On the third day of the NAB conference, I served as moderator for a stimulating and controversial panel discussion on the topic, "Digital Rights in a Cross-Platform World" with executives from Alcatel-Lucent, Intertrust Technologies, CableLabs, and Widevine Technologies. The premise we discussed centered on digital rights controlling the creation and distribution of intellectual property; are digital rights an enabler of anything truly positive for the value chain?

Today it is because content owners believe they need it to maintain control over their revenue model. The trillion dollar question is whether anyone can hope to keep that kind of control in an environment where content is capable of flowing everywhere across the consumers’ three screens (TV, computer and mobile device)? If DRM simply serves to make that multi-modal use more difficult, as it has done so far, then it may be made obsolete by the actions of consumers.

We concluded it isn’t “DRM’s fault” – the DRM industry has a mandate to sell lots of DRM, to make money for their investors, but they’re simply responding to a market need created by the content owners. The true driving force behind these obstacles to interoperability is the exploitation contracts that are written for each and every content item that is licensed to the value chain. In other words, DRM is “just following orders.”

But with or without DRM, content does not move easily from device to device today. Music does, in MP3 form, but music is a more mature technology than video. Is it appropriate to expect your video to “just work” on all your devices today, even from a purely technical standpoint? Probably not.

Here's one way to think about it. Consider the maturity curve for any product or service (the "S" curve from introduction to growth to maturity to decline). In the early stages you tend to see high degrees of control and proprietary platforms and technologies because that’s how to obtain payback during the early years. It’s easy to depict these content owners as exercising too much control. But the question is, without the kind of profits that come from proprietary ownership of IP at early stages, who is going to pay to seed the market? Consumers take this stuff for granted.

However, as the content or product moves up the maturity curve, the marketplace changes and the business model has to change with it. Companies cannot prevent their product from becoming a commodity over time. The longer they hold on, the more at risk they are at of being aced in the market by some competing product. That's what happened to portable CD players when Mp3 players came around. It seems Digital Rights Management, which can be an aid to the marketplace early in the product lifecycle, will eventually be a hindrance and even a value-drainer later in that same lifecycle.

So the question is… where are we today with regard to the maturity curve? I think the answer is “earlier than you think.”