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IFPI Position Paper for the W3C DRM Workshop 22/23 January 2001

8 January 2001

Contact Information:
Philippa J.K. Morrell,
Metadata Executive
Philippa.morrell@ifpi.org

IFPI is the trade association that represents the international recording industry. This paper is a personal view from its technical staff, which attempts to outline the requirements of this industry but should not be taken as an authoritative position.

The recording industry sees the use of DRM technology as a vital (if optional) part of the future commerce in music. Such technology must be flexible and strong enough to allow record labels to develop innovative business models that offer real value to consumers and yet prevent these business models from being subverted by the circumvention of the DRM technology.

To date record labels have established relationships with different DRMs, which do not offer a seamless experience as consumers attempt to use music from different sources. Solutions to this issue are of considerable interest to record companies. However, such solutions must not constrain record labels from using advanced and evolving technologies.

We hope that this workshop will provide insights into the process by which standardization bodies can contribute to the solution to these problems, which manifest themselves as nuisances for consumers. We are prepared to contribute to this work but have limited resources and cannot countenance several streams of work in competitive standards bodies.

As a user organization of the technologies, we do not expect to offer technological solutions but are in a good position to capture and communicate the requirements of the record companies in this space.