DRM Watch: Open Mobile Alliance Announces Version 2.0 of DRM Standard

Forget open content on your next-generation mobile device: CMLA is here to make sure you only use Big Content from the corporate media.

CMLA is basically an effort to create the equivalent of DVD-CCA for mobile devices. (DVD CCA is the consortium that brought you fair-use-inhibitng CSS for DVDs).

Here's how it works:

1) CMLA members come up with proprietary spec for DRMed content distribution on mobile devices;
2) CMLA members use patent, copyright, and trade secrecy law to lock up all possible avenues to implementing spec;
3) Big Content makes it known that they will only license their content on CMLA-compliant devices;
4) Tech vendors who want Big Content for their devices bow down and submit to CMLA's restrictive license agreements (e.g. no fair use allowed; all new features require Big Content approval);
5) In return, tech vendors receive cryptographic materials that allow their devices to interoperate with Big Content content;
6) Rinse; repeat.

Result: A technical and legal hack around fair use and the Betamax doctrine. The only devices that can play Big Content are those that have undergone CMLA's fair use labotomy and come out crippled.

Of course, you can try to build competing specs for more open devices. If they try to access Big Content, however, look out for the DMCA...

Comments

[Cypherpunk]

It's not clear from your comments whether this agreement will really prevent open content from being available as you claim. Are you saying that it will be impossible for unaffiliated parties to create open content that will run on these phones, without signing agreements and encrypting their stuff?

Or is it that this agreement will allow vendors to create DRM content, but that other people can still create "open content" that does not impose the DRM restrictions?

If the former, which would really shut out open content, I agree with your criticisms. But if it is the latter, then why would you object to a system that would allow both open and closed content to coexist? Surely that would be the ideal situation which would allow for maximum competition among providers and improved responsiveness to the needs and desires of end users.

[Jason]

The DRM is not only in the encryption, but also in the limited feature set. For example, you may be able to play a non-CSS DVD on your Sony DVD player (or Apple iDVD for that matter), but you still can't make a screen shot of your favorite scene and post it to your blog for commentary. Nor can you copy the soundtrack of a DVD you own onto your MP3 player to listen to on the way to work. In other words, the agreements require not only encryption, but removal of features and functionality that enable fair use.

This is all part of the restrictions that the DVD-CCA imposes on DVD player vendors.

For mobile devices, you'll see the same restrictions. You'll be able to share photos you take yourself with friends or post them to your blog, but don't try to send a screenshot from a movie you're watching on your phone or your favorite 5-second sample from the song that you can't get out of your head that you've just made into your new ringtone.

CMLA is going to lock down the device manufacturers and force them to forgo these kinds of innovative and desirable features in return for Big Content allowing them access to their copyrights, regardless of the fact that these features are completely legal under the Supreme Court's Betamax decision. These activities are completely legal First Amendment-protected fair use but will be technologically prohibited under the CMLA regime for all content, Big or Small.