Open Mobile Alliance Digital Rights Management (DRM) 2.0

Open Mobile Alliance Digital Rights Management (DRM) 2.0

April 05, 2006

Interoperable DRM for Mobile, IT and Consumer Electronics Industries

    LAS VEGAS, April 5 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- The Open
Mobile Alliance, an international specifications setting
body, announces the public availability of its DRM Version
2.0 Service Enabler as an Approved Enabler Release. Open
Mobile Alliance's Board of Directors recently accepted the
new standard after ten months of thorough interoperability
testing across the mobile, consumer electronics (CE) and IT
industries. DRM 2.0's arrival demonstrates Open Mobile
Alliance's commitment to develop and test a trusted
standard for the interoperable distribution of premium
content.

    Open Mobile Alliance DRM 1.0 became available as an
Approved Enabler Release in September 2004 and is already
deployed in over 400 handset types world wide. For Open
Mobile Alliance DRM 2.0, 66 of the Open Mobile Alliance's
nearly 400 member companies contributed to the
specification. One of the significant capabilities of Open
Mobile Alliance's new and improved DRM will be to extend
the specification to both IT and CE products and devices.
As an example, Open Mobile Alliance DRM 2.0 will allow
mobile operators to extend billing capabilities beyond the
mobile phone.

    "Open Mobile Alliance has established its crucial
role in the interoperability of products and services in
the wireless world, in spite of industry and media focus on
IPR issues associated with digital rights and other
technologies," says Jari Alvinen, Chairman of the
Board of the Open Mobile Alliance. "Now, consumers are
demanding premium content wherever they are and however they
are connected. Open Mobile Alliance DRM 2.0 offers content
providers, IT and consumer electronics vendors, mobile
operators and vendors a DRM solution that allows secure
content exchange in an interoperable manner. This
interoperability is the key to drive the successful
convergence of the mobile, CE and IT industries. Open
Mobile Alliance's DRM 2.0 provides a truly dynamic solution
for exchanging high quality content to any device on any
network."

    Open Mobile Alliance DRM 2.0 has been tested over the
course of five Open Mobile Alliance TestFests beginning in
May of last year in Helsinki, Finland. 92 product
implementations, including 64 clients and 28 servers,
covering more than 200 inter-company combinations have been
tested. More than 10,000 Interoperability Tests have been
successfully completed.

    Originally, Open Mobile Alliance DRM 1.0 was designed
to meet interoperability requirements for light media
content. DRM 2.0's premium content specification offers
more trust and security; supports non-mobile protocols such
as HTTP; and will enable new business models such as
sharing, streaming, subscriptions and gifting.

    "High bandwidth wireless networks and mobile
devices with removable media and larger color screens have
enabled users to access premium content," says Willms
Buhse, vice chair of Open Mobile Alliance's DRM Working
Group. "These innovations have allowed mobile users to
access the rich content commonly available on the Internet.
Because we developed Open Mobile Alliance's DRM 2.0 with
the specific goal of interoperability between mobile, IT
and CE devices, Open Mobile Alliance is eliminating some of
the proprietary solution barriers that have hindered the
success of content based business models such as super
distribution or storage and back up for multiple
devices."

    Open Mobile Alliance Approved Enabler Release DRM
2.0/Features

    Consumers

    -- Greater security and trust management
    -- Advanced content management to move, remove and
restore both content
       and rights among multiple devices and storage
solutions
    -- Sharing between multiple users in a single domain
    -- Transfer to disconnected devices such as music and
video players

    Content Providers

    -- Enhanced security for individually encrypted rights
and integrity
       protection for both content and rights
    -- Explicit trust mechanisms for mutual authentication
between device        
       and rights issuer, including device revocation
    -- Secure and protected multicast and unicast streaming
for progressive
       download
    -- Support for new business models provided by features
such as metered
       time and usage constraints, content bundling and
subscription        
       rights, and gifting
    -- Support for P2P super distribution and messaging for
viral marketing
       and reward mechanisms

    About the Open Mobile Alliance Release Program 

    To date, Open Mobile Alliance has published 44 Enabler
Releases. The Open Mobile Alliance continuously operates an
interoperability program to validate Enabler specifications,
as well as the implementations of member products and
services. Using a clear working process, the Enabler
Release Program is designed to deliver two key milestones
for each enabler:

    -- A Candidate Enabler Release delivers an approved set
of open               
       technical specifications that can be implemented in
products and        
       solutions, and then tested for interoperability.

    -- An Approved Enabler Release represents Candidate
Enabler Releases
       that have gone through the Interoperability Program
(IOP) of Open 
       Mobile Alliance. The IOP tests interoperability
between different 
       member company's implementations -- either within
the Open Mobile 
       Alliance or through co-operation with an outside
organisation.

    For more information, visit
http://www.openmobilealliance.org/release_program/index.html
. 

    About the Open Mobile Alliance

    The Open Mobile Alliance delivers open specifications
for creating interoperable services that work across
countries, operators, fixed and mobile terminals. Driven by
users' needs and the expanding market for data services, the
member companies of the Open Mobile Alliance stimulate the
adoption of new and enhanced information, communication and
entertainment services. The Open Mobile Alliance includes
contributors from all key elements of the wireless value
chain, and contributes to the timely and efficient
introduction of services and applications. 

    NOTE:  The Open Mobile Alliance name and logo are
trademarks of Open Mobile Alliance Ltd. Other product and
company names mentioned herein may be trademarks or trade
names of their respective owners.

    For more information, please contact:

     Stephen Jones 
     Open Mobile Alliance Communications
     Tel:   [phone]
     Email: [e-mail]

     Alexis Braden
     Ketchum Public Relations
     Tel:   [phone]
     Email: [e-mail]

SOURCE  The Open Mobile Alliance