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In the latest effort to respond to the threat from online piracy, a group of large media and technology companies on Wednesday unveiled a new specification for a technology that will distribute digital content to consumers online while honoring complex contractual relationships that exist among media owners.

The group, which calls itself the Content Reference Forum (CRF), is a new, cross-industry standards organization that counts leading technology and media companies as members, including Universal Music Group, Microsoft, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, and VeriSign, according to a statement released by the group.

The goal is to design a technology platform that enables media companies and other digital content owners to distribute content across different technology environments and geographical regions, according to Albhy Galuten, chairman of the CRF and a former advanced technical lead at Universal Music Group.

Seamless Sharing

"Nobody has addressed the issues of how to make [online content distribution] effective and seamless," he says.

For example, a Top 10 music file link from a music fan in the U.S. that is sent to a friend in France should take into account that user's language preferences. Also, if the user does not personally own a copy of the song, they should be able to purchase it in a way that takes into account the various contractual agreements that music companies and distributors have for music sales in France, Galuten says.

"It's a means to resolve a content reference so that consumers can locate, buy, and acquire appropriate instances of that content," he says.

Current online music and content distribution services, such as Apple Computer's ITunes and Roxio's Napster, amount to a balkanization of the music industry, with companies building their own distribution systems to encourage sales of other products, such as the IPod portable music player, Galuten says.

"There's no reason you shouldn't have access to the first Led Zeppelin album on a Sony device, your PC, or Napster," he says.

Technical Details

The draft specifications, known as the CRF Baseline Profile v1.0, were published for public comment Wednesday on the group's Web site. The specifications cover formats for "Content References," which the CRF defines as "data packages that uniquely identify content and the context in which it will be used." That might include information about the consumer's specific environment, Galuten says.

Also explained in the specifications is a new language called the "Contracts Expression Language," which is designed to "express and enforce contractual agreements." That will allow information in a content link to be compared against a database of contractual agreements, so companies can ensure that the appropriate compensation is paid to each "value chain player" that helped that user obtain the media, he says.

The CRF will build on the work of other standards groups such as the Moving Pictures Experts Group 21 and the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS), Galuten says. "We're not trying to reinvent the wheel," he says.

At the same time, CRF members did not feel that their work fit within any of those groups. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) lacked an intellectual property policy that was strong enough to satisfy CRF participants, according to Galuten. And OASIS lacked a sufficient focus on content distribution and commerce, he says. In addition, group members found their efforts on the OASIS Rights Language Technical Committee stymied by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), due to what Galuten characterizes as OASIS' "difficult" governance rules.

Instead, the CRF will adopt technology from MPEG, OASIS, and other groups and also try to build a technical framework that "plugs into" the work of those organizations, according to Dmitry Radbel, a member of the Requirements and Architecture Working Group at the CRF and a vice president of advanced technologies at Universal Music Group.

The CRF Baseline Profile Version 1.0 will be available for review and public comment for 90 days after which the group will incorporate suggested changes and vote on whether to make the specifications an official standard, Galuten says.

The CRF also expects to demonstrate technology based on its specifications in the near future. Examples of online reference services will soon be available, one run by Universal and the other by VeriSign. The group also expects to announce a Microsoft Media Player plug-in that will enable users to follow CRF content links to purchase or play media files with that program, Radbel says.

Cause for Concern?

Asked to comment on the CRF's plans, an attorney for the EFF says the CRF's specifications are the foundation for a digital rights management system, about which the EFF has "deep concerns."

The Baseline Profile Version 1.0 seems to envision a system where content owners put copyright content in a locked box, then decide who gets to take it out of that box and for what reasons, according to Jason Schultz, a staff attorney at the EFF.

The restrictions on use stipulated by the CRF's Content References may deny access to individuals who wish to use media files for parody or political expression, an exercise of civil liberties guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, Schultz says, citing online publication of internal Diebold memos regarding voting system technology and a recent work that remixed video and words by U.S. President Bush into a potent political message.

Architectures such as those proposed by the CRF may do a good job of representing the rights of content owners, but could have a "chilling effect" on speech and artistic expression by consumers who use that content under "fair use" guidelines that are typically reviewed by a judge, he says.

While standardization and interoperability are laudable goals, the EFF is concerned that the CRF does not count any consumer advocacy groups among its members, Schultz says.

"We urge them to find a way ... to include a public or consumer voice in their efforts, because clearly it's not set up for that right now," he says.