Well the EU seems to me to be making a good move on this one. I suppose this is something that will
have to come from a governmental direction, since the players in the DRM/Format game simply won't play nicely with others on their own. In their defense, there's not been a lot of incentive to do so.
The comments on multi-territory licensing are interesting, but what the article says about
DRM particularly caught my attention:
Quote:
DRM, where it is used, also needs to remain transparent to consumers, a goal which includes interoperability. The Commission notes that "lengthy discussions amongst stakeholders have yet to lead to the deployment of interoperable and user-friendly DRM solutions." This is an early candidate for understatement of the year, and European countries have long shown themselves more interested, at a national level, in the issue of DRM and its problems than the US government ever has. Still, it's hard to see much coming from this; the private sector has had incentives to get this done for years and has so far failed.
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The language of the announcement talks repeatedly about "encouragement" and "recommendations," but the Commission seems to be making an implicit promise to regulate in these areas if more is not done over the next few years by the private sector.
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