4C Entity

4C Entity (Four Company Entity) is the industry organization leading the development, adoption and promotion of interoperable technology solutions for the authorized sharing of premium content. The consortium consists of IBM, Intel, Matsushita and Toshiba and has a goal of creating a common platform for Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies. It has been behind the development of Content Protection for Recordable Media (CPRM) and the Content Protection for Prerecorded Media (CPPM).

The CPRM scheme was implemented successfully into Secure Digital (SD) cards but it is a feature in little use today and is largely unsupported by card reader hardware and software. Regardless, all manufacturers of SD cards are required to implement it. DVD-Audio uses the CPPM scheme for copy protection. The 4C Entity also expressed interest in developing a CSS2 copy protection technology to replace the original CSS (Content Screambling System) in use with protected DVD-Video.

4C Entity also created a comprehensive framework for unifying various content protection technologies. The Content Protection System Architecture (CPSA) was developed to integrate major existing content protection technologies from the personal computing and consumer electronics industries, as well as new technologies as they emerge in the years ahead.