Cisco's John Chambers wants to help music industry with DRM & "the paradox of revenue generation"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Pretty interesting, following on the heels of Apple busting its ass to do away with DRM in the iTunes Store. Who actually thought the recording industry would just accept that, or that a Chambers or someone of his ilk wouldn't step into the breach?

Cisco announced it was expanding an existing deal with the world's third largest music company, Warner Music Group Corp, to build and manage websites for more artists including Grammy-nominated rock band Paramore and singer Trey Songz.

Media companies like music labels have had a tense relationship with Silicon Valley companies in recent years as their Web technology has enabled consumers to bypass traditional media's established business models.

Cisco's Eos media system is a new software service that helps build and maintain websites featuring music and video as well as social networking. Chambers said it could help music companies find more profitable business models amid a shift to online music sharing and downloading.

"We face a transition that is a paradox in many ways. The consumption of music is up almost in double digits in terms of demand and yet the revenue generation is down about the same," Chambers told reporters over the company's Telepresence video conferencing system.

Many in the media world have felt that technology companies have not done enough to protect the digital media copyrights of everything from songs to movies.

"Instead of Silicon Valley and the entertainment industry almost working against each other, it's saying, how do we work together to capture these tipping points," Chambers said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090812/music_nm/us_cisco_warner_music