Leading Entertainment, Consumer Electronics and Technology Companies and Organizations Support ISO Rights Expression Language Standard
Los Angeles, CA (ots)
Agnostic Media, Inc., Content Directions, Inc., ContentGuard, Inc., Content Reference Forum, DMDsecure, EDItEUR, GiantSteps Media Technology Strategies, IFPI, Lydia, Inc., the Motion Picture Association of America, Microsoft, Navio, Inc., NTT, OverDrive, Inc., Ramp^Rate, the Recording Industry Association of America, Rightscom, RightsLine, Inc., SAMSUNG Electronics Co., Ltd., SyncCast, TranTech, Inc., Universal Music Group, VeriSign, Inc. and Warner Bros. welcome the approval by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) of the MPEG REL, its first digital rights management (DRM) standard.
ISO MPEG REL is an XML-based Rights Expression Language used to specify terms and conditions for the authorized distribution and use of any digital content. This rich language will be used not only in the entertainment industry, but also by enterprises and individuals to enable the authorized distribution and persistent protection of valuable data and content in accordance with privacy and confidentiality requirements.
ISO MPEG REL is the first in a set of DRM industry standards to be established by ISO and is an important step forward in building worldwide, robust trust ecosystems for digital content. Other technologies being standardized include metadata, asset identification and aspects of security, protection and trust management.
"If DRM technologies are going to proliferate -- by helping ensure that creators are compensated and consumers can use that content in legitimate ways -- broadly accepted industry standards for interoperability are crucial," said Mike McGuire, research director with GartnerG2's Media team. "The ISO MPEG REL standard is an important milestone for the future of DRM and digital content delivery."
Brad Hunt, CTO for the Motion Picture Association of America remarked, "The motion picture industry is committed to and participates in the MPEG-21 standards activities that are focused on building cross-industry consensus around important international standards such as the REL and the Rights Data Dictionary (RDD), key components in facilitating DRM interoperability."
"IFPI supports the development of open, interoperable standards as a way to get more music to more consumers in more legal and flexible ways," said Paul Jessop, CTO of IFPI. "The MPEG REL can be a great tool to enable this and IFPI applauds all those who worked with us to bring this standard into being."
Since 1988 MPEG has produced several key standards including MPEG-2, which helped advance interoperability in the delivery and consumption of multimedia entertainment over the Internet and through electronic devices. Today, an overwhelming majority of all video content, whether for entertainment or the corporate enterprise, uses MPEG standards.
Started in 2001, the ISO MPEG REL standard is a critical component of the MPEG-21 Multimedia Framework, the next key set of standards which will enable participants in the digital content value-chain to give consumers greater flexibility and access to digital content. Work on the ISO MPEG REL continues in various industry venues to define specific business terms, using this REL to support new usage models in areas such as: Web services, education, mobile, security, publishing, media and entertainment.
"A clear and effective means of communicating the usage rights for digital content is the critical foundation for creating the broadest range of choice for consumers," said Chris Cookson, CTO, Warner Bros. "We welcome the approval of this standard."
"An ISO standard like the MPEG REL will enhance industry growth. Standards will help us get down to the serious business of selling the music people love with usage rules that are consistent, unambiguous and consumer friendly," said Larry Kenswil, president, Universal Music Group, eLabs. "UMG has been an active participant in the development of the MPEG REL. From the outset, we have been involved in the rigorous process used to build consensus that balances the needs of consumers and other stakeholders with rights holders' desire to offer unique digital business models."
The ISO MPEG REL standard:
-- Supports a wide variety of business models in the digital content distribution value-chain independent of content type or industry
-- Provides an extremely flexible authorization model to describe what the consumer or user is permitted to do with the content
-- Is independent of formats, products, security technology or other DRM system components
-- Enables automated multi-tier distribution of digital content while protecting the rights of the content owners and the interests of the users
-- Is a precise, unambiguous, machine-readable language that can be used in conjunction with other industry standards, including those addressing Web services
-- Is ready for immediate implementation to support digital content sales or the distribution of enterprise information.
"An international standard for rights expression means that business rules can be expressed flexibly and consistently," remarked Dr. Leonardo Chiariglione, digital media strategist and convenor of MPEG. "This is an important result towards the goal of giving end-users the ability to enjoy content on a plethora of devices, in new and flexible offerings, while respecting the economic structure of the content value chain. The MPEG REL standard is one of the first realizations of the twenty-first century vision of the multimedia framework which enables unfettered trade in digital content."
More information about MPEG and the MPEG REL can be found at www.chiariglione.org/mpeg/ and at http://www.iso.ch/. Additional quotes from the supporters named in this release can be found below the media contact information.
ISO MPEG-REL INDUSTRY SUPPORTERS
VeriSign, Inc.
http://www.verisign.com/
"For any technology to achieve its true potential, there must be a fundamental shift to open standards that unleashes its full potential. The completion of the ISO MPEG REL standard is a welcome development in the push to promote interoperability of authorizations across participants in the digital content industry," said Dr. Thomas Hardjono, principal scientist, VeriSign, Inc. "The ISO MPEG REL standard will enable ISVs to integrate finer levels of data management for uses such as intellectual property protection. The standardization of the MPEG REL by the ISO allows VeriSign as a service provider in the content management industry to build-out our rights-management infrastructure based on open standards."
TranTech, Inc.
http://www.tran-tech.com
"As a systems integrator to the US government, TranTech is firmly committed to using international standards," said Mark Wells, director of technology, TranTech. "The MPEG REL comes at an opportune time for us. Our customers have many situations where the distribution of rich media content needs to be carefully managed and protected. The MPEG REL gives us the ability to successfully address key DRM requirements defined by the Federal Government and we plan to use it as part of our service/product offerings."
SyncCast
http://www.synccast.com
"The availability of the ISO MPEG-REL standard is an important step towards fixing the lack of interoperability and content portability," said Lance Ware, CEO, SyncCast. "The bottom line is that this standard will provide much needed flexibility to both content owners and end-users alike. Content owners will be able to sell content with fine grained business models while end-users will be able to enjoy authorized content the way they want, regardless of what technology is used to protect it."
RightsLine, Inc.
http://www.rightsline.com
"RightsLine is excited about the ratification of the ISO MPEG-REL standard," said Ramond Haynes, executive vice president and CTO, RightsLine. "This standard enables a precise means of expressing, distributing and consuming authorizations. RightsLine will be incorporating the ISO/MPEG-REL standard into our next version of the Rights Intelligence System (RIS) application. This will allow us to express rights and licenses to other systems in the digital content supply chain, such as Digital Asset Management (DAM) and Digital Rights Management (DRM) providers, using a standard that has been accepted worldwide."
Rightscom
http://www.rightscom.com
"Rightscom, the London-based digital rights consultancy, participates in the development of international standards for the management and protection of rights for the benefit of both content owners and consumers," said Chris Barlas, Rightscom senior consultant. "The company welcomes the publication of this ISO standard for a flexible and comprehensive rights expression language which is supported by its own activity in the parallel MPEG specification for a rights data dictionary."
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)
http://www.riaa.org
"Exciting new business models for media distribution to consumers can be successful only if a common language is spoken among networks, systems and platforms," said Bruce Block, senior vice president for technology at the Recording Industry Association of America. "The REL recently adopted by MPEG is an example of a common language that along with other tools can help ensure that consumers are able to enjoy the media they acquire. This is an exciting development."
Ramp^Rate
http://www.ramprate.com
"Ramp^Rate strives to continually offer our customers the most efficient IT advisory services possible, to increase ROI, save time and overall costs when developing criteria, choosing and implementing IT infrastructural solutions," said Anthony Greenberg, CEO, Ramp^Rate. "In order to deliver, we must, as a company, continue to innovate and implement the most up-to-date technology and adhere to the most advanced standards and guidelines for handling sensitive data, by working with our partners to adopt the ISO MPEG-REL we are able to meet our clients' needs and ensure their information is completely secure."
OverDrive, Inc.
http://www.overdrive.com
"Adoption and use of digital media will be greatly accelerated by widespread support of the MPEG REL. MPEG REL is a powerful tool to develop profitable business models for trusted licensing of copyrighted material. ISO approval of this standard will result in expanded opportunities for OverDrive to distribute digital materials to consumers through retail, institutional and educational channels," stated Steve Potash, president and CEO of OverDrive, Inc.
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation ("NTT")http://www.ntt.co.jp
"NTT has a long history of supporting international standards and is an active participant in many such efforts. We congratulate the work of ISO and MPEG, and we welcome the publication of this important DRM standard," said Noboru Sonehara, content commerce project manager, NTT Cyber Solutions Laboratories.
Navio, Inc.
http://www.navio.com
"The ISO MPEG REL standard provides an interoperable and precise means of expressing the rights that are distributed and consumed throughout the digital content supply chain, and maps well to the 'digital title' technology we've developed over the past several years," states Stefan Roever, president and CEO, Navio, Inc. "Navio is an enterprise-grade, end-to-end ASP solution delivering commerce in digital goods and services on any network-connected device, including PC's, mobile devices and the retail POS. We're integrating the ISO MPEG REL standard into the Navio Digital Card, Merchant and Store applications and Digital Commerce Engine (DCE), giving providers the ability to express open standard authorizations with the confidence that they will be consumed in a consistent manner."
Microsoft (MSFT)
http://www.microsoft.com
"Microsoft evaluated several rights expression languages and found the ISO MPEG REL uniquely capable as a rights expression language for both digital works and distributed Web services," said John Manferdelli, Microsoft's General Manager, Windows Security. "The extensibility and rich semantics of the language make it well suited to heterogeneous large-scale projects with demanding scalability requirements, while its layered design supports portable devices efficiently. This standard is an essential step towards interoperability across a wide range of industries.
Lydia, Inc.
http://www.lydialearn.com
"The adoption of the MPEG REL as an ISO Standard is a critical advance toward a secure global marketplace for digital learning resources," stated Thomas Probert, PhD, president, Lydia, Inc. "The use of MPEG REL engenders a trust fundamental to creative collaboration and the impact on e-learning will be profound."
GiantSteps Media Technology Strategies
http://www.drmwatch.com
"Lack of interoperability among rights management systems is one of the biggest factors slowing down the development of digital media business models that are innovative, meet consumers' expectations for usage rights and ease of use, and respect copyright," said Bill Rosenblatt, president, GiantSteps Media Technology Strategies and managing editor of Jupitermedia's DRM Watch. "Standards like the ISO MPEG REL will make it easier for everyone in the digital media value chain to provide these exciting new services for consumers at minimum cost and assurance against obsolescence."
EDItEUR
http://www.editeur.org
Brian Green, General Manager of EDItEUR, the e-commerce body for books and serials, welcomed publication of the REL saying, "The books and serials sectors regard the MPEG Rights Expression Language (REL) and Rights Data Dictionary (RDD) as essential tools for managing rights in the digital publishing environment."
DMDsecure
http://www.dmdsecure.com
"Using international standards which level the playing field, technology vendors can compete on the merits, service providers can gain flexibility for their offerings and consumers have additional choice," said Rist Brouwer, CEO, DMDsecure. "The ISO standard MPEG REL is a welcome sign that the market for legitimate digital content is maturing. Digital content distribution can take place without restrictions on the type of delivery method, whether over broadband, IP or wireless, and this is borne out by DMDsecure's product offerings. DMDsecure will continue to be a supporter and work towards implementing DRM standards which enable interoperability."
Content Reference Forum
http://www.crforum.org
"We believe that the proliferation of open standards helps facilitate interoperability and stimulates a more robust marketplace," said Albhy Galuten, chairman of the Content Reference Forum. "The vision of the CRF is for consumers to enjoy and redistribute content with commercial terms beneficial to all members of the value chain and the MPEG REL is an important component to help that vision become a reality. The CRF already uses the MPEG REL and a number of other standards in our specifications. The Content Reference Forum welcomes the official announcement of the ISO MPEG REL standard."
ContentGuard, Inc.
http://www.contentguard.com
"Broad agreement on deployable standards is important for the growth of the digital content market," said Michael Miron, co-chairman and CEO of ContentGuard. "To this end, the industry has experienced some important milestones over recent weeks -- the creation of an ISO industry standard rights expression language, the ISO MPEG REL, and the endorsement of that standard by key industry participants from a broad range of sectors. We now need to work together to take the next step, incorporating the MPEG REL into digital content distribution systems to help make both content owners and end users comfortable with legitimate digital content distribution as the norm."
Content Directions, Inc.
http://www.contentdirections.com
"Content Directions is excited to be helping bring together two crucial standards for online content, MPEG-21 and the Digital Object Identifier (DOI). These standards are essential to bridging the gap between a user-friendly, convenient customer experience and the legitimate needs of rightsholders," remarked David Sidman, president, Content Directions, Inc. "Through its dedication to building practical, real-world applications based on these standards, first in the publishing industry and more recently in the music industry, Content Directions hopes to accelerate the uptake of these standards among all stakeholders -- consumers, rights holders, technology vendors, and other value-chain participants such as aggregators, distributors and retailers."
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