"Market and technical uncertainties surrounding the management of digital rights are inhibiting content owners from making rich content available to broadband networks," said the report, Australia's Broadband Connectivity. "This uncertainty is constraining the take-up of broadband and therefore, the revenue growth that drives investment in broadband infrastructure."
Peter Coroneos, chief executive of the Internet Industry Association (IIA), disagrees with this viewpoint. "We agree that more work needs to be done on digital rights management," he said, "but there appears to be no lack of compelling content on the Internet and it seems to be driving uptake." This is a view shared by the Recording Industry Association of America, who claim a lot of the demand for broadband is due to illegal file-sharing, and wants the ISP to pay for giving their customers access to file-sharing sites.
"The lack of digital rights management has benefited consumers, particularly those on peer-to-peer networks," said Coroneos. "The lack of universal DRM technologies has been an impetus to the uptake of broadband. We may not agree with it but we have to face facts." He said the report might be saying there would be more Australian content on the Internet if there was a way to protect and earn an income from it.
Sandra Davies, president of the Australian Interactive Multimedia Industry Association (AIMIA), agrees that content owners are discouraged from providing rich content to broadband networks due to uncertainty over the management of digital rights. "DRM constitutes an enormous problem to anyone who wants to make money out of content," she said.
"For instance, someone might design images for kids books and might want to sell them online, but doesn't know how," said Davies. "They want to make a living from their intellectual property, and they want to be able to trade it." People who wish to use content face just as great a challenge, she added.
"There are significant problems, especially when you want to build on something that already exists," she said.
Despite the importance placed on DRM by the report, it fails to provide a new direction for government to follow. "What's the next step now that we've identified DRM is important?" asked Davies.
The report recommends the early adoption of global interoperable rights management standards by Australian content production and distribution industries, and Davies points out that there are several standards currently battling for supremacy. One of the standards, Open Digital Rights Language (ODRL), is being developed by a young Australian company, IPR Systems, in conjunction with Nokia and other companies and organisations.
"ODRL is gaining ground in the digital rights management world," said Davies.
AIMIA is also involved in the other current initiative mentioned in the report, a DRM Guide to teach people how to handle digital rights management. The guide has been submitted to the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, and is expected to be on the Web sometime in the next month.
What a load of **** The reason for poor uptake is because it cost an arm and a leg for a residential broadband connection, if your in an area that can actually get broadband..