Articles and whitepapers

Industry opinion: What should installers advise their clients about the issues surrounding DRM? (2/4/2007)

By Yasmin Hashmi, HiddenWires

Give the client the ability to access their CD collection from any room, and they will soon want to access their music downloads too. And then they will want multiroom DVD, and they will want to browse their entire audio and video collection from anywhere in the house, and perhaps their holiday snaps, and so on.

We can all see where it is going, and there are some commendable solutions on the market for multiroom distribution. Whatever the technique used however, be it networking different sources or centrally storing all media on one server, if the user wants to browse and immediately access their collection and avoid having to use mechanical jukeboxes, their CD and DVD discs will have to be copied onto hard disk.

All fairly logical and obvious technically, but once something is digital and on a network, what guarantees are there that it will stay where it should and not be distributed to others for free? This applies to all media copied to hard disk, be it from disc or download. Hence the video and music industries' insistence on digital rights management (see the article on DRM by Matthew Simmons).

While the need for copy protection is understandable, trouble arises when the legalities surrounding it get in the way of progress, and frustrate attempts at legitimate usage. No custom installer wants to encourage their client to break the law simply by copying the DVD they purchased onto a video server, or to have to explain to the customer after the multiroom audio system has been installed, why they can't fully integrate the music they have bought online.

At the time of writing this article, Apple had just announced that EMI Music's entire digital catalogue of music will be available for purchase DRM-free from the iTunes Store worldwide in May, and Apple expects to offer more than half of the songs on iTunes in DRM-free versions by the end of this year.

While that may go half way to solving the problems associated with integrating iPods with multiroom audio systems, concerns regarding distributing DRM material around the home still remain. So we asked a number of leading lights in the multiroom market, the question, 'With more audio and video multiroom systems incorporating copy-protected media, what should the installer advise their clients about the issues surrounding DRM?' Here are their replies:

Dr. Stephen Watson, Chief Technology Officer, Kaleidescape Inc

"Most commercial DVDs are protected by the DRM technology known as the Content Scramble System (CSS). The U.S. Copyright Act and the European Copyright Directive prohibit the circumvention of effective DRM technologies and so installers should not download, or advise their clients to download, illegal 'DVD decryption utilities'. Legitimate entertainment servers that provide a great experience by playing back DVDs from hard disk must obtain a license from the DVD Copy Control Association (the DVD CCA). Kaleidescape has such a license, and on March 29, 2007, after a seven-day trial, the Santa Clara Superior Court ruled that Kaleidescape is in full compliance with that license. Installers should continue to advise their clients to consider only entertainment servers that are properly licensed."

Rick Kukulies, Chief Technology Officer, NuVo

"In the future all there will be is downloaded and subscribed music. As David Byrne, famed vocalist of Talking Heads, said at a recent conference (paraphrased), "2012 will be the tipping point for digital album sales. Much like the mid-to-late 1980s, when CDs overtook cassette sales, the transition to digital music will occur in much the same way."

There are certain advantages that this new frontier brings. Downloads and subscriptions let you purchase exactly what you want at surprisingly reasonable prices. Of course, many out there don't pay even the reasonable prices, in favour of pirating what they want. While there has been little retribution in the form of prosecution or fines to date for such activities, at NuVo we've adopted the philosophy that, as the inevitable movement to all digital downloads marches forward, monitoring and policing practices will HAVE to increase as well.

NuVo has already leap-frogged into the ring with our recently-released music server product. This uses Microsoft Windows Media Player (which is free to all, as well as a highly-adopted interface for downloads) to download songs and distribute them throughout the home, making it 'button-push' easy, all the while upholding DRM requirements. It has always been at the centre of the development of our music server to make it a carefree solution to the homeowner, while preparing them for the future of music in the home."

John MacFarlane, CEO Sonos, Inc.

"Music from CDs is the most flexible source because it can be copied to a hard drive at any resolution and played by any digital player on the market. If a client is going to buy music from download stores then it is critical to know what stores they intend to frequent. The stores which support Windows Media DRM sell songs that can be played by a variety of digital systems including Sonos. The Apple iTunes store is unique in that those songs can only be played on an Apple product. Unfortunately Apple does not license use of their songs by any company other than Apple. They also do not sell products appropriate for the custom market. In summary, the CD is still the best value in terms of sound quality and price. From the perspective of the convenience of downloading and flexibility in the choice of players, Windows Media DRM is the way to go."

Simon Hewitt, Director of Marketing, Audio Partnership PLC

"Multiroom entertainment customers by virtue demand complete simplicity and hassle-free access to their centralised music. The introduction of DRM has caused many people huge problems and encrypted files don't actually work with many of today's music servers. We would therefore advise installers and end-users to avoid using DRM encrypted media in a multiroom environment.

As multiroom and traditional hi-fi manufacturers, Opus Technologies and Cambridge Audio, we see the problems of DRM from many angles. From our point of view DRM was an overly officious reaction from music companies and causes more piracy not less. This is mainly in the form of ripping content from CDs illegally and a growth in off-shore illegal download websites."

John Turner, Head of Multimedia Networking, COMPUTERLINKS

"COMPUTERLINKS' official advice to installers is that copyright law could well be broken if copying a DVD movie onto a movie server. Although where an original DVD is owned and kept on site with the server there is a strong industry-wide view that any chance or prosecution is remote. After all, the people at FAST and other organisations are busy enough keeping illegal copy DVDs off the streets. COMPUTERLINKS recommends to our CMC Media Server installers that the actual process of ripping content to the server is conducted by the end customer."

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