MUMBAI: Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology provider Contentguard has announced that Time Warner has become a strategic investor.

In this way the media conglomerate has joined existing long-term strategic investor Microsoft Corp which recently increased its investment. Time Warner, Microsoft and Contentguard purchased substantially all of the ownership held by Xerox, which was the source of ContentGuard's original technology. Xerox will retain a small equity interest in the company. .

An official release informs that working in equal collaboration, Time Warner and Microsoft expect to closely work with Contentguard to further develop ContentGuard's rich portfolio of intellectual property and promote continued development and innovation in the areas of digital distribution and DRM.

Contentguard CEO Michael Miron added, "This is a significant milestone, not only for ContentGuard but for the digital content distribution market in general. Together with Microsoft's, Time Warner's input into our company's direction will accelerate the pace of development for the new standards and technologies that we champion. This is vital to the market's ability to act on the potential of digital content and give more choice and value to customers."

Time Warner senior VP Ron Grant added, "This announcement marks an important step in our work on DRM, as well as in our collaboration with Microsoft on this key initiative. With its portfolio of fundamental technologies Contentguard is helping to create standards for use in DRM solutions. Together with Contentguard and Microsoft, among other partners, we will continue to work toward the day when we can successfully protect content and offer consumers exciting new digital media products and services."