Plans to hard-wire copy protection into popular digital music and video devices are being shelved as the consumer-electronics industry grapples with interminable battles over antipiracy policies, standards and consumer rights.
Until recently, many makers of chips for consumer-electronics devices hoped to build anticopying technology into the chips themselves, a process known as "hard coding." That technique speeds up a device, saves on battery power, and makes the antipiracy technology harder to break through. Prominent security researchers say that hardware-based rights management technologies are more secure than alternatives that rely primarily on software.
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