DRM Interoperability Consortium Invites Steve Jobs to Join

DRM Interoperability Consortium Invites Steve Jobs to Join

Coral Consortium Points Out DRM Interoperability Alternative

FREMONT, Calif., Feb. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- The Coral Consortium today announced that it had posted a letter to Steve Jobs on its website, http://www.coral-interop.org/, in response to his letter, "Thoughts On Music", dated February 6, 2007 that asked the music industry to consider abandoning the use of DRM technology. The letter points out to Mr. Jobs that there is an additional alternative to the three described in his letter, namely DRM interoperability. The Coral letter suggests to Mr. Jobs that the best way to achieve a truly consumer-friendly interoperable digital distribution marketplace that balances consumer needs with those of the content industry and in which DRM itself it virtually invisible to the consumer, is for Apple, Inc. and other key players to join with the existing members of the Coral Consortium in their efforts to deploy the DRM interoperability solution developed by the Coral participants.

About The Coral Consortium

Founded on October 4, 2004 as a cross-industry group to promote interoperability between DRM technologies used in the consumer media market, Coral Consortium's founding members are HP, Intertrust Technologies Corporation, Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V., Panasonic (Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.), Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Sony Corporation, and Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. In addition to its founders, Coral Consortium also includes among its promoter members, IFPI, NBC Universal, Inc., and LG Electronics, Inc.

The Coral Consortium seeks to ensure interoperability so that today's digital music and video can be easily accessed and enjoyed, regardless of the service provider or the device. While recent innovations in digital media distribution provide consumers with new channels to acquire music and video, proprietary differences still exist in underlying DRM or content protection technology. At times, these technologies conflict and prevent consumers from playing content packaged and distributed using one DRM technology on a device that supports a different DRM technology. The Consortium's focus is a new technology layer that will allow existing DRM solutions to co-exist, thereby promoting content and devices that play well together. More information about the Coral Consortium, including a complete list of its current membership, may be found at http://www.coral-interop.org/.

Coral Consortium Letter to Steve Jobs

February 9, 2007

Dear Mr. Jobs,

The directors of Coral Consortium were pleased to hear about your interest in interoperability. We agree with you that this is a big problem for consumers. They should be able to acquire content from a wide variety of competitive service providers and play their purchased content on a range of devices and platforms from different manufacturers. This is an issue that is very important to our membership.

It would appear from your "Thoughts on Music" that you may not be familiar with our organization so we would like to take this opportunity to brief you.

We have been wrestling with the issues around interoperability for some years and have concluded that it is not so much a technology problem as a business problem. We have completed the development of a suite of technical specifications for interoperability and these can be downloaded from our website, http://www.coral-interop.org/. We think that your engineers will find it very straightforward to integrate this framework into your iTunes service. This technology would enable you to interoperate immediately with Microsoft based Janus devices and services, and with OMA (Open Mobile Alliance) based devices and services. Of course the secrets in FairPlay remain safe -- adopting the Coral technology does not require you to share them with anyone else.

This does not just address music. The Coral Interoperability Framework works for video as well. We know that, as a major shareholder in a very successful film studio, it is important for you both to protect your film assets, and to provide for their widest possible distribution. Coral can enable that.

Finally, if you are worried about the content industry being comfortable with the Coral solution you should know that many parts of that industry have been involved in the development of these specifications. Though most of Coral's membership comes from technology companies and service providers, the members from the content community include:

* EMI Music
* International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI)
* Motion Picture Association of America
* NBC Universal, Inc.
* Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)
* Sony BMG Music
* Sony Pictures Entertainment
* Starz Entertainment Group LLC
* Time Warner Cable
* Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.
* Universal Music Group
* Warner Bros. Technical Operations Inc.
* Warner Music Group

We offer Apple, Inc. a warm invitation to join Coral's ranks and help provide interoperability and the increased choice that it will bring to all of our customers.

Yours sincerely,

Jack Lacy
President, Coral Consortium
On behalf of the Coral Board of Directors

For More Information
Contact:
Leigh Anne Varney
Varney Business Communication
1.415.387.7250
la@varneybusiness.com

First Call Analyst:
FCMN Contact:

Source: The Coral Consortium

CONTACT: Leigh Anne Varney of Varney Business Communication,
+1-415-387-7250, la@varneybusiness.com, for The Coral Consortium

Web site: http://www.coral-interop.org/

-------
Profile: intent