DRM software is designed to protect copyright in material such as music, films or software, that is stored or transmitted digitally. It works by encrypting the content and managing how that content is used.
The problem at the moment is that there is not a single DRM standard, which means that a person buying a DVD might be able to play it on his DVD player but not his computer, because the computer uses a different DRM product that cannot read the DVD.
Sun hopes to tackle this problem by generating cross-industry collaboration in the standard.
"We are entering the Participation Age – an age where individuals are creating and supplying the news as much as they are consuming it. Mobile phones play music and take pictures, high-quality video is delivered to almost any device on earth, and legitimate global P2P networks are being created that will transform the way we live," said Sun President and Chief Operating Officer Jonathan Schwartz.
"The demand for new network services is exploding. Incredible economic value is waiting to be tapped, but we must not allow progress to be stifled by clumsy, self-defeating internet tollgates in the form of a monolithic, closed digital rights management system," he added.
The Open Media Commons would protect intellectual property, but encourage participation and innovation, according to Schwartz. To this end, he announced that Sun would immediately share its internal Sun Labs program Project DReaM (DRM/everywhere available) with the community.
The software firm will face competition from many sources, not least Apple, Microsoft and Sony, all of which have their own DRM software. The Coral Consortium, a group that seeks to resolve the interoperability issues between different DRM systems by giving the various technologies acommon language, is also active in the market.