DRM Demystified

Microsoft PlayReady for Silverlight
Microsoft announced its PlayReady in early 2007, and will make the new DRM technology widely available to content publishers in the first half of 2008. Recently, I had a chance to sit down with Microsoft general managers Adam Berns and Jim Alkove, who are responsible for the business and technology aspects of PlayReady. Berns and Alkove were kind enough to provide Streaming Media magazine with an exclusive question-and-answer session about PlayReady and insight into Microsoft’s DRM strategy.

You made a big splash this week at IBC with the launch of Silverlight. How does PlayReady fit into the Silverlight story?
Berns: Silverlight will deliver digital rights management support built on Microsoft PlayReady technology. PlayReady helps complement a broader distribution-and-accessibility-to-content story, providing business model support for content providers. That, coupled with our existing Windows Media technology, makes PlayReady a really good fit for Silverlight scenarios. We think our work in the mobile handset space and our work with Silverlight are the crux of getting this technology in front of consumers, whether it be on the web or on handsets.

Could you tell us a little more about the feature set that PlayReady will offer and some early partners and adopters you are working with?
Berns: PlayReady is the result of extensive feedback that we received from our handset manufacturer partners and our existing industry partners and content owners and licensees. We listened to that feedback and partnered with our existing customers to enable new scenarios and bring an offering to market with them. Our main goal is to help our customers reach their goals of building out their services and new handsets deployments. We announced at the 3GSM Conference [in Barcelona in February] that we already have several key partners in the PlayReady rollout, including Telefónica, O2, Verizon Wireless, Bouygues Telecom, and Cingular Wireless, now the new AT&T. Then, in August of this year, Nokia announced support for Microsoft PlayReady in the Nokia S60 and Series 40 mobile device platforms, starting in 2008.
Alkove: From a feature perspective, PlayReady adds support for domains, which allows content to move seamlessly among a user’s devices and PCs. In addition to support for Windows Media codecs, PlayReady also supports non-Windows Media codecs such as H.264 and AAC, and non-audio/visual content like bitmaps for backgrounds, games, maps, and ringtones, which differentiates it from existing technologies in the marketplace today. A very important point is that PlayReady is backwards-compatible with Windows Media DRM 10. As a result, device manufacturers can build PlayReady devices that are compatible with existing Windows Media DRM 10 content and services such as Napster, CinemaNow, Amazon, MovieLink, and so on.

Will PlayReady ultimately replace Windows Media Rights Manager (WMRM), or do you see it as a complementary technology in the marketplace? What gaps in the WMRM ecosystem will PlayReady fill?
Berns: Windows Media DRM 10 is a technology that we will continue to support. From a pricing perspective and from a feature set perspective, PlayReady is a different value proposition. Windows Media DRM is clearly audio/video-focused, while PlayReady offers many more features including non-audio/video content, domain support, support for non-Windows Media audio/video codecs, etc., at a different price point. And of course PlayReady also provides backwards compatibility with Windows Media DRM 10. We believe PlayReady hits the sweet spot for value and price.
Alkove: You can certainly look at PlayReady’s usage model as an evolution of Windows Media DRM. Consumers are sensitive to what they feel are unnecessary restrictions on their use of content. When you look at domain-based licensing, like PlayReady supports, it provides a more seamless model for users to move content around the ecosystem. PlayReady DRM enables native support for features that server providers try to emulate using Windows Media Rights Manager. We see mobile phones becoming a large part of the ecosystem of consumer entertainment devices, which is a space that PlayReady very efficiently addresses. PlayReady enables the adoption of flexible business models for delivering all kinds of digital goods to consumers, extending content access technology beyond Windows Media Audio and Video.

How does PlayReady fit into the overall future of Windows Media? Should we expect to see PlayReady-compatible DVD players, car stereos, and video game consoles?
Alkove: In order for consumers to fully realize the value of digital content they need access to a broader variety of content types and business models. Having a wide array of devices within an ecosystem, ready to support that content, is necessary to achieve that value. That is really our focus with PlayReady. Initially our focus is on mobile devices and content, but we will expand this over time. It is important that as we grow the constituency of devices that we are cognizant of the need to maintain a consistent user experience. We feel this is incredibly important. The consistent user experience must be maintained to be successful.
Berns: We think the applicability of PlayReady and of Microsoft’s DRM technology in general is definitely not just PC-based and not just focused on handsets. We are absolutely thinking about other places where this technology is applicable and we will continue to analyze these opportunities as we evolve.

What were some of the major hurdles you encountered as you went down the road to launching PlayReady?
Berns: Over the years we have received a lot of useful feedback on Windows Media DRM. This was the genesis of PlayReady. DRM is generally a complex area, given the ever-increasing expectations of consumers and the evolving needs of the industry. Our challenge with PlayReady was to build on our existing presence in the DRM space with a new technology that met these next-generation needs—both of the industry and of consumers.
Alkove: PlayReady is really about taking a look at what did and did not work with the existing technology, and what additional consumer scenarios the industry was looking to deliver. We originally shipped DRM technology in 1999 and have learned a lot about what has and has not worked over these past eight years. The PlayReady offering is the result of this introspection, dialogue with partners, and a lot of work to come up with the right feature set that provides a seamless experience for consumers while creating a great opportunity for our partners to build new and exciting services based on digital goods.

Now that PlayReady has been announced, should the market interpret PlayReady as a change in Bill Gates’ position on DRM?
Berns: We look at PlayReady as one element in improving the customer experience with digital content. There are a lot of other technologies that come into play in order to deliver truly compelling user experiences; we wanted to make sure that whatever the nature of those experiences, PlayReady can support the digital content types and business models in ways that make sense for consumers and content owners alike. Our efforts in this space continue to be very cooperative ones with studios, labels, content and service providers, device manufacturers, and others in the industry.