SanDisk puts DRM on flash cards

Dumb, dumb, oh so very dumb. I could not disagree more with DRM on SanDisk Flash cards. Oh well, won’t be buying those anytime soon…

SanDisk on Tuesday took a step it hopes will transform the mobile media business, unveiling a storage technology called TrustedFlash that integrates digital rights management (DRM) into a flash memory card.

The addition of DRM will motivate providers of music, games, movies and other content to sell those products for mobile phones, either in the form of cards sold at retail stores or as downloadable content that can be transferred to a TrustedFlash card, said Eli Harari, president and chief executive officer of SanDisk. Currently, most content for mobile devices is locked to a particular device, partly because of concerns about piracy.

TrustedFlash will be rolled out in the fourth quarter of this year, Harari said. It is available now to original equipment manufacturers in miniSD, microSD and SD card formats, according to SanDisk. At a news conference Tuesday at the CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment show in San Francisco, SanDisk, EMI Group PLC and Virgin Records America Inc. announced that a version of the Rolling Stones’ album “A Bigger Bang” on a TrustedFlash microSD or miniSD card is set to go on sale in select retail stores in November for US$39.99. It will include band images and links to other Rolling Stones albums that the consumer could buy, Harari said. [Read the rest]