Recently I had the chance to see a demonstration of the Tata Elxsi Marlin DRM implementation running on their Android based set top box reference platform. Availability of this was announced in September (http://www.marlin-community.com/news/press/tata_elxsi).
One might think that all reference platforms look and feel the same. But one of the refreshing things about the Tata Elxsi platform was its integration of an open DRM, specifically the Marlin DRM, running on a secure platform. Before now, set top box “platform” demonstrations were limited to the "everything else" part of what a set top box is supposed to do, leaving security and content protection as an exercise for the customer of that platform. That works for legacy customers with legacy security and rights management systems that are not open and which are held very close to the vest.
The reality today is that the Internet is enabling a revolution in content distribution and consumer experiences. Legacy systems are entrenched on a monumental scale, and they will continue to be important. But they are not platforms on which businesses can experiment, other than the service provider who built the infrastructure into which such legacy set top boxes connect.
To evolve at Internet speed requires modular, flexible and extensible building blocks at every vertex of the architecture. When it comes to the essential function of content protection and rights management, Marlin stands alone as the best suited. For one thing, Marlin is an open standard with which any business, legacy or new, can experiment. Secondly, Marlin includes a flexible but efficient rights expression language with which services can express a wealth of business models. Traditional content business models, such as rental, sell through and subscription, are supported, obviously. But with Marlin's innovative approach to rights expression, whole new business models not even conceived of can be coded and enforced in Marlin devices. In other words, you don't have to "update" a device if a rental period expands from 24 to 48 hours. This enables broad experimentation essential in the Internet age.
In short, for the first time in history, Marlin enables reference platform providers to integrate everything needed to experiment with content distribution rules, INCLUDING security, content protection and rights management. Marlin lowers the bar for companies to become part of the revolution, both for new entrants and for legacy service providers alike. With Tata Elxsi's early adoption, and others soon to follow, the groundwork is now laid for the Internet revolution to embrace sensitive, high value, commercial content on the broad scale it deserves.