13.org.

According to IBM the new tool for copyright protection will be in every industry-standard hard disk by next summer. Each CPRM-compatible ATA hard drive will then be individually signed, and authenticate the playback and movement of files on the device against a central server using CPRM-compliant software. The main beneficiaries of the introduction of CPRM will be the big entertainment and media corporations while end users and authors are very likely to be on the downward slope. Significant costs will arise for consumers as the proposed mechanism introduces problems to moving data between compliant and non-compliant devices and moreover considerably restricts the possibility of copying - also for private use, which is generally exempt under the doctrine of fair use. And all the royalty creators will receive is a tiny proportion of the fee charged by the distributor to the end user.



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Source: http://world-information.org/wio/readme/992021819