Jason Dunn
04-13-2004, 09:00 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.tdn.com/articles/2004/04/13/biz/news02.txt' target='_blank'>http://www.tdn.com/articles/2004/04/13/biz/news02.txt</a><br /><br /></div>"In settling with InterTrust Technologies Corp., Microsoft Corp. could be gaining a big advantage in the growing market for distributing music and videos online -- to the detriment of competitors who now risk getting caught in InterTrust patent squabbles of their own. Microsoft announced Monday it would pay $440 million to InterTrust to settle a 3-year-old patent infringement lawsuit over technology for protecting music, movies and other digital content against piracy. <br /><br />The settlement with InterTrust, which is jointly owned by Sony Corp., Philips Electronics NV and the investment banking company Stephens Inc., grants Microsoft a license to the Santa Clara, Calif. company's patents in copy-protection technology, or digital rights management. The settlement should clear up concerns that big media companies including The Walt Disney Co. have had about using Microsoft technology, said Microsoft senior vice president Will Poole."<br /><br />This is good news because hopefully this means will see some top-tier content coming out from the movie studios. Short term, that will likely mean DRM growing pains as they inflict draconian limitations on consumers, but after they fair in round one, I think they'll relax the DRM limitations and a happy balance between between content protection and consumer friendliness will be found. Or maybe that will take until round five. ;-) What do you think?