Coral Consortium Call to Action

Digital Rights Management (DRM) solutions and content protection technologies are key to the construction of legitimate media distribution systems. Without such technologies embedded into devices and networks, the convergence of IT, CE, and mobile technologies may significantly increase piracy and, perhaps more importantly, substantially impede the development of attractive new consumer-oriented services. DRM solutions and content protection technologies are now common distribution platform features; however, the lack of standards for interoperability between proprietary technologies is a serious impediment to the broad deployment of consumer-friendly legitimate media distribution.

Each of the participants in the content delivery chain has different requirements for DRM solutions.

• Typical consumers are not concerned with DRM and just want their content to play the same way on any device.
  
  
• Content owners and content delivery services want DRM options. They want to be able to choose, in a competitive marketplace, among multiple DRM technologies that offer first-class security, quality content rendering, and flexible business model implementations, customized for the type of content being offered or other relevant considerations.
  
  
• Device manufacturers are concerned with cost margins and usability and therefore want to limit the number of DRM formats their devices have to support. They, as well as other technology providers, also want to control as many aspects of their product designs as possible.
  
  
• Infrastructure service providers such as cable companies, ISPs, and portals seek to control their technology environments for similar reasons.
  

On the Internet, where many of these providers meet, the dilemma posed by these conflicting needs is causing deadlock. In the absence of a solution, the market is evolving towards piracy as the path of least resistance.

The creation of a single common end-to-end DRM system would seem to be an attractive solution. However, allowing one DRM format to become the sole choice in the market would likely forfeit the benefits of a competitive market, such as lower pricing and increased innovation. In addition, a single DRM solution is an unlikely outcome for several reasons:

• Different vertical markets (mobile, IT, CE, etc.) have different technology requirements.
  
  
• Different value chain participants (content, service, technology providers, and consumers) wish to optimize different aspects of a DRM system.
  
  
• Open standardization efforts are usually slow to mature.
  
  
• Competitive differences between proprietary technology providers impede adoption of a single DRM solution.
  

There is a simple approach to this problem: separate the standardization of DRM systems from the issue of interoperability. Let DRM components evolve for each specific platform, be they open, closed, proprietary, or otherwise, and create an Interoperability Layer through which such components can interact if their developers or adopters so choose. Packaging components, service components, and end-user device components can each be optimized for their function and for their stakeholders’ requirements. In order to be successful, this interoperability layer must:

• Accommodate solutions that are in current deployment in a way that does not preclude future technologies.
  
  
• Provide a bridge between deployed solutions that participants may not be ready or willing to use today but may choose to use in the future.
  
  
• Provide a framework that tackles DRM interoperability at all layers of the DRM "stack," from authentication and link level protocols to intelligent service-to-device and device-to-device interfaces.
  

This approach maximizes the likelihood of success by:

• Continuing to encourage choice and innovation in the marketplace.
  
  
• Reducing the burden on device manufacturers.
  
  
• Providing content owners and content delivery services with a common "dashboard" for content distribution.
  
  
• Offering consumers a uniform, user-friendly experience that will spur meaningful demand for digital media services.
  

The Coral Consortium initiative is poised to solve this problem in the most effective way. Coral Consortium brings together key players from all ends of the content distribution value chain, including content owners, content delivery service and technology providers, DRM developers, and device manufacturers to work on an open, lightweight, and easy-to-license "interoperability layer" framework with short, medium, and long-term deliverables. In order to provide the desired interoperability, the Coral Consortium specifications must:

1. Ensure that participating DRM solutions enforce content providers' rights securely through certain minimum requirements appropriate to the nature of the content. For example, for a film in current release, the Coral Consortium specifications must require a high threshold level of security across all compliant systems (i.e., the lowest common denominator must be set high) and any participating DRM must be renewable and resilient in the face of malicious attacks.
   
   
2. Be agnostic to any particular DRM implementation. They must offer packaging, service provisioning, and device interfaces that can be used to achieve interoperability on any compliant system.
   
   
3. Provide device makers with the ability to maximize control over their components. Device makers must be able to provide a clean user experience, while minimizing device complexity.
   

The Coral Consortium specifications will be as functionally rich as the technologies they interconnect, but no more complex than they absolutely need to be. These specifications will leverage commonly deployed security standards, and build on developments in networking standards and device-to-device communication.

Specifically, in order to achieve these goals, Coral Consortium will need to address four key areas:

1. Infrastructure Interoperability: As a primary activity, Coral Consortium will develop rigorous specifications for network interoperability between DRM systems. This will allow device-to-network and device-to-device interoperability in a DRM-agnostic fashion.
   
   
2. Usage Rules and Business Models: Coral Consortium will serve as a forum to discuss prevalent business models and usage rules for content distribution, with the goal of influencing requirements for interoperability and DRM systems and driving towards a common understanding of typical usage rules and distribution models.
   
   
3. Client Requirements: Coral Consortium will also derive a set of common requirements for DRM client systems in order to develop parameters on how client-side DRM connects to the infrastructure interoperability environment mentioned under 1 above.
   
   
4. Compliance: Coral Consortium will develop strict notions of compliance with its interoperability specifications, as well as requirements for renewable security and other ways to ensure that the Coral Consortium environment is robust and secure.
   

The ultimate product of this effort is a set of specifications that permit secure interoperability at all levels, whether between devices in a home network or between diverse content distribution services and devices from different vertical markets. Under these specifications, content owners and content service providers will be able to use common rights expression mechanisms to set policies in a way that can be interpreted as content travels through its lifecycle. Ultimately, these specifications should support a competitive, cost-effective ecosystem of content, services, and devices that leverage appropriate proprietary and open DRM technologies in a manner that is most effective for a given application, while providing the consumer with “universal” play functionality.

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Coral Consortium Corp.
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