Alleged overcharging for anti-piracy software has alarmed some electronics goods makers who say it blocks the growth of open standards.
The Open Mobile Alliance wants to charge a $1 fee for anti-piracy technology, but a number of mobile phone, handheld device, and other manufacturers say it’s too high to pay for protecting music and video against piracy, and they won’t be able to recover the money by way of digital entertainment revenues, according to published reports.
The OMA says the technology itself is accepted but the problem lies in the price charged by companies who own the patents for the anti-piracy programs. And those who criticize the $1 fee are said to be edgy about criticizing it too sharply because they need the OMA anti-piracy technology—the first open standard any electronics manufacturer can use.
"The terms (for OMA DRM 1.0) have kicked up a lot of dust,” OMA Digital Rights Management working group leader Jan van der Meer told reporters. “People are debating if these are reasonable terms.
"DRM is a hot item,” van der Meer continued. “There are many opportunities for an open (anti-piracy) system. There's a real need for it, but the terms need to be reasonable."
Some reports indicated electronics makers look to MPEG LA as a haven for lower terms, which MPEG LA has called just proposals for now. MPEG LA has pooled a number of critical anti-piracy patents—owned by InterTrust, ContentGuard, Sony, Matsushita, and Philips Electronics—into a potential open standard anti-piracy package of its own.
