Nokia teams with Microsoft to enhance mobile entertainment

One of the factors holding back a more widespread selection of mobile entertainment programming is copyright. So many artists and corporations won’t allow their content to be used on a mobile platform because they fear piracy. Nokia has gone a long way in protecting copyrights, having developed S60, the most widely used copy protection software in the cell phone industry. Now they’re teaming with Microsoft to solidify the issue, hoping to bring more entertainment options to the mobile platform.

The idea is that Nokia will implement PlayReady, Microsoft’s Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology, into the S60 software. PlayReady allows people to share media with others while still acting within copyright boundaries.

The move represents the filling of mutual needs by the two companies:

As cell-phone prices decline, handset vendors are looking for new revenue from potentially lucrative software operations, while at the same time Microsoft is looking for new revenue from the mobile space.

If you remember back about seven months, Bill Gates actually spoke out against DRM, saying it would be better if we all just bought a CD and ripped it. However, that just isn’t a feasible scenario, given everyone’s rabid taste for purely digital music. We understand; we haven’t bought a physical CD in years.

So it appears that this is a move of necessity, not a move of want. We have issue with DRM and how it’s implemented, but that’s a subject for another day — and likely on another blog.

We just hope this DRM system isn’t as restrictive as the one Apple has had in place.

[Washington Post]

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