Digital Transmission Content Protection (DTCP) is a

digital rights management Digital rights management (DRM) is the management of legal access to digital content. Various tools or technological protection measures (TPM) such as access control technologies can restrict the use of proprietary hardware and copyrighted works. ...

(DRM) technology that restricts

digital home Home automation or domotics is building automation for a home, called a smart home or smart house. A home automation system will monitor and/or control home attributes such as lighting, climate, entertainment systems, and appliances. It ma ...

technologies including

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

players and

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

s by encrypting interconnections between devices. This permits the distribution of content through other devices such as

personal computers A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or techn ...

portable media player A portable media player (PMP) (also including the related digital audio player (DAP)) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. The data is typically stored o ...

s, if they also implement the DTCP standards. DTCP has also been referred to as "5C" content protection, a reference to the five companies that created DTCP;

Hitachi () is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is the parent company of the Hitachi Group (''Hitachi Gurūpu'') and had formed part of the Ni ...

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

, Matsushita,

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

, and

Toshiba , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure system ...

. The standard was originally proposed in February 1998, when the five companies presented the system to the Copy Protection Technical Working Group (CPTWG), an ''ad hoc'' body organized to evaluate DRM technologies. The five companies subsequently established th
Digital Transmission Licensing Administrator
(DTLA) in June 1998 to simplify licensing procedures and promote acceptance of the DTCP method by content providers, electronics manufacturers, and broadcast service providers. They also released th
5C Digital Transmission Content Protection White Paper
describing the system. The paper specifies Hitachi's M6

cipher In cryptography, a cipher (or cypher) is an algorithm for performing encryption or decryption—a series of well-defined steps that can be followed as a procedure. An alternative, less common term is ''encipherment''. To encipher or encode i ...

as the baseline encryption system, which was already in widespread use in the Japanese cable industry. At the time,

FireWire IEEE 1394 is an interface standard for a serial bus for high-speed communications and isochronous real-time data transfer. It was developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s by Apple in cooperation with a number of companies, primarily Sony an ...

was widely regarded as the up-and-coming standard for interconnecting media devices, although this has not been widely adopted in the decade following. More recently there appears to be a move to using

TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...

carried on high-speed

ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...

and

WiFi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio waves ...

connections to replace FireWire and similar systems, a move epitomized by the

Apple TV An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...

. The DTCP standard has branched out to cover a variety of media types to respond to these industry changes, and now supports

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad v ...

, IP,

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...

and

MOST Most or Möst or ''variation'', may refer to: Places * Most, Kardzhali Province, a village in Bulgaria * Most (city), a city in the Czech Republic ** Most District, a district surrounding the city ** Most Basin, a lowland named after the city ** A ...

(a media standard for automotive platforms) in addition to FireWire. DTCP specification is proprietary and is only disseminated to members, who agree to the DTLA agreements (some fees need to be paid to even get the specification). An "informational version" of the specification, omitting some critical details of the implementation, is freely available.

DTCP+

In November 2010 the

Digital Transmission Licensing Administrator Digital Transmission Content Protection (DTCP) is a digital rights management (DRM) technology that restricts digital home technologies including DVD players and televisions by encrypting interconnections between devices. This permits the distribut ...

proposed enhancements to DTCP known as DTCP+. This enhanced specification is due to be completed in January 2011. DTCP+ adds the following capabilities: *Digital Only Token *“Media agnostic” way to carry Content Management Information (CMI) *Copy Count CMI *Remote Access capability

References

{{reflist

External links

DTLA home page

Security analysis of the Digital Transmission Copy Protection Specification
Digital rights management standards

DTCP+

See also

References

External links