Samsung online music service signals looming DRM war

Stan Beer
Tuesday, 05 September 2006 08:18

Opinion and Analysis

The news that Samsung is to become a new entrant into the online music store market, using MusicNet as media provider, has created a new dynamic, with three hardware  manufacturers soon to be using the music ecosystem model pioneered by Apple with the iTunes-iPod connection.

There are a couple of interesting aspects to this news. One is that Samsung's move is an acknowledgement that to be a player in the portable

music player space, a company needs to be more than just a hardware vendor. Another is that there appears to be a looming digital rights

management war between Apple's FairPlay DRM based on QuickTime and Microsoft's PlayForSure based on Windows Media Player 10.

However, the reality is that the real DRM battle will start when Microsoft's Zune hits the market and, whehn that happens, PlayForSure DRM is not likely to be a major force.

Samsung is a hardware company, yet it has recognized that it will never be able to differentiate itself from the pack of MP3 player suppliers

unless it has its own online music store connection like Apple. Microsoft, primarily a software company, has come to the same conclusion from the other end of the spectrum, so it plans both a music store and its Zune MP3 player.

Understanding that Apple has a stranglehold on the market in the US but is slightly weaker in Europe and Asia, Samsung plans to focus its efforts initially in those markets.

Samsung, like other music player companies aside from Apple, such as SanDisk, Creative and iRiver, uses the Windows Media Player 10 DRM.

When Microsoft releases Zune, however, it will not use its own licensed PlayForSure DRM. Instead Microsoft will create a new DRM compatible with Windows Media Player 11 but not PlayForSure, in effect ditching its PlayForSure partners in favour of creating a closed music ecosystem like Apple.

Thus, when Zune launches there will be three main competing DRM systems, two of which will be owned by Microsoft.

There has also been some speculation that Microsoft will attempt to lure PlayForSure users over to Zune by offering them free one-off transfers of their music files upon purchasing a Zune player. If that happens, as it probably will, PlayForSure licensees will find themselves in a spot of bother as the transfer will only go one way and there is likely to be considerable leakage of users.