Back from a long day in New York City attending functions covering DRM and content convergence, will summarize them in detail later this week. A few key highlights: both the SIIA and Jupiter talks agreed that overall content market growth will be in the five to seven percent growth range in the next five years or so, and yet figures from the Jupiter conference show that some content areas such as online greetings cards can enjoy growth rates in the 20 percent range. Content that allows individuals to add or create content value is the key to future profits. On that note, most everyone would seem to agree that content companies are not very aggressive in their thinking about how to use DRM to enable end purchasers as key components of the distribution value chain. Most seem to think of this as something designed for a small fraction of individuals who distribute their own rights-protected content - ignoring the more than 200 million people worldwide who use just KaZaa to distribute content. In developing Asian nations, Jupiter research is showing near market monopolies for pirated content in many countries for audio, video and business software. Mobsters running CD mills that allow CDs to cell on the street for a dollar or less fuel this industry, which is killing native content markets as much as content from Western nations. India has its own issues, as its "Bollywood" movies are being spun out in bootleg factories in Malaysia. Bottom line: DRM is not likely to protect profits on physical media without major international law enforcement initiatives. In the meantime, DRM does very well in helping corporations package valuable content such as proprietary securities trading formulas for their clients via DRM from Sealed Media and others. Quote of the day from Bill Rosenblatt of JupiterMedia/DRMWatch, asking the key question to Talal Shamoon, CEO of InterTrust, victor in the major patent suit settlement with Microsoft: "Are you going to Disney World?" Apparently not, Talal sees the settlement as but another step in validating the value of DRM. More to come...