A Closer Look at Windows Media DRM

Windows Media Digital Rights Management (DRM) allows content owners to define what users may do with a digital audio or video file (such as copy it a certain number of times), enforcing these rules by encrypting content and then requiring users to get a license to decrypt it. Over the years, Microsoft has gradually improved Windows Media DRM for content owners, while making it less obtrusive to end users. Even so, the competitive landscape is slowly forcing Microsoft to support other DRM systems and copy-protection technology.

Main Customer: Content Owners

Microsoft built DRM into the Windows Media platform in 1999, hoping to convince content owners to support the Windows PC as a home entertainment device (for example, by offering high-value content over the Internet) rather than trying to thwart it (for example, by implementing technology that disables regular audio CDs from being played on a PC). Although DRM was a fairly new concept at the time, Microsoft could have licensed one or more DRM systems from companies specializing in the field. Yet, for business reasons, Microsoft chose to build its own DRM system. (See the sidebar “Why Do DRM In-House?“.)