By Matt Rosoff [bio]
Posted: Apr. 18, 2005

The following is the full text of an article published by Directions on Microsoft, an independent research firm focused exclusively on Microsoft strategy & technology. Each month we make one or more key articles available to non-subscribers.

Windows Media DRM

Introduced in 2000 as part of Windows Media 7, Windows Media DRM allows content owners, such as record companies and movie studios, and distributors, such as online music stores, to define what end users can do with digital media content—for example, view a movie a certain number of times before it expires or listen to a song from a limited number of client devices (such as their PC and up to two portable music players). Content owners and distributors use tools supplied as part of a Windows Media SDK to define rights for material, then distribute the content and licenses to end users through Windows Media Services, a component of Windows Server. The technology is overseen by the Digital Media Division, part of the Windows Client business unit.

Building an effective DRM platform into Windows is part of Microsoft's home entertainment strategy, which envisions the Windows PC as the center of home entertainment. Windows Media DRM is primarily meant to allay the fears of content owners that the PC is an avenue for piracy, and to prevent content owners from turning to more draconian measures, such as creating CDs or DVDs that cannot be played on a PC at all.

Windows Rights Management Services

Introduced as part of Windows Server 2003, Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) allows end users within large organizations to define how material that they create, such as documents and e-mails, can be used. For example, a user can protect a Word document or Excel spreadsheet so that her boss may read, write, print, and forward it, but so that other employees in her department may only read it.

RMS uses technology different from Windows Media DRM and is overseen by a different product group: the Security Business and Technology Unit, which is part of the Server and Tools business. (For marketing reasons, Microsoft does not use the term "DRM" to describe RMS, preferring terms such as "information rights management" or "enterprise rights management.")

The server piece of RMS ships with Windows Server 2003, and each PC participating in an RMS system needs client software and compatible applications. At the time of RMS's release in late 2003, only the Professional Editions of Office 2003 applications could be used to create RMS-protected content, although users could use a free Internet Explorer plug-in to read protected material. By linking RMS and Office 2003, Microsoft hoped to convince organizations that are particularly interested in confidentiality, such as government agencies and corporate legal departments, to upgrade to Windows Server 2003 and Office 2003 simultaneously.

Since the release of RMS, partners such as Liquid Machines have provided support for RMS to protect other types of content, such as Adobe PDF files.