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IBM Expands Its Digital Rights Management Technology

Advanced Software Enables Businesses To Securely Deliver Digital Content
http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/020408/040342.html

LAS VEGAS, NV--(INTERNET WIRE)--Apr 8, 2002 -- NAB -- IBM today announced new software that enables customers to digitally protect and secure copyrighted and digital content for content management, distribution and e-commerce applications. The new Electronic Media Management (EMMS) software now includes support for open standards and can secure all types of digital media, including audio, text, video, and streaming media.

With today's announcement, IBM brings Digital Rights Management (DRM) to its enterprise content management portfolio in recognition of the growing need for businesses to protect and deliver digital content. Companies worldwide are faced with growing amounts of rich media -- and the challenge of managing, securing and distributing that data is mounting. According to IDC, the digital rights management (DRM) market is expected to exceed $1 billion by 2006.

Formerly a standalone offering for the music industry, EMMS version 2 supports a broad range of media types, including text, image, and video, in addition to audio files, and is now a key component of the IBM Digital Media solutions architecture. This expanded capability provides customers from diverse industries -- from healthcare and finance to media and entertainment -- with an information infrastructure that enables them to access, capture, integrate, manage, analyze, and securely distribute all forms of digitized content to build and deploy e-business solutions.

IBM's expanded platform is built on open standards including XML® and Java®, allowing applications to exchange data freely and securely. Support for open standards enables customers to integrate EMMS seamlessly into their existing IT infrastructure. EMMS is also a component of IBM's new Service Provider Delivery Environment (SPDE), a framework based on open industry standards to help bring next generation services such as voice, text, Internet services and the delivery of content to customers faster, easier and at lower cost.

With EMMS, Hollywood and entertainment content creators can share digital assets and assign rights to a broader range of content. In healthcare, a provider can transfer digitized patient records between doctors, without compromising the security of these protected records. Similarly, banks and financial institutions that process requests from consumers for mortgages and loans can use EMMS to protect this personal information and allow status updates and approvals to be accessed only by authorized individuals. Government agencies that generate video from surveillance technology or scanned satellite images can benefit from EMMS's rights management capability, which may be used to prevent theft, unauthorized use and access, and ensure authenticity of the content.

Today's announcement of EMMS version 2 introduces:

IBM Software integration: Tighter interoperability with IBM Content Manager and other middleware components, including IBM VideoCharger for streaming video, DB2 database software, and the WebSphere family of server products.

Extensive device support: Allows for the delivery of secure content to a broader range of devices, including PCs, PDAs, CDs, retail kiosks, set-top boxes, mobile communicators and consumer electronics components, such as game stations.

Streaming video and audio, and additional plug-in support: Integrates with IBM's Content Manager VideoCharger technology to help provide a secure streaming solution. Also provides support for Microsoft Windows Media Player.®

Additional media type support: In addition to supporting music files, EMMS now provides support for media types for both businesses and consumers including audio, text, image, and video, including pdf and Open-eBook® formats.

Supports a wide range of business models: Enables companies to drive new revenue across all forms of digital content with subscription-based models, rentals, pay-per-view, kiosks, and super distribution.

User authentication capability: Allows for only those authorized users to access sensitive information through support of delivery options that provide a controlled access infrastructure for and between enterprises. This technology prevents theft, unauthorized use, controls access and ensures authenticity of content.

Software Development Kit (SDK): This includes client and content preparation modules for independent software vendors (ISVs) and developers to use in facilitating the integration of content across various types of clients and applications.

Industry Support

-- "We at ION Systems are one of the first companies to install the entire EMMS software solution to both sell secure eBook formats from our GalaxyLibrary.com web site and to offer EMMS mastering, hosting, retail and clearing services to content owners. Integration of the EMMS client application with our eMonocle reader allows the industry standard OeB file format to be securely distributed and viewed comfortably by all users regardless of their vision or physical challenge," said Jill Thomas, CEO of ION Systems.

-- "Rimage and the EMMS team worked closely to enable EMMS to support the Rimage CD-R publishers in the medical, banking and finance, government, retail, and entertainment markets, as well as emerging new markets that require the production of digital content on an on-demand basis," said Dave Suden, chief technology officer, Rimage. "Together, Rimage and IBM help meet customers' needs for customized, on-demand digital information, which span the range from high to low CD-R production volumes, incorporate robotics, advanced software, and sophisticated color printing technologies."

-- "IBM's approach to common standards allows us at Mobipocket to integrate new EMMS security functions with our OeB reader technologies, extending EMMS secured content to a wide range of PCs and mobile devices, including PDAs and Smart Phones," said Thierry Erethes, president and CEO of Mobipocket."

Availability

EMMS version 2 will be available worldwide on April 30, 2002.

About IBM

IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. IBM is helping media and entertainment companies worldwide take advantage of the business opportunities made possible by digital technology. IBM offers a comprehensive portfolio of solutions, networking and service offerings that is transforming the traditional creative and business processes of media and entertainment companies and positioning them to leverage their intellectual assets into new commercial opportunities. Additional information on IBM strategy for the media and entertainment industry can be found at www.ibm.com/industries/digitalmedia. Additional information on EMMS and the EMMS SDKs can be found at www.ibm.com/software/emms.

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IBM to unveil antipiracy software

Says it would stop illegal copying of entertainment files

By Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff, 4/8/2002
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/098/business/IBM_to_unveil_antipiracy_software+.shtml

IBM Corp., wading into the debate over the post-Napster structure of the online music business, is set to announce today new software designed to prevent the illegal copying of digital music and other data files.



The company has spent five years working on its Electronic Media Management System, or EMMS. But today's announcement, scheduled for the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas, is intended in part as a response to recent legislative proposals that would force the electronics industry to make antipiracy technology a part of every digital device, from computers to game machines.

Senator Fritz Hollings, Democrat of South Carolina, has introduced a bill that would require all digital devices to have built-in hardware to prevent users from copying files. The legislation was drafted in response to complaints from music recording companies and film production firms. They say they're losing billions of dollars in sales because people can use computers to easily make perfect copies of CDs and videos. They also want to sell their products over the Internet, but are unwilling to do so unless buyers can be prevented from making copies of the files they purchase.

But computer industry executives have expressed alarm at the idea of a government-mandated redesign of their products. ''We don't believe that the government should be involved in designing IT [information technology] solutions for industry,'' said Scott Burnett, director of digital media marketing at IBM. He hopes that IBM's software technology, if voluntarily embraced by media companies, software makers, and electronics firms, will go a long way toward preventing the wholesale illegal copying of digital entertainment data.

With its EMMS technology, a music or video creator can wrap his files in a digital ''package'' that can only be unlocked with a digital key. Such a key is issued to the purchaser of the file. The buyer will be able to use the file, but the key can be designed to ensure that the same file won't work when loaded onto a different computer owned by someone else.

Many people make multiple copies of music files for use at home, at work, and in the car. The EMMS system is designed to let the creator of the file set his own rules about copying. He could allow the purchaser to make no copies, or two or three. He could allow the file to be copied to a portable digital music player, but prevent the same file from being burned to a CD.

Similar copy-protection software has been in the works for years, made by AT&T Corp., Microsoft Corp. and others. IBM scientists say that theirs is more robust than earlier versions, with features that would make it extremely difficult for a data thief to intercept the digital signal inside the computer.

For example, a data pirate could replace a standard sound card with a device that would capture digital music from the computer and send it to another computer.

IBM scientists say that wouldn't work with EMMS, because it recognizes the digital signatures of legitimate sound card software programs. Any phony sound card would have an incorrect signature, and the file would refuse to play.

But Internet security experts are skeptical that any software-based antipiracy system can ever be made perfect.

Ed Felten, professor of computer science at Princeton University, has cracked a number of earlier data-protection programs. He said that a pirate could write a program that would send out the signature of a legitimate soundcard, even though the computer system really used a music-capture card. By issuing false identification in this way, the pirate could deceive the EMMS system.

''I tend to doubt that you can build a system that's unbreakable in this area,'' said Felten.

Hiawatha Bray can be reached at [e-mail].

This story ran on page C1 of the Boston Globe on 4/8/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company.