Support Dwindling for Hard-Wired Copy Protection?

This CNet article by John Borland says that several companies plan to avoid building digital rights technologies into chips in hopes of attaining the necessary functionality through software.

Despite a move away from building the rights-management tools deeply into chips, chipmakers' strategies remain widely varied. Given the long lead time in designing and building chips--often 18 months or more--this is one sign that DRM support is likely to be scattered and haphazard for some time to come.

Giant Texas Instruments has long eschewed hard-coding DRM technology into its chips, for example, despite the potential speed and memory gains.

"Our philosophy has always been that DRM should be software," said Randy Cole, chief technologist for Texas Instruments' Internet audio business. "The advantage to that is that it's changeable in the field."

What that means is that if a consumer is able to break through the antipiracy technology on a device such as an MP3 player, it can be restored automatically the next time the device is connected to the Net, Cole said.

This doesn't mean "no DRM," but it may mean "more flexible DRM," and allows for the possibility that companies could revise bad DRM technological standards without obsoleting recent equipment. However, the article notes, major players like Intel and Microsoft still plan to pursue hard-coded DRM implementations.