Why Do DRM In-House?

Since the early 1990s, several companies have attempted to create a business by specializing in DRM—in particular, ContentGuard and Intertrust, two early pioneers that still own many patents related to DRM. (In 2004, Microsoft took an ownership stake in ContentGuard and paid Intertrust US$440 million to settle a patent infringement lawsuit, gaining rights to both companies’ patents.) In addition, competitors such as Apple, RealNetworks, and Sony have built and promoted their own DRM technologies.

Rather than relying on third-party technologies, however, Microsoft chose to build its own DRM system directly into the Windows Media platform that ships with every copy of Windows. Microsoft did this for the following reasons:

Avoid dependencies. Content owners will support the Windows PC as an entertainment device only if they’re sure their content is secure. Relying on a third party to patch vulnerabilities or make improvements to the DRM system in Windows would be risky—a slow or ineffective response might cause content owners to bypass the PC altogether.