DREAM A LITTLE DRM

Amid reports that tech majors RealNetworks and Microsoft are coming to fisticuffs over competing schemes for locking down the "intellectual property," "content" or other nerdism for what we might otherwise call "music" in this space, the brawling continues in other quarters between those who would limit file sharing and those who would permanently unshackle the information that so obviously wants to be free.

For today’s main event, in the right corner we have SecureMedia, supplier of security technology to Real’s RealSystem iQ and another in a long line of companies with two-word names squished into one word, but keeping the start of the former second word capitalized. Isn’t that neat?

In the right corner, we have Espra (this is their website, whereas this is a similarly named website), the self-styled "future of file-sharing, anonymous and unstoppable" and another in a long line of companies with one-word names based on vague references to Latin roots that obliquely express some board-palatable corporate virtue. Isn’t that neat?

SecureMedia says its Encryptonite System, an open-standards "extended conditional access system" that "enables secure distribution of movies, music and other digital content" and "persistently protects digital media from the point of origin," is now available for purchase. The system is a platform that will work with many media servers and formats, but can be purchased as a turnkey solution preconfigured for use with the aforementioned RealSystem iQ.

The Encryptonite system’s scheme involves—get this—encryption of media files, which are served to users’ PCs but remain unplayable until an encryption key is requested and provided by an Encryptonite Key Server. According to SecureMedia President Gary Ambrosino, "The Encryptonite System provides the highest levels of media security required by leading content owners without the complexity and vulnerability of DRM software that attempts to manage media rights on the client." However, sources say side effects include weakness and gradual loss of superpowers.

Espra, meanwhile, apparently means to pick up where Freenet founder Ian Clarke left off by creating a Freenet-based, open-source, decentralized file-sharing system where users may trade any and all files in complete anonymity—in other words, by becoming the next archenemy of the music business.

"The Espra Project is entering a new phase in its development," the project’s website, adorned with a lovely cockroach mascot, proclaims. "The mighty cockroach will propagate itself across the world and ruthlessly devour the hegemony of the music ‘distributors.’" Once that happens, the revolutionary propaganda continues, "the free distribution of music will introduce to the world the idea of the gift economy."

The Espra braniacs go on to loosely tie the idea of a "gift economy," wherein artists donate their recordings to the world at large in exchange for building a live following (and we all know how well club gigs pay) to the centuries-old notion of artistic patronage. However, they neglect to note that patrons of old supported their artists while they created, not afterward as they slaved in sweaty beer halls reeking of cigarettes and puke.

Think there won’t be any low blows in this bout? Guess again.