Consumer electronic giants push new DRM solution

The digital rights management playing field got a little more crowded as four of the world’s biggest consumer electronics companies released services for a new anti-piracy solution.
The Marlin Trust Management Organization-comprising Panasonic, Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Sony Corp.-released its DRM offering to commercial adopters. The group released specifications for the solution eight months ago in an effort to encourage development of the technology; Marlin certification, management and renewability services were launched with today’s announcement.
The MTMO is hoping to provide “flexible sharing of content both in a consumer’s home networking environment and in situations where a consumer wishes to share content across networks” by replacing the current assortment of electronic locks that allow content to be used only on a single manufacturer’s device. Philips and Sony are also behind the Coral standard, which reportedly is fully compatible with Marlin.
Intertrust Technologies, a California-based software developer that owns many of the crucial patents for anti-piracy protection, provides much of the technology for the Marlin effort.