Powerhouses such as Intel and IBM are taking early steps toward building antipiracy protections for music, videos and software directly into storage drives, memory cards, chips and other hardware parts.
These technologies, some of which are nearing the marketplace, could block a song or any other digital material from being copied or saved--potentially welcome news to record labels and movie studios.
Microsoft and others are pursuing the same idea with software, but critics say even the best of these models is likely to be broken or stripped out by dedicated hackers. Hardware-based protections could prove a much stronger layer of protection.
The battleground over hardware controls crosses territory ranging from the obscure inner workings of computer storage devices to intellectual property disputes that some say may soon reach the Supreme Court as a part of the Napster controversy or other pending copyright cases. For all involved, these massive issues boil down to a simple question: How much can technology and entertainment companies control what consumers do with their products after buying them?
"If they succeed in this, all of a sudden these industries have complete control over how the public does such things as backing up their music libraries," said John Martilla, director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation's (EFF) Campaign for Audiovisual Free Expression, which is spearheading opposition to several "digital rights management" technologies. Even legal activities such as sampling digital works for educational or critical purposes could be blocked under proposed models, Martilla said.
On the other side are copyright holders, who argue that the proliferation of peer-to-peer networks threatens to undermine entire industries ranging from entertainment to software. Even after recent legal precedents that imposed limits on Napster, underground traders have vowed to circumvent any restrictions.
The motives of the hardware manufacturers are not solely altruistic. Computer and electronics companies badly want the market for digital media players to expand--and that means convincing the content companies that the world is safe for digital music and video.
