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Plans to hard-wire
copy protection into popular digital music and video devices are
being shelved as the consumer-electronics industry grapples interminably
with antipiracy policies, standards and consumer rights.
Until recently,
many makers of chips for consumer-electronics devices had hoped
to build anticopying technology into the chips themselves, a process
known as "hard coding." That technique speeds up a device,
saves on battery power, and makes the antipiracy technology harder
to break through. Prominent security researchers say that hardware-based
rights management technologies are more secure than alternatives
that rely primarily on software.
Chipmakers have not completely abandoned efforts
to create such copy protection features. But developers now say
that they're ready to move ahead with what some call a second best
alternative in order to feed surging demand for chips bound for
new multimedia devices such as MP3 players, cell phones and PDAs.
This so-called soft coding--putting antipiracy rules into software
that is more accessible to users--is slower and less secure, but
lets companies adapt to rapid changes in the market more easily,
developers say.
"In the past we've invested in hardware
security that has not borne fruit," said Michael Maia, vice
president of marketing for Portal Player, a company that makes multimedia
chips focused on portable devices. "But there's a big risk
there, because the market changes so much. Until it stabilizes enough,
we will be soft-coding."
The impasse over copy protection has stretched
on for years, feeding distrust between the entertainment industry
and consumer-electronics makers swept up in the digital technology
revolution. Delays in hammering out antipiracy features for MP3
players and other devices have led to at least one proposal for
legislation that would mandate the creation of a government-backed
copy protection standard--a plan that was greeted with a standing
ovation in Hollywood and catcalls in Silicon Valley.
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That doesn't mean chipmakers oppose hard-wired
copy controls. Indeed, the trend toward software-based protection
is at odds with the longer-term direction of companies such as Intel
and Microsoft, and their so-called trusted computing initiatives.
Under both companies' plans, a hardware-based authentication system
would let computers guard against hackers' intrusions and viruses,
as well as potentially block use of pirated software, songs or movies.
Hard coding has proven extraordinarily elusive,
however, making software-based copy controls the best alternative
for bringing passable, but not perfect, antipiracy features to the
coming generation of digital devices.
"For the average user, soft coding is
sufficient. For the hacker, soft coding leads to a wide-open hole,"
said Maia. "But that's the reality right now, because the business
is in flux."
Not perfect
Average music listeners surely will have little idea how deeply
antipiracy technology might permeate the products they buy. But
small differences in built-in rights-management technology can translate
into big headaches for consumers, and ultimately have substantial
influence over the success or failure of consumer products and digital
music business models.
A few examples of that influence have already
been seen today. Most MP3 players do not have any antipiracy, or
digital rights management (DRM), technology built in. That has led
the legal online music services to bar most transfers of songs to
portable devices, creating a Byzantine list of what can and can't
be done with music downloaded through services like MusicNet and
PressPlay.
On the flip side, Sony has been one of the
few companies to release portable music players with digital rights
management technology built in, but some consumers have criticized
its products as a result.
Chipmakers have watched the battles between
record companies, consumer groups, file-swappers and legislators
for the past year with some impatience. One constant has been Microsoft's
rapid growth into the leading rights-protection company, while other
once-prominent rivals such as Intertrust and Reciprocal have faltered.
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Content companies have pushed manufacturers
to support rights-management technology for years. Early cross-industry
collaborations such as the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI)
failed, however. Individual device manufacturers and chipmakers
have more pragmatically been signing licenses to use varying digital
rights management technologies over time, although few piracy-fighting
devices have seen their way to shelves in the United States.
"The hardware companies get stuck in
the middle," said Mike McGuire, an analyst with GartnerG2,
a division of the Gartner research firm. "This issue is going
to be part of an ongoing set of negotiations between content and
device manufacturers."
Despite a move away from building the rights-management
tools deeply into chips, chipmakers' strategies remain widely varied.
Given the long lead time in designing and building chips--often
18 months or more--this is one sign that DRM support is likely to
be scattered and haphazard for some time to come.
Giant Texas Instruments has long eschewed
hard-coding DRM technology into its chips, for example, despite
the potential speed and memory gains.
"Our philosophy has always been that
DRM should be software," said Randy Cole, chief technologist
for Texas Instruments' Internet audio business. "The advantage
to that is that it's changeable in the field."
What that means is that if a consumer is able
to break through the antipiracy technology on a device such as an
MP3 player, it can be restored automatically the next time the device
is connected to the Net, Cole said.
Other functions that support antipiracy technology
are increasingly being added more deeply into multimedia chips,
however. Maia's company, which has focused on creating chips for
mobile devices such as cell phones, is working on features that
can speed up decryption of protected files such as songs that are
transmitted over cell phone networks. That falls short of the benefits
of putting the full rights-management system on the chip itself,
however.
GartnerG2's McGuire said he expects the hardware
manufacturers and chipmakers to stay out of the fray as much as
possible until there is more clarity in the market and in the public
policy arena. Given the different needs of different kinds of devices,
the market may always be fractured, he noted.
"You're going to see some more
false starts, but I think the notion here is that there is going
to be ongoing experimentation," McGuire said. "Practically,
we do not believe there's going to be a single magic bullet."
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