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MediaShell Tackles Digital Rights Management.

Published by Monitor Magazine September 2000

Peer-to-peer piracy
Peer-to-peer file sharing programs like Napster, Gnutella and The Scour Exchange have made it much harder to control digital content online. To aggravate the situation, high speed Internet connections have become cheaper and more widely available for many people in urban centres. For those who are so inclined, this has meant faster downloads of every kind of digital media including pirated software, MP3 files (whether sanctioned by the artists or not) and even Divx movies (often long before they are released on video). As the Internet speeds up for the average user, the world continues to get smaller and the task of controlling the circulation of intellectual property has become almost insurmountable.

MediaShell Digital Rights Management (DRM) has begun developing products to address this problem. The Kingston, Ontario, startup opened its doors in January of this year, with the aim of developing security products to let software developers take advantage of the distributing potential of the Internet.

According to MediaShell's software piracy page, it's a huge problem. "Software piracy is a global problem that costs the computer industry billions of dollars in lost revenue each year."

Server-based solution
MediaShell has been designing a server-based authentication scheme that locks content or applications behind an 'Application Shell'. Programs protected this way can be circulated over the Internet, passed among friends or otherwise acquired at no charge. To activate the program, its rightful owner must connect to a MediaShell server using strong encryption and verify the user's unique authentication key against a database of registered users.

Besides the obvious advantages in protecting software publishers and developers from piracy, there are some very attractive marketing implications, as well. First, since software has to be activated by a purchase over the Net and the subsequent registration of the product, programs protected by the Application Shell can be bundled with hardware at relatively low cost to the publisher. If the customer is inclined to activate the software and use it, it is only a matter of registering a unique key for the product online and paying via a major credit card.

The Application Shell also gives developers the option to issue software on a pay-per-use or time-period rental basis. In addition, it can be set up to keep track of software free-trial periods and fixed or multiple licence arrangements.

Wider applications
Because the Application Shell communicates with the central MediaShell server, software publishers have the opportunity to solicit feedback on their products or, in the case of beta software, receive bug reports.

To this end, MediaShell has begun to target Application Service Providers and Internet service providers.

Software developers interested in helping to beta test the MediaShell system are invited to visit the Web site and find out more. MediaShell is currently focusing on developers in the game industry but would like to hear from freeware and shareware developers, as well.