> Has anybody got any information about how the Japanese content providers,
> opcos and handset manufacturers tackle the thorny issue of Digital Rights
> Management in the area of picture messaging? I assume it is possible for
> consumers to purchase images such as comic strips, wallpapers and cutesy
> animations (Hello Kitty). Is there a mechanism to prevent the
> redistribution of these images to other handsets?
I agree with Paul that this is largely a non-issue.
One point is, that e.g. the owners of "Hello Kitty" (Sanrio) don't
want to criminalize the consumers, for example, if I attach a picture
of "Hello Kitty" to this email and broadcast it to this email group:
do you think Sanrio is going to take me to court and make a lot of
people angry against Sanrio?
Another point is "fair use"
Another point is that Sanrio has an interest in spreading Hello Kitty,
i.e. making Hello Kitty more famous.
Another point is, that mobile internet (and other business models)
are pretty sophisticated by now, i.e. Sanrio's business model is not
simply selling one picture of Hello Kitty as a screen saver - they
do a lot more that that. So if I attach a picture of Hello Kitty to
this email and mail it to my friends on this news group, the effect
on Sanrio's business models is zero. As an example, Sanrio (I have
not looked into this in detail) but probably makes money by doing
something like sending a different Hello Kitty everyday to subscribers
of the Hello-Kitty site + Hello Kitty birthday cards etc etc etc,
so they probably sell a large number of relatively sophisticated
products including some variation of Hello Kitty images. So,
if a few of the million subscribers forward one of these specialized
images, that makes again no difference whatsoever to Sunrio's business
models.
An analogy would be for example, if I forward a single news article
of "Wall street journal"'s online site, that is not going to
put the WallStreet Journal out of business - on the contrary that
is encouraged by them.
Actually, come to think of it - if people forward single images
of Hello Kitty, that's more like viral marketing and Sanrio probably
encourages this.
John, contact me off line if you need more help with understanding
Japan's mobile internet markets - I often notice from our European
customers that it's not so easy to understand unless you have
worked a lot directly with it. In Japan mobile internet is a lot
more complex now than selling single screen savers of Hello Kitty
against a few yen.
Gerhard
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Gerhard Fasol, PhD Eurotechnology Japan K. K.
http://www.eurotechnology.com/
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Received on Fri Jan 10 05:45:53 2003