DRM not dead, just getting sneakier

IT MIGHT seem obvious but DRM will never go away because there's just way too much money at stake. There are fat cats, lawyers, publicists, shareholders, producers, fluffers and all manner of important nobodies to pay in the music/movie industry and DRM is there to ensure [giggle] that no one sneaks off without ponying up a bit a of cash. Hell, even the musicians and actors themselves might get a little of the action, but they're not as important as the corporate behemoth between them and us. DRM is their Arnie, an over-developed oaf guarding the profits - badly, I might add. So badly that DRM is as useful as an asthmatic trying to ref a rugby match. Even so, not all the hippie hollering about 'Free Music' and 'Burn DRM' is going to change a thing.

DRM might get kicked in the nuts every now and then by u-turning, backstabbers like Apple, but like Arnie's most famous creation used to say: "I'll be back". Steve Jobs' open letter about how bad and evil DRM was, managed to do two incredibly complex things simultaneously: it advocated the end to DRM while elsewhere Apple's iTunes Fairplay DRM software was preventing millions of iPod owners doing what they liked with the music they had just bought. And that's what really annoys most people: DRM goes beyond protecting the 'artist's' rights by interfering with their rights to do what they like with their legally purchased content. I know it sure as hell freaks me out. Well, it would, if I bought stuff from iTunes but that doesn't stop me from having comradely empathy for the millions that do.

There was a wave of optimism and 'Death To DRM' cries when EMI dropped DRM on its downloads through Apple, and now some others, but the promised rebellion has failed to materialise. The other big publishers have stood firm and show no sign of swapping their legal writs for flowery hats anytime soon. In fact, not only is DRM not going to go away, it's going to get smarter. Imagine the cast of CSI being real and tasked with a way of marking content in such a way that it can be linked to the owner. Well, that's what's next. Forensic DRM technologies, like watermarking, are currently sneaking into the market and can be used to identify the end-users of digital content.

The idea is that the content is marked in such a way that it's unique to you once you buy it and if, by chance, a copy of that content pops up at a car-boot sale, armed Plod and the bespectacled RIAA reps will be swinging through your bedroom in a shower of glass and Flash-Bang grenades. Or, maybe they'll just send you a letter.

Either way, the idea is that you'll be nabbed. In reality, very few people will be nabbed because this is meant to be the ultimate in DRM since the watermarking is designed to be indestructible. It's the looming threat of capture that's the real DRM here. That they will know exactly who owned the original of any copies found is meant to be 'the' anti-piracy deterrent. The One Plank To Rule Them All. The technology is being sneaked into some set-top boxes right now so that the providers of downloaded content can keep tabs of what subscribers are watching and attempting to copy. And possibly trying to copy another 50 times for sale down the pub.

What's driving a lot of the newer DRM initiatives is the advent of IPTV, still a fledging market but promising to be a massive money spinner. After all, even though you pay to watch a movie does not mean you can copy it, you law-breaking viewers. Software-based DRM, which lurks invisibly on recorders, set-top boxes and even in the signal received, is seen as the way forward. After all, software DRM can be upgraded fast in the background, once breaches have occurred. And breaches there shall be.

So far copyright on DVDs, CDs and even some high-def discs has been cracked and hacked to death. There's no guarantee that stealth DRM will do the job for the safety of downloaded content but that's not stopping the media bigwigs trying. My feeling is that the clever hacking crowd can't wait for a new challenge.

However, it should be noted that DRM can only truly work if people (a) know about it and (b) fear being caught. On recent evidence, it's doubtful. Piracy levels are higher than ever and according to recent research, 40 per cent of people have never even heard of DRM. By those standards, new research into stealth DRM should be halted immediately seeing as for many, it's already invisible. µ