Chasing Pirates

Posted: Wed., Feb. 4, 2004, 10:44pm PT

WB tackles mobile pirates

Studio logs on with OMA org

Warner Bros. is partnering with some of the biggest names in the technology world to help protect digital content on mobile devices.

Studio is joining with Intel, Nokia, RealNetworks and several other tech firms in the Content License Management Administrator, a new group that will help companies utilize digital rights management technology from the Open Mobile Alliance.

Org revealed its membership at the OMA's "Secure Content Delivery for the Mobile World" event at the Beverly Hills Hilton on Monday.

OMA is close to releasing version 2.0 of its open DRM standard, which will protect against piracy while also providing for interoperability between devices. Inability of different mobile devices, including music players, video players and cellular handsets, to transfer content has been one of the biggest roadblocks to development of the mobile content market.

Signing up other studios and labels that own content, as well as media software providers like Microsoft and Apple, will be key as the OMA seeks to gain wide acceptance of its standard.

"We look forward to the creation of an opportunity for securely delivering high-value content to a range of mobile devices," said Warner Bros. chief technical officer Chris Cookson. "Effective rights management technologies will permit content providers to offer consumers the widest array of choices for consuming content by preserving the distinctions among these choices."

Technology providers such as Intel and Motorola plan to build devices that will work with the new OMA standard. RealNetworks is integrating it into its own streaming media and DRM technology and the audio and video content it sells directly to consumers.

The OMA was founded in June 2002 by nearly 200 companies to establish interoperable standards for mobile devices. Org plans to start signing up device makers and content providers early this year and release a toolkit to integrate its standard by year's end.

Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com

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