Coral Functionality and Operations
Does Coral require the use of a single business model?
Does Coral provide support for legacy devices, DRM, and content?
Who will run the various required services that make up instances of the Coral interoperability framework? Can such services be offered by multiple companies?
Does the Coral interoperability framework require a central key management organization? Who will create and manage Coral credentials and keys?
How does the compliance function work?
Is there going to be "Coral-content" or a Coral consumer brand?
Who will release Content that will be Coral-interoperable?
How will Coral deal with "non-Coral content"?
What are Coral's Consumer benefits?
What are the benefits for Service Providers?
What are the benefits for Device Manufacturers?
Does Coral require the use of a single business model?
No. Coral enables the development of multiple ecosystems with different features. Each ecosystem founder picks the content usage rules that meet the needs of its business model and uses the Coral specifications to build an interoperable ecosystem of devices and services around the usage model it has selected. Coral enables lots of business models and does not mandate uniformity.
Does Coral provide support for legacy devices, DRM, and content?
Coral specifications were designed to support legacy DRMs, devices and content. Coral specifications are used to build an interoperable ecosystem of devices and services around the selected common content usage models. To the extent that legacy devices, DRMs, and content can be made to fit with specific ecosystem requirements, such legacy technology and content will be supported.
Who will run the various required services that make up instances of the Coral interoperability framework? Can such services be offered by multiple companies?
The framework has been designed to be deployable in a wide variety of ways, the most efficient of which will come about through actual practice. The services needed to enable the Coral ecosystem are rather lightweight. We anticipate that such services will be offered under a variety of business models by Coral Members and by non-Members - there is no requirement to be a Member of Coral to implement the specifications. We are already seeing support to provide such essential services from the Coral membership, which includes several parties that would be in an ideal position to provide such services.
Does the Coral interoperability framework require a central key management organization? Who will create and manage Coral credentials and keys?
Coral may at some time deploy a centralized Coral Trust Management framework. Initially however, it is expected that Coral Ecosystems will be responsible for establishing and managing their own trust management framework that provides for intra-ecosystem key and certificate management. The details around inter-ecosystem trust management are still being considered and are expected to evolve as Coral Ecosystems are deployed.
How does the compliance function work?
Coral has created a set of compliance and robustness rules that may optionally be included by Ecosystems in their own Ecosystem Adopter Agreements. Ecosystems will then be responsible for establishing Ecosystem-appropriate compliance and certification procedures for their adopters
Is there going to be "Coral-content" or a Coral consumer brand?
There will be content that is published for Coral-aware services and devices associated with specific Coral Ecosystems. It will probably not be labeled as 'Coral content'. The framework has been designed to support multiple "Ecosystems" each of which can be associated with a specific vertical usage model and built on top of the Coral core interoperability framework. Such Ecosystems can be designed to provide consumers with a predictable and intuitive experience when they acquire Ecosystem content for Ecosystem-compliant devices. It is conceivable that ecosystems will be consumer-branded in some way.
Who will release content that will be Coral-interoperable?
The Coral Consortium counts many major content providers among its members. They will make their own announcements; the Coral Consortium is not in a position to speak for them.
How will Coral deal with "non-Coral content"?
Coral's focus is on DRM interoperability, but the technology developed by Coral can also mitigate other types of incompatibilities. Inasmuch as the Coral interoperability framework and content ecosystem define how content can be acquired and consumed, they also provide the means by which device-specific content can be acquired in situations where the capability of specific consumer devices does not match the DRM or codec requirements of purchased Coral content. In that regard, the Coral effort helps solve not only DRM interoperability problems, but also media codec interoperability problems.
What are Coral's Consumer benefits?
Coral's basic consumer benefits are choice and freedom. The freedom to choose any service from which to obtain commercial content and the freedom to choose the specific consumer devices on which they would like to enjoy that content. Today, the consumer decision about content service defines the options for which devices can be purchased on which to enjoy that content, and vice versa. This is clearly something that would best change, and Coral is here to enable that change and improve the situation. Coral is committed to releasing the consumer from having to make technology decisions when acquiring content.
What are the benefits for Service Providers?
Service Providers gain an independence from any particular DRM technology, and they are able to offer their customers a content experience on the devices of their own choice. Also, Coral allows service providers to offer valuable services such as online lockers for remote content access on the road, and disaster recovery.
What are the benefits for Device Manufacturers?
Coral allows DRM competition to flourish. Device Manufacturers are free to choose any DRM that meets their requirements, and are no longer bound to any particular DRM system.
For more on benefits to all involved in the distribution value chain, see the Coral Whitepaper on Coral's website at www.coral-interop.org.
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