Sun Launches DRM Initiative

Sun President and CEO Jonathan Schwartz unveiled the initiative Sunday (Aug. 21) at a conference in Aspen, Colo., sponsored by the Progress and Freedom Foundation, a think tank based here.

Schwartz said the initiative will seek to foster open standards, reference architectures and implementations. It also stresses compensation for content creators and copyright holders, respect for users' privacy and adoption of laws and technology that foster innovation.

Specific goals include development of open, royalty-free DRM and codec standards, encouraging collaboration within the open-source community and influencing standards organizations.

Schwartz said the DRM initiative is needed to speed the current transition from an information age to a "participation age" in which "individuals are creating and supplying [content] as much as they are consuming it."