An open way to be closed...

From Steve Mirsky's lighthearted column in last month's Scientific American...


What does this have to do with streaming?  Nothing, but it's what came to mind when I read about the OpenIPMP initiative, an Open Intellectual Property Management and Protection effort from ObjectLab.  At first it appears to be a contradiction in terms - an open way to lock down content.  But then, what it really is is a way to lock down content that keeps control of the content-protection technology out of the hands of a single vendor.  You might imagine (if you really stretch) a vendor taking advantage of a monopoly position on content distribution to exert inordinate influence in every aspect of the media business.  ObjectLab describes their effort like this:


They appear to be doing all the right things - MPEG4, ISMA, MPEG-REL, etc. I'm curious about who is funding the effort, though.