Consumer Electronics Firms Balking At Mobile DRM Costs

from the good-for-them dept

Last month, we noted that a bunch of companies in the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) had gotten together to pool a bunch of patents that pertained to copy protection. The plan was to let anyone license the whole set of patents for $1 per device. Beyond the fact that the "open" part of the alliances name is a complete lie, we noted that this solution wouldn't do anything but make things more expensive for consumers. It wouldn't stop copying of unauthorized content. It would just add to the cost for legitimate users. Well, it appears that many consumer electronics and handset companies agree, and are saying that it's simply not worth paying $1 for the copy protection, as they won't be able to make that up. They're realizing that they'll be paying $1 per device to make the device less valuable to consumers. The Reuters article is also very misleading in that it repeats (a few times) that somehow this DRM copy protection is "needed." Says who? Mobile phones are catching on around the world at an amazing rate. Mobile data is being used increasingly as well -- and most of it is for communication, not to suffer through some broadcast style content. The only thing this does is make devices more expensive and less valuable. Why is that needed?