[Infowarrior] - Vista and More: Piecing Together Microsoft's DRM Puzzle

[Richard Forno]

Vista and More: Piecing Together Microsoft's DRM Puzzle
Matt McKenzie
 http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&article
Id=9005047&intsrc=hm_ts_head

November 15, 2006 (Computerworld) If you ask five veteran Windows users to
explain Vista's take on digital rights management (DRM), you're likely to
get five different answers that have just one thing in common: Whatever it
is, they know they don't like it.

In a nutshell, this is the dilemma Microsoft faces as it prepares to launch
Windows Vista. By any standard, Vista's new DRM capabilities -- aimed at
protecting the rights of content owners by placing limits on how consumers
can use digital media -- hardly qualify as a selling point; after all, it's
hard to sing the praises of technology designed to make life harder for its
users.

Microsoft itself defines DRM in straightforward terms, as "any technology
used to protect the interests of owners of content and services." In theory,
it's an easy concept to grasp; in practice, however, modern DRM technologies
include a multitude of hardware-, software- and media-based
content-protection schemes, many of which have little or nothing in common.

DRM at the hardware level

Vista's DRM technologies fall into several distinct categories, all of which
are either completely new to the operating system or represent a significant
change from the technology found in previous versions of Windows. The
Intel-developed Trusted Platform Module (TPM) makes DRM harder to circumvent
by extending it beyond the operating system and into the PC's hardware
components.

TPM is used with Vista's BitLocker full-drive encryption technology to
protect a PC's data against security breaches. A TPM microchip embedded on
the PC's motherboard stores unique system identifiers along with the
BitLocker decryption keys. If a system is tampered with -- for example, if
the hard drive is removed and placed in a different machine -- TPM detects
the tampering and prevents the drive from being unencrypted.

A set of related technologies grouped under the name Output Protection
Management (OPM) also takes DRM to the hardware level. Perhaps the most
prominent (or notorious) OPM technology, known as Protected Video Path
(PVP), provides a good example of how hardware-based DRM works and what it
can do. PVP content-protection technology is supported both in Windows Vista
and within a small but growing number of high-end graphics adapters,
high-definition displays and even digital display connector cables. It is
intended, first and foremost, to protect the high-quality digital content
that is slowly becoming available on the next-generation Blu-ray and HD-DVD
optical media technology.

Most commercial DVDs, of course, already include copy-protection technology.
This protection, however, works only in conjunction with the DVD player
itself. It cannot stop attempts to intercept and copy the protected content
further downstream, as it moves first to the graphics card and finally to a
user's display -- a problem sometimes referred to as the "analog gap."

PVP eliminates these security gaps, enabling a series of DRM measures that
keep a high-resolution content stream encrypted, and in theory completely
protected, from its source media all the way to the display used to watch
it. If the system detects a high-resolution output path on a user's PC
(i.e., a system capable of moving high-res content all the way to a user's
display), it will check to make sure that every component that touches a
protected content stream adheres to the specification. If it finds a
noncompliant device, it can downgrade the content stream to deliver a
lower-quality picture -- or it can even refuse to play the content at all,
depending on the rights holder's preferences.

What does all this mean to a typical Windows Vista user who just wants to
sit back, relax and watch a movie on his brand-new, state-of-the-art
multimedia dream machine? That depends, of course, to a great extent on what
he wants to watch; the latest Hollywood blockbuster is far more likely to
require a PVP-compliant system than less mainstream fare. But sooner or
later, most Vista users will probably encounter PVP-protected content -- and
more often than not, they will walk away from the encounter at least a
little frustrated, disappointed or even angry.

Matt Rosoff, lead analyst at research firm Directions On Microsoft, asserts
that this process does not bode well for new content formats such as Blu-ray
and HD-DVD, neither of which are likely to survive their association with
DRM technology. "I could not be more skeptical about the viability of the
DRM included with Vista, from either a technical or a business standpoint,"
Rosoff stated. "It's so consumer-unfriendly that I think it's bound to fail
-- and when it fails, it will sink whatever new formats content owners are
trying to impose."

The Hollywood factor

As Rosoff's statement implies, many of Vista's DRM technologies exist not
because Microsoft wanted them there; rather, they were developed at the
behest of movie studios, record labels and other high-powered intellectual
property owners.

"Microsoft was dealing here with a group of companies that simply don't
trust the hardware [industry]," Rosoff said. "They wanted more control and
more security than they had in the past" -- and if Microsoft failed to
accommodate them, "they were prepared to walk away from Vista" by
withholding support for next-generation DVD formats and other high-value
content.

Microsoft's official position is that Vista's DRM capabilities serve users
by providing access to high-quality content that rights holders would
otherwise serve only at degraded quality levels, if they chose to serve them
at all. "In order to achieve that content flow, appropriate
content-protection measures must be in place that create incentives for
content owners while providing consumers the experiences they want and have
grown to expect," said Jonathan Usher, a director in the Consumer Media
Technology Group within Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division. "We
expect that the improvements in Windows Vista will attract new content to
the PC, which is exactly what consumers want."

Yet Usher also pointed out that while Microsoft may provide the DRM
technology, it is entirely up to content providers to decide whether their
business models should make use of it. "As a platform provider, we provide
the technology that allows our partners to test and implement new business
models and scenarios," Usher stated. "It remains up to the market to
determine the equilibrium that drives any free-enterprise system.

"Consumers are the final arbiters because they can vote with their wallets,"
Usher added. "This is as it should be in any well-functioning market, and we
believe the improvements in Windows Vista play to this strength."

Hollywood isn't the only group that benefits from Vista's assortment of
content-protection technologies. While Microsoft can truthfully claim that
it wanted no part of the DRM schemes added to Vista for Hollywood's benefit,
the company clearly stands to benefit, both now and in the future, from its
control over other pieces of the Vista DRM puzzle.

WGA: The next generation

One of these, dubbed the Software Protection Platform (SPP), deals mostly
with the integrity of Windows itself. The next generation of Microsoft's
Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) program, SPP requires that users validate
their version of Vista with a software license key within 30 days of its
activation. Users who don't validate the operating system will be prevented
from using certain features, including the new Aero graphical user
interface, the ReadyBoost system performance application and, most
controversially, the Windows Defender antispyware program.

After 30 days, Vista goes into a reduced functionality mode, similar to
Windows Safe Mode -- users have access to a Web browser (so they can
validate or purchase a copy of Vista), but none of their computers' other
functions. (For details, see "The Skinny on Windows DRM and Reduced
Functionality in Vista".)

Windows Media

Then there's the DRM built into the latest version of Microsoft's Windows
Media platform, which was also significantly updated for Vista -- although
for the time being, it remains interoperable with earlier versions of the
Windows Media platform and associated DRM technologies, known as WMDRM. The
key here, according to Bill Rosenblatt, founder of GiantSteps Media
Technology Strategies and managing editor of Jupiter Media's "DRM Watch"
newsletter, is the widespread use of WMDRM as a de facto digital music DRM
standard.

Rosenblatt noted that besides serving as the underlying content-protection
technology for almost every digital music service except for Apple's iTunes
Music Store, WMDRM offers a fair amount of interoperability between digital
music and portable music players labeled with the Microsoft-sponsored
"PlaysForSure" moniker.

"Microsoft has developed an ecosystem of device makers around WMDRM 10," the
version introduced with Windows XP, he said. "As a result, the Windows
platform has developed a certain amount of interoperability" between music
services such as Napster and MusicMatch on the one hand, and hardware
manufacturers on the other.

Yet, according to Rosenblatt, there is trouble in paradise -- at least
Microsoft's "PlaysForSure" partners are likely to see it that way.

Enter Zune

Microsoft, Rosenblatt noted, faced an intractable problem: Its current
efforts, including the PlaysForSure program, were getting the company
nowhere against Apple Computer's iPod, with a market share greater than 70%
and unassailable brand recognition. Now, he said, armed with its own Zune
portable music player and associated retail operation, a significant move
away from the current, interoperable WMDRM model seems to be in the cards.

"Music bought for Zune may not be playable on other PlaysForSure devices;
Zune will decrease interop, not increase it," said Rosenblatt. "Customers
who bought tracks from Napster et al. can play them on Zune, but not vice
versa.

"Why do this?" Rosenblatt asked. "The device ecosystem strategy is too
fragmented, too complex to use and too hard to market to consumers; it
simply is not an effective strategy to compete against Apple." In addition,
he noted, while Microsoft's WMDRM is "much more flexible and powerful than
Apple's own FairPlay DRM platform, it is also more complex -- and the
existing [PlaysForSure] arrangement did not help matters."

Microsoft's Jonathan Usher acknowledged that interoperability differences
between Zune and the existing PlaysForSure specification were necessary in
order for Microsoft to deliver the type of user experience and feature set
it envisioned for Zune. "The Zune team¹s focus is on building a rich
community and service around the brand that provides consumers with a
unique, integrated end-to-end experience," Usher said. "PlaysForSure, on the
other hand, is designed for partners who choose to rely on broad
compatibility -- for example, a device manufacturer who wants to connect to
multiple services or a service provider who wants to connect to multiple
devices."

Rosenblatt and Rosoff both noted that Zune is more than just a vanity
project for Microsoft, or even an attempt to open a second front in the
company's renewed rivalry with Apple. In fact, both analysts suggested that
Zune, like the company's Xbox gaming console, is Microsoft's hedge against
the increasingly distinct possibility that the PC won't evolve into the
all-purpose digital media center the company once hoped it could become.

"Customers naturally want to know, 'What is going to happen when I try to
play a Blu-ray DVD, or an HD-DVD, or some other type of protected content on
Vista?' " Rosoff said. "And what's Microsoft's answer? 'That depends.' It's
not exactly an encouraging answer."

The business of DRM

Finally, Bill Rosenblatt pointed out that Microsoft might yet turn DRM
technology into a profitable, sustainable business -- not in the consumer
market, but rather within the enterprise market, where content-protection
technologies are winning over a growing number of supporters who see it as
an important weapon against data loss, regulatory compliance lapses and
other potentially costly business process failures.

"Microsoft actually enjoyed quite a bit of success when it released Windows
Rights Management Services back in 2003," Rosenblatt said. "If Microsoft can
put some marketing effort behind this product once it gets through its
Vista-launch fire drill, I don't think it will be disappointed."