Coral Consortium Announces New Members and Availability of Version 1.0 Specification

Major Content and Technology Providers Join Consumer Media Industry Interoperability Initiative

Sunnyvale, Calif., February 22, 2005 – The Coral Consortium (www.coral-interop.org), an industry-wide technology initiative whose goal is to deliver an open standard for interoperability between digital rights management (DRM) technologies for consumer devices and services, today announced that 11 new members from across the consumer electronics and media industries have joined its ranks over the last quarter. The group, which was founded in October of last year, also announced that the Consortium's 1.0 Interoperability Specification would be available in March 2005. This open technology framework will form the basis for a simple and consistent digital entertainment experience for consumers.

The new members include the following major entertainment companies: NBC Universal, Sony BMG, Universal Music Group, and IFPI, the organization representing the recording industry worldwide. In addition, the following have also joined the membership: DMDsecure, NDS Americas, Inc., Pioneer Corporation, Seagate Technology, and STMicroelectronics. These Companies join HP, Intertrust Technologies Corporation, Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V., Panasonic (Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.), Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Sony Corporation, and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp to form a critical mass of content companies and device makers intent on providing consumers with the ability to play content packaged in multiple compliant DRM systems on a single compliant service or device. In this vein, the group will also offer a robust set of policies to enforce compliance with the technology specification.

The March 2005 release date for the version 1.0 specification will enable device makers and service providers to start working with the specification quickly. The specification will enable devices and services to locate and play protected content without requiring consumers to grapple with their devices' DRM or media format technical details.

The Coral Consortium is offering interoperability across proprietary DRM systems as an alternative to the current landscape of non-interoperable closed domains protected by proprietary DRM systems and open peer-to-peer distribution systems that harbor pirated content. Consumers, device manufacturers, content service providers, DRM systems, the entertainment community [and others] stand to gain substantially from this new approach to digital content delivery and consumption.

About The Coral Consortium
Founded on October 4, 2004 as a cross-industry group to promote interoperability between DRM technologies used in the consumer media market, Coral Consortium's founding members are HP (NYSE:HPQ), Intertrust Technologies Corporation, Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (NYSE:PHG), Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. "Panasonic" (NYSE:MC), Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Sony Corporation (NYSE:SNE), and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation (NYSE:NWS).

The Coral Consortium seeks to ensure interoperability so that today's digital music and video can be easily accessed and enjoyed, regardless of the service provider or the device. While recent innovations in digital media distribution provide consumers with new channels to acquire music and video, proprietary differences still exist in underlying DRM or content protection technology. At times, these technologies conflict and prevent consumers from playing content packaged and distributed using one DRM technology on a device that supports a different DRM technology. The Consortium's focus is a new technology layer that will allow existing DRM solutions to co-exist, thereby promoting content and devices that play well together.

For More Information Contact:
Leigh Anne Varney
Varney Business Communication
415.387.7250
la@varneybusiness.com

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Coral Consortium Corp.
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