ISMA's Content Protection spec out for review

The Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA) has released its Content Protection specification for peer review. The specification, once finalized, is intended to help standardized the way certain digital rights management technologies are implemented to protect content. Currently, different vendors, notably RealNetworks and Microsoft, have incompatible DRM implementations for protecting streaming content. ISMA's Content Protection specification concentrates on the encryption and delivery implementation of DRM in a way that is compatible with other related technologies such as key management.

Tom Jacobs, president of ISMA, says the specification handles the encryption at the content level using the 128-bit Advanced Encryption Standard. By encrypting at the source, the content can be delivered securely using streaming or by download, says Tom Jacobs, president of the ISMA. The goal of the specification is not to limit what happens with the content at its intended destination (i.e. whether a piece of music can be download and copied to a MP3 player), Jacobs says. That part is up to the individual content providers. ISMA is only hoping to provide a means for various DRM systems to interoperate.