Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) was a forum formed in late 1998 ostensibly with the purpose of developing technology and rights management systems specifications that will protect once developed and installed, the playing, storing, distributing and performing of digital music.
It was composed of more than 200 IT, consumer electronics, security technology, ISP and recording industry companies, as well as authors, composers and publishing rightsholders (represented by CISAC and BIEM representatives, mainly from SGAE/SDAE (Gonzalo Mora Velarde and José Manuel Macarro), GEMA (Alexander Wolf und Thomas Kummer-Hardt), SACEM/SDRM (Aline Jelen, Catherine Champarnaud, Laurent Lemasson), MCPS/PRS (Mark Isherwood), ASCAP, BMI (Edward Oshanani), and SODRAC),
Specifically, the goals of the SDMI were to provide consumers with convenient access to music online and in new digital distribution systems, to apply digital rights management restrictions to the work of artists, and to promote the development of new music-related business and technologies. SDMI was a direct response to the widespread success of the MP3 file format.) the SDMI, RIAA and Verance Corporation threatened legal action under the auspices of the DMCA. The controversy about stifling of academic research resonated through scientific and cryptography circles until his paper was eventually published in 2001 after assurances from the United States Department of Justice that the DMCA would not be used to stifle legitimate research.
Demise
On October 15, 1999, Eric Scheirer, later a digital music analyst for Forrester Research, wrote an editorial for MP3.com titled "The End of SDMI" which declared that the group's true goal to fold the technology industry into an alliance that would guarantee the record industry's near monopoly over musical content had failed. It drew a rebuttal from the president of the SDMI, Dr. Leonardo Chiariglione. The SDMI has been inactive since May 18, 2001.
Chiariglione stepped down as SDMI's director in 2001, and later explained the reason for SDMI's halt after his departure as follows: