Open Standard for eBook Protection and Management Compatible with EPUB and other formats.
Sunnyvale CA, August 29, 2011 – The Marlin Developer Community (MDC), the world’s leading open standards organization for digital rights management (DRM), today announced the availability of new technology specifications for eBook DRM based on Marlin DRM. The Marlin eBook Technology specifications provide an open technology specification for protecting and managing published materials for the growing base of eBook services and devices.
The last few years have witnessed an explosion in sales of eBook readers. However, all of these readers use proprietary copyright protection technologies that offer very limited business model support and lock the consumer into a single web bookstore. Marlin’s eBook specifications provide publishers, retailers and device makers a solution that allows purchase, rental, subscription, lending and sharing capabilities in a consumer friendly manner while protecting copyrights.
The Marlin technology is compatible with the open eBook format EPUB and can be integrated with proprietary formats as well. Leading device makers are already shipping Marlin technology with their eBook readers. To date, there are no other open formats for protecting eBook content.
“As eBook readers grow in popularity, the need for an open format for protecting and managing rights associated with electronic books is critical,” said Talal Shamoon, Chairman of the MDC. “Books are the cornerstone of enduring culture, and using proprietary security technology to lock consumers into walled gardens is untoward. While it is every person’s right to access written works, it is also important to protect authors’ rights and ensure the integrity of distribution networks; Marlin DRM elegantly balances these requirements.”
Marlin DRM is an advanced, consumer-friendly technology developed by an open standards organization. The MDC has developed numerous broadly adopted specifications. These technologies are widely deployed globally and form the basis of many successful audiovisual services. Marlin eBook technology ships in various eBook readers around the world, and is used by educational eBook provider Kno.
“In looking for DRM technology for educational eBooks, Kno chose Marlin due to its advanced features, robust security and market readiness,” said Osman Rashid, Kno’s CEO and co-Founder. “Using an open standard also provides us with an assurance that the technology is resilient over the long term, and that our requirements are supported by a global community of developers without dependencies on a single technology provider.”
Technology specifications and reference technology are available from the MDC. Marlin has an open, secure trust model that is managed by the Marlin Trust Management Organization (MTMO); Marlin technologies provide adopters a technology path that is unencumbered by proprietary agendas.
Work on advanced eBook DRM features is ongoing and the MDC welcomes new Participants with expertise in this area. More information on joining the MDC is available at the above website. To download the Marlin eBook Specification, click here.
About the Marlin Developer Community
Marlin is an open-standard DRM technology that provides a unique set of capabilities to manage the relationships between a consumer’s content, devices and network services. The technology places the consumer at the heart of a domain of rich services and devices and allows them to use the content intuitively. Marlin is incorporated broadly around the world and is a key element in the national Internet TV platforms in Japan, the UK, Italy and France. Marlin DRM is also the backbone of several commercial media distribution platforms around the world and is becoming the open DRM of choice for audio, video and eBook distribution platforms around the world.
Intertrust Technologies Corporation, Panasonic Corporation, Royal Philips Electronics, Samsung Electronics, and Sony Corporation originally developed Marlin DRM in 2005. They subsequently founded the Marlin Developer Community, an open standards organization to expand and promote Marlin DRM as an open standard and the Marlin Trust Management Organization to provide trust services for Marlin products and services. The Marlin Partner Program is a global initiative aimed at bringing together technology leaders who deliver Marlin technology solutions to the market.
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