Industry Veteran Garnett To Aid U.K. Government DRM Program

The U.K.'s Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has tapped veteran music executive Nic Garnett to contribute to its digital rights management program. The government department is analyzing how DRM technologies can facilitate growth of digital content markets, with a focus on broadband.

An expert in rights management and protection, Garnett is a consultant specializing in intellectual property at law firm the Simkins Partnership. He will be working with the DTI on a part-time basis during the next six months. Prior to joining Simkins last year (Bulletin, Oct. 9, 2002), Garnett was senior VP/in-house counsel at InterTrust Technologies in Santa Clara, Calif.; before that, he was director general/CEO of the IFPI from 1992-99.

"There's a great deal of confusion around DRM," Garnett tells Bulletin. "As an expression, it's used to cover so many different things, whether it's copy protection technologies, or copy-control technologies, or access-control technologies. What I'd really like seeing happening here, through the group and through my work with the DTI, is to break this down so it becomes more understandable."