HP announces moves in digital rights management
Monday March 1, 11:58 pm ET
SAN FRANCISCO, March 1 (Reuters) - Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE:HPQ - News) said on Monday it had licensed digital content protection technology from chipmaker Intel Corp. (NasdaqNM:INTC - News) and developed copy protection technology with Philips PHG.AS PHG.N as the printer and computer maker seeks to stake out a strong position in the nascent arena of digital copyright protection.
Palo Alto, California-based HP said that it had licensed Intel's high-bandwidth digital content protection technology, which is designed to ensure that video cannot be intercepted and recorded as its travels between devices, such as between a personal computer and a TV display screen.
Felice Swapp, who heads up much of HP's digital rights management work, said that the Intel technology is invisible to consumers, and that it made more sense for HP to license that technology from Intel rather than to develop it itself and possibly create a competing standard.
In January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, HP Chairman and Chief Executive Carly Fiorina's keynote focused on digital piracy, a hot-button issue.
Fiorina said at the time that this year all HP digital entertainment products would use software that honors the copyrights of various digital content.
"This is probably the first announcement that's come since CES that's trying to say what we're really doing here is to build on the vision that Carly laid out," Swapp said.
Fiorina wasn't the first high-tech executive to lay out such a vision, however.
As Napster turned the recording industry on its head, Apple Computer Inc. (NasdaqNM:AAPL - News) Chief Executive Steve Jobs ultimately persuaded all five major record labels to sign on to Apple's online music store, which is integrated with its popular iTunes digital music jukebox software.
Consumers can buy single songs on Apple's online music store for 99 cents each, and can legally download them onto up to three personal computers and onto as many of Apple's iPod digital music players as they like.
HP also said that the technology it and Philips developed will enable protected digital recordings of digital broadcast and cable television according to the rules adopted by the Federal Communications Commission (News - Websites) in November.
The FCC agreed to allow programmers to attach a code to digital broadcasts that would specify whether, if at all, a particular show could be copied or broadcast over the Internet.
HP and Philips said they had submitted their technology in the first round of filings to the FCC. The two companies said that their technology can be used with the DVD+R and +RW formats, which are among the most popular, and with other recording formats.
