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Digital Media: Opportunities and Challenges
The proliferation of digital media has skyrocketed over the past several years resulting in a new set of opportunities and challenges that are pertinent to many industries. From horizontal enterprise applications such as corporate communications and training, to vertical, industry specific applications such as movies on demand, music subscription services, wireless “ring tone” services and distance learning, the importance of protecting and managing assets and intellectual property in a networked environment is of critical importance. Costs can be reduced by streamlining production processes, improving workflow and intra-department and intra-company collaboration, while revenues can be increased via the definition and execution of new business models that were previously unfathomable in the physical world. The possibilities are endless, however to realize the potential benefits it is imperative that companies have the capability to effectively manage and control access to their digital assets.

Offsetting the wide array of opportunities to improve the bottom line lie complex challenges related to many internal and external business processes and policies. Piracy of digital media is perhaps the largest of these challenges and one that has impacted the companies in the entertainment value chain particularly hard. From Artists, Songwriters, Publishers, Producers and Record Labels to Actors, Directors, Movie Studios, Retailers and Distribution companies, no one has been spared the negative bottom line impact that can be directly attributed to digital piracy. Solving the challenges related to securing and managing media assets in a way that media assets are always protected from unauthorized use and reproduction while insuring an efficient, enjoyable and flexible media consumption experience for the end user is of paramount importance to realizing the potential benefits.

Digital Rights Management: Proprietary Solutions Have Failed
Digital Rights Management (DRM) Technologies aim to secure or protect content from unauthorized use. While DRM technologies have existed for quite sometime, the lack of an inexpensive, open framework for protecting assets and designating rights to such assets has hindered progress amongst Content Owners and Consumers alike. Content Owners need an affordable technology solution to protecting their assets that doesn't subject them to the demands or onerous licensing agreements that can result from being tied to a single vendor. Consumers demand access to a wide selection of content and a user experience that allows them to realize player choice (interoperability) during content consumption that few, if any, DRM solutions have achieved. Some solutions focus on providing proprietary technology solutions that only address asset protection in portions of the creation, manufacturing and distribution processes, while other require their solutions to be deployed on specific hardware platforms. The inherent shortcomings of these proprietary approaches continue to stifle innovation and fail to stem the rising tide of piracy. The ultimate solution would present a “user friendly” experience to consumers and business partners, while allowing content owners to affordably protect and manage rights to assets from the time they are created to the time that they are consumed...and at all points in between.

The problems caused by proprietary DRM systems, that by definition lack interoperability, can be highlighted by looking at another digital technology, email, and how it has evolved into a mission critical, enterprise application in a relatively short amount of time. Imagine if email had not evolved according to an open set of standards, but rather was implemented by a few vendors, each in their own proprietary manner. Email created by one vendor's email software would likely not be discernable by another vendor's email software and vice versa. The result would have been confusion, inefficiency and frustration, which would have ultimately led to a much slower adoption of the technology by businesses and consumers alike. Fortunately, after a short lived competition amongst proprietary solutions, open standards prevailed allowing vendors to compete on features and price, resulting in explosive growth and rapid adoption of the technology. Imagine if there were inexpensive tools that allowed content owners to protect their media assets using a variety of tools that supported the same set of standards. Content owners could choose tools/services from amongst several competing vendors using an interoperable file format that would allow consumers to render all of their content in the player of their choice. While digital piracy would surely still exist, it is likely that it would not have realized the rapid growth that continues to deprive content creators, content owners and their business partners of revenue.

Open Systems and Open Standards: The Future
Arguably one of the major reason proprietary DRM systems have fallen short of expectations is because they have failed to embrace open standards. OpenIPMP avoids this pitfall by embracing open standards defined by industry consortiums. One of the most important of which is MPEG-4, which comprises a set of standards for audio and video codecs, intellectual property management and protection (IPMP) and a new multi-media file format. Defined by the Motion Pictures Experts Group (MPEG), MPEG-4 allows content owners the ability to create a standard multi-media offering that can provide the best quality experience to the complete spectrum of target devices and as a result has the potential to cut encoding and storage costs by eliminating the need to produce content in multiple formats. MPEG-4 supports local playback and streaming using the same version of an encoded file and because it is an international, multi-platform open standard, it helps to assure the availability of playback drivers on multiple platforms.

OpenIPMP: The Solution
OpenIPMP is a collection of tools/services capable of delivering a robust, scalable, and adaptive infrastructure to support the management and secure delivery of media assets through each step in the asset life cycle. The value proposition is fundamental but unique in its approach: asset security and control utilizing an open framework. The “Open” portion of OpenIPMP refers to its stated goal of being developed as an Open System adhering to Open Standards. Open Systems conform to industry standards enabling interaction between various hardware and software products. They are preferable to Proprietary systems because they do not lock the user into solutions from one vendor, but rather enable users to pick and choose the best of breed components from many vendors. “IPMP” stands for Intellectual Property Management and Protection. It is an acronym coined by MPEG to represent Digital Rights Management (DRM) in the classical sense of protecting intellectual property.

In the digital economy it is of paramount importance to guard against unauthorized access at all points in an asset's life cycle. Adherence to MPEG-4 and other open multi-media standards allows OpenIPMP to deliver an open, yet powerful content management and distribution platform. The open framework allows content providers to maintain control over their intellectual property and prosper in the era of digital distribution, while also providing a means of “future proofing” their technology investments.