RealNetworks tackles Net copyrights
The initiative is certain to intensify the rivalry between RealNetworks and Microsoft, which has backed a competing effort to develop a standard for copyright-protection systems. RealNetworks, based in Seattle, Wednesday will also introduce its own copyright-protection software, pitting it against a similar program from Microsoft.
The RealNetworks technology -- dubbed extensible media commerce language, or XMCL -- is essentially a blueprint that will define a common set of standards that allow movies, music and other copyright material delivered over the Internet to interact with the sophisticated commerce software through which consumers are expected to eventually purchase and rent digital entertainment in great numbers. That commerce software, known in industry parlance as digital-rights-management software, is considered a critical element of emerging Internet services such as video-on-demand and music-downloading services.
Among other purposes, rights-management software is designed to prevent the piracy of music through services such as Gnutella and Napster. Rights-management systems also control precisely how content can be used by an individual -- for instance, permitting a music fan to download and listen to a song three times before an additional payment is requested.
But entertainment companies, so far, have put only limited portions of their content in digital form on the Internet. Part of the problem, RealNetworks executives argue, is that entertainment companies have been reluctant to format all of their content so that it would work with only one rights-management system, because that would effectively hand over too much control to a single technology company. Rob Glaser, chief executive of RealNetworks, said rights-management software and other programs that support the new technical specifications will make it easier for a company to switch to another rights-management system -- if, for instance, better and cheaper technology emerges -- without the company's having to reformat all of its content.
"We said, 'What are the common rules of the road we can define for secure media?' " Glaser said.
Among the technology companies supporting the RealNetworks initiative were Avid Technology, Adobe Systems and Virage Bertelsman AG, Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios and Clear Channel Communications were among the media companies endorsing the technology. "I think this is a step in the right direction," said Talal Shamoon, executive vice president at InterTrust Technologies, a maker of rights-management software that also supports the RealNetworks initiative.
But the list of supporters was notable for the absence of Microsoft, which has been competing aggressively with RealNetworks in the online-audio and -video market. RealNetworks said it invited the Redmond, Wash., software company to join the initiative, but Microsoft never responded. However, Will Poole, the Microsoft executive in charge of the company's digital-media group, insisted that neither he nor his colleagues ever received an invitation from RealNetworks.
Poole questioned whether the RealNetworks initiative was even necessary, since a number of other companies, including Hewlett-Packard, Adobe and Microsoft, have already backed a rights-management standard known as XRML, or extensible rights markup language. "This is a good concept but not a new concept," Poole said.
Mark Mooradian, an analyst at Jupiter Media Metrix said: "Real is definitely using the fear of media companies' getting locked into a single system to rally the community against Microsoft," said
RealNetworks didn't specify which software programs from other technology companies would support the technical specifications beyond its own new rights-management system, which it is calling RealSystem Media Commerce Suite. The software suite will provide the security for MusicNet, the subscription music service that is due out from RealNetworks, Bertelsmann, EMI and AOL later this year. Microsoft says its own rights-management software has been used in eight million transactions involving the sale of music and video over the Internet.