Guest Opinion
September 2000
Standard bearer
How do we mesh cutting-edge technological advances with the most basic property rights?
Leonardo Chiariglione, SDMI
The Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) began meeting in February of 1999, following much fanfare and just as much skepticism. A group of people remarkable for not only their expertise, but also for the breadth of the industries they represented, began to meet once a month to sort out issues that were not only complicated but constantly evolving in Internet time.
The issue around which the group had coalesced was nothing short of fundamental: How do we mesh cutting-edge technological advances with the most basic property rights of the people who have created a product? Specifically, the Web suddenly provided a terrific way to access high-quality musical reproductions quickly, easily, immediately. Consumers liked this and wanted to do this. But, reluctant to lose control of their music and lose all opportunities for compensation, artists and labels were leery of putting music out there.
Music was just the first wave. It became clear very early on that the issues facing music would rapidly spread to book publishing and video.
SDMI immediately attracted a diverse group—blue chips, startups, music content providers, consumer-electronics manufacturers, software companies, and wireless telecommunications providers who could foresee a day when cell phones became a conduit for music.
Did everyone see eye to eye on every issue? Not at all. Skeptics made much of the debates that group members had over broad policy issues, as well as over technical details. Because the group operates on a principle of consensus, working through issues sometimes required a great deal of time and effort. But that also meant that attendees could bring any issue they wanted to the table for discussion and debate. Ultimately, this meant that the group's decisions were thoroughly investigated. This care to unearth not just current issues but also emerging developments is key to ensuring that efforts are not immediately moot—and is particularly critical in a business area that by definition operates in Internet time.
Within four months, the group had produced its first specification, Portable Device specification 1.0. Within eight months, a specific watermarking technology had been selected. By the time of the group's first anniversary, SDMI called for proposals for Phase II screening technology. And now, just over one and a half years later, we have received 12 submissions that propose a variety of creative approaches and are working to test their relative merits. Our participant list includes 200 companies and organizations, even more if you include companies that are not SDMI participants but were nonetheless interested enough in the program to submit proposals for Phase II screening technology.
Companies are starting to put out SDMI-compliant products, and SDMI is aggressively moving toward new areas in response to the specific needs of its members. SDMI has been used as a model organization for other industries facing the same challenges, such as book publishing. The SDMI's efforts are paving the way for tomorrow's economy.
Author information
Leonardo Chiariglione is the executive director of the SDMI.
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