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Japan agrees to DRM on phones |
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Written by Nick Farrell
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Monday, 14 September 2009 12:17 |
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Daft moves of our time
Japanese mobile phone makers have agreed to install DRM software
on their mobile phones. The move comes at the request of the music and
film industry.
The cunning plan suggests digital rights management to be build into every mobile phone
sold in Japan. The software would query an Internet server (DRM server)
whenever a user would try to play a song to check if the song was purchased
legally. It would play if the return would be positive and otherwise refuse to
play the song. The proposed system could be launched as early as 2011.
Such a daft plan could only work in Japan where mobile phone companies control the software
on the mobile phones. However it is fairly clear that the software makers have not worked out how to tell the
difference between pirated music and legally bought CDs. It will also not be possible to play songs
without net connection.
It is not clear who will pay for the traffic that the song checks create. Or if the music companies will compensate
customers of the DRM breaks the phones or customers music connections.
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