Xerox, Microsoft in digital content protection venture

Xerox and Microsoft announced the formation of a joint venture - ContentGuard that will develop technologies to protect digital intellectual property rights. ContentGuard is a spin-off from Xerox’s renowned Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) which developed technology to protect and manage content such as books, music and video distributed over the Internet.

Xerox will own a majority stake in ContentGuard. Says Xerox President and CEO Rick Thoman, “The market for digital content protection products and services is expected to boom.” The market for digital rights management is estimated to reach about US $ 300 billion in 2004, according to International Data Corp(IDC). Major players include IBM and InterTrust Technologies.

Working with Microsoft may help ContentGuard make its technology become an industry standard. Microsoft will use Contentguard’s XrML, based on the XML industry standard, in the upcoming release of its digital rights management technology for ebooks, its Windows Media Player and other Microsoft products.