Technology designed to prevent mobile phone users sharing copyrighted ring tones, graphics and games is to be developed under a new agreement between IBM and Nokia. It is the first step towards the protection of copyright of the music, video and console-quality games that could be shared between future mobile devices.

The companies will develop a new open standard for copyright protection on mobile devices through the Open Mobile Alliance, a new consortium of more than 200 companies developing mobile phone software and hardware.

Copyrighted songs and films can currently be copied using personal computers and shared easily via the internet. For the entertainment industry, file-sharing networks such as Napster epitomised this effortless copyright infringement.

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