The Tomigaia Blog

Where is DRM going?

After seeing the new Apple Music Store on the web today, I wanted to find out what other recent activity had been going on. I found an article on
Linux and DRM, and it seems that Linux embedded systems that implement DRM are getting Linus' tacit approval.

I worry that this trend will push the content industry to put too much trust in DRM solutions, when in the long run, they will fail at a crucial moment. There have ready been a few famous failures (Adobe Ebook, DVD CSS, etc).

I personally favor forensic watermarking as a better solution to the problem. There was a recent white paper about how this might work written by Paul Kocher of Cryptography Research. I have also been looking at the watermarking software of Blue Spike for a while, and I still think that their technology is very good for protecting the rights of artists.

I just hope that the music industry is lumbering in the wrong direction, causing more harm to the public's perception of them as greedy old folk.