Last update: 2011/08/28

The Digital Media Project

 

Five years of DMP: achievements and plans

 

DMP establishment

The Digital Media Project was established on 2003/12/01 at the law offices of Jacquemmoud et Stanislas in Geneva where the DMP has its registered office. The statutes of the DMP, in particular the mission spelled out in Art. 3, were inherited from the Digital Media Manifesto, an initiative started on the 2003/07/04.  

DMP mission 

The DMP is a not-for-profit organisation with the mission to promote continuing successful development, deployment and use of Digital Media that respect the rights of creators and rights holders to exploit their works, the wish of end users to fully enjoy the benefits of Digital Media and the interests of various value-chain players to provide products and services, according to the principles laid down in the Digital Media Manifesto.…

The goals of DMP are realised through the development of Technical Specifications and Recommended Practices enabling businesses that support new or improved user experiences, and Recommended Actions to appropriate entities to act on removal of barriers holding up exploitation of Digital Media. Technical Specifications, Recommended Practices and Recommended Actions are collectively called "DMP Approved Documents". DMP contributes the results of its activities to appropriate formal standards bodies and other appropriate entities whenever this is instrumental to achieve the general DMP goals. …

DMP objectives 

Table 1 – The Digital Media Manifesto actions

 Main results of DMP General Assemblies (GA)

Table 2 – DMP General Assemblies and results

 It is to be noted that literally tens of ad hoc group meetings have also been held.

IDP structure

Table 3 – The structure of the IDP

Additional notable DMP results

1. Workshops to explore Policy Actions P1, P2 and P4 before its GA2, GA4 and GA2, respectively with proceedings available from the DMP web site
2. During 2004 subscribers to the grass-roots DMP email reflectors developed an important study on Traditional Rights and Usages (Collection of TRU templates)
3. The DMP issued responses to
   1. Final Report of the High Level Group on Digital Rights Management (European Commission consultation, September 2004) – dmp0164
   2. A new approach to public service content in the digital media age (UK Ofcom inquiry, March 2007) – dmp0939
   3. Creative Content Online (European Commission consultation, January 2008) dmp1101
   4. Green Paper (European Commission consultation, July 2008) – dmp1190
4. The DMP made demos and trials of its developments
   1. IBC (Amsterdam September 2006)
   2. WIM TV trial at Beijing Olympics (Beijing, August 2008)
   3. The DMP made substantial contributions to MPEG that led to International Standards
      1. DAC (Dissemination And Capture) profile of REL (ISO/IEC 21000-5:2004/Amd 2:2007)
      2. OAC (Open Access Content) profile of REL (ISO/IEC 21000-5:2004/Amd 3:2008)
      3. Media Value Chain Ontology (under development as ISO/IEC CD 21000-19)
      4. Media Streaming Application Format (ISO/IEC 23000-5:2008)
      5. XML IPMP messages (ISO/IEC 23001-3:2008)
      6. MXM protocols (ISO/IEC 29116-1 2^nd Edition under development as CD)
      7. MPEG eXtensible Middleware
         1. Part 1 Architecture and Technologies (under development as ISO/IEC CD 23006-1)
         2. Part 2 API (under development as ISO/IEC CD 23006-2)
         3. Part 3 Reference Software and Conformance (under development as ISO/IEC CD 23006-3
5. Digital Media in Italia has
   1. Adopted IDP-3.2 as its Interoperable DRM (iDRM) specification
   2. Contributed code to Chillout
   3. Developed two demo applications based on Chillout (P2P iDRM and VHS 2.0)

The DMP impact

The DMP has

1. Developed a mature toolkit specifications of a DRM platform (IDP, now v.3.2)
2. Developed the IDP Reference Software as Open Source (Chillout)
3. Channelled most of its results to ISO to become International Standards
4. Established part of the DRM governance infrastructure by appointing National Information Society Agency as its Content Registration Authority (CRAu)
5. Shown that interoperable DRM based on open standards is not a dream by developing running applications
6. Has indirectly prompted the establishment of the JTC 1 Study Group on Digital Content Management and Protection
7. Has provided the technology for establishing new innovative companies

 The DMP future

 GA21 participants propose the following as goals for the next phase of DMP

1. Complete governance infrastructure including Device Certification Authority (DCAu)
2. Establish ongoing management of governance infrastructure (CRAu, DCAu)
3. Extend the technical specifications with new technologies (e.g. Open Media Marketplace, payment/cashing)
4. Continue to develop and promote Chillout by
   1. Contributing Chillout MXM engines to MPEG
   2. Extending Chillout with applications that can make it the primary platform for the industry
5. Conceive and deploy innovative and experimental services (WIM TV etc.) bearing in mind that developments in other context (e.g. MPEG Advanced IPTV Terminal - AIT) will provide benefits to participating DMP members
6. Contribute to other bodies (e.g. MPEG MXM, MVCO, AIT)
7. Develop Digital Media Manifesto policy actions (e.g. realise demonstration of TRU mapping)
8. Promote DMP vision and its achievements (university courses, publications beyond the technical specifications, workshops etc.)
9. Whenever possible seek financial support to achieve specific goals via such public initiatives as COST to supplement running costs