This week, ISMA (Internet Streaming Media Alliance) shared their roadmap for the digital rights management technical specification they’ve been working on for MPEG-4. It uses MPEG-4’s IPMP (Intellectual Property Management Protection) standard, and will work for both realtime and progressive (a.k.a. downloaded, a.k.a. shared) streaming content.
They intend to make it available for review at the NAB (National Broadcasters Association) convention in April, and to release the final specification by the end of June. ISMA has formed a content advisory board (members haven’t yet been announced, but it’s likely that they’re courting movie studios, the MPAA and the RIAA) and I expect that ISMA will want the approval of this board before releasing the final specification.
In another bit of very good news, ISMA has announced that they’ll be introducing a certification program. Vendors that are interoperable with the standard will be able to use a common trademark.