Microsoft gets a patent for a distributed DRM system that works in P2P networks.

The Patent number 7,594,275 is labeled: "Digital rights management system" using encrypted public and private keys as the licensing mechanism.

The patent was filed in 2003 when DRM was still alive. Since then the music industry relaxed the policing of copyright infringers and has moved away from the DRM model.

Now DRM is more prevalent in the movie industry, which is fighting the same battle that the music industry did with the same unfortunate results.

Information Week’s Alexander Wolfe makes a case that content owners could still use DRM in legitimate P2P music-swapping networks at some point in the future, “when peer-to-peer networks reemerge from their current sub-rosa position and become popular, brand, public-facing methods of distributing content,” enabling Microsoft to reap considerable royalties. P2P technology has a place in distribution as exemplified by its use by streaming music service Spotify.

Wolfe asserts that “the whole ‘Web wants to be free’ versus ‘evil corporations with their DRM’ argument…hasn’t been resolved,” despite evidence that 95% of digital music acquired by consumers today is illegally downloaded. Apple dropped DRM from its market-leading music store after consumers resisted DRM to the point that the major music labels finally gave up.

Is this patent coming a bit too late?