Slap another licensing fee on your digital box.............
Five firms attack digital pirates
By Reuters
Special to CNET News.com
September 24, 1998, 9:20 a.m. PT
Five leading electronics makers said today they
have started licensing a method they've developed
to protect copyrighted content transferred over
digital interfaces from illegal copying.
The five firms are Hitachi, Intel, Matsushita Electric
Industrial, Sony, and Toshiba.
The Digital Transmission
Licensing Administrator,
an independent licensing
authority formed by the
five firms, started
licensing the Digital
Transmission Content
Protection (DTCP)
method to interested
businesses yesterday,
the group said in a
statement.
A Matsushita spokesman said the increasing
popularity of digital electronics products gave rise
to the need to protect digital contents transferred
between electronic devices such as personal
computers, DVD players and set-top boxes.
In February 1996, the five companies presented
the DTCP method to the Copy Protection
Technical Working Group, an ad-hoc,
cross-industry body organized to evaluate content
protection technologies, the statement said.
They formed the authority in June 1998 to simplify
licensing procedures and promote swift acceptance
of the DTCP method by content providers,
electronics makers and broadcast service
providers, the statement said. |
