The Board of the GSM Association (GSMA), the global trade association for the world’s GSM operator community that serves more than 1.3 billion mobile telecommunications users, has called for an immediate review of the current licensing program proposed by MPEG LA and the companies involved in this patent pool, for use of the Open Mobile Alliance’s (OMA) Digital Rights Management (DRM) 1.0 standard.

Speaking on behalf of the GSMA’s Board, CEO and Board Member Rob Conway stated that the GSMA’s Board had recognized that there was significant discontent for the terms of the licensing scheme as proposed by MPEG LA – describing the regime as ‘impractical, excessive and short-sighted’.

The GSMA believes that members not only view the ‘per device’ fee, as proposed by MPEG LA, as unreasonable and excessive but they also consider the ‘per transaction’ fee as unworkable in the market.

Mr. Conway noted the Board’s concern as to the potential for fragmentation of services, additional cost, delay and a reduction in future innovation and growth as among the more serious implications of such a scheme for both the mobile and content industries and ultimately for customers.

“Based on frank responses from operators throughout the world, our Board understands that members are being ‘forced away’ from the OMA DRM standards by this unworkable licensing scheme,“ said Craig Ehrlich, Chairman of the GSM Association. “In order to provide the services and content which their customers desire, operators will have no option but to take their own routes toward implementing proprietary DRM solutions. These solutions may have lower licensing costs, but will ultimately introduce problems for customers when roaming, changing networks or exchanging content with other users.”

Consequently the GSMA Board has instigated an immediate review of all credible alternative DRM solutions and their license conditions on the market today, so that a recommendation can be made to the Board and the membership as to those solutions that best meet the needs of the market, industry and consumers.

Because of the pressing market need, GSMA is therefore soliciting proposals from all DRM solution providers by 11th April 2005. Proposals will be evaluated and short-listed for presentation to the Board from which recommendations would be made to the GSMA membership.

DRM Solution providers who are interested in participating should register their interest with the GSMA at mobileDRM@gsm.org