Content security provider Widevine today announced it would integrate its content protection platform with Microsoft Silverlight, the company’s crossbrowser, crossplatform media plug-in for the Web. The partnership marks the first time Microsoft has worked with a third-party digital rights management (DRM) content security company.

Widevine’s platform works across any network — including hybrid IP networks, any format and any device, enabling the monetization of content through advertising. The Hollywood studio-approved, crossplatform content security is based on DRM standards and is in use today by both content providers and studios to encrypt and protect premium content offerings, which can now also be delivered in Silverlight.

“To have [Microsoft] partner with Widevine to utilize our DRM with customers is certainly quite a big validation statement,” said Brian Baker, CEO of Widevine. “I think that there is some things that we do very uniquely in the marketplace for our customers. We have proven scalability to many, many simultaneous users. The second is that we are platform and format independent. We can deliver to a Mac or PC or portable media players. Thirdly, we are the only available solution on the market to protect against those hundreds of different software packages that record content on the PC or Mac. That recording of content and oftentimes removal of the ad inventory for redistribution is a major problem.”

Microsoft’s Silverlight delivers next-generation media and interactive applications for the Web, including video. Through the partnership with Widevine, when a consumer selects a Silverlight-based episode or movie, Widevine’s DRM will protect the content during delivery, storage and playback in a browser. Additionally, post-decryption digital copy protection will continue to monitor, detect and respond to the screen scraping and similar utilities available on the Internet. Baker said Widevine is aimed at protecting the company against the multibillion-dollar a year problem of piracy.

“Microsoft’s partnership with us and this announcement is evidence of that fact that their customer set is asking for the technologies that we provide — a higher level of protection that is not tied to any specific format or platform,” Baker said. “Because we are not tied to any specific platform, we are a much more customer friendly. You’ve heard the consumer complaints that DRM is restrictive. Well, it’s only restrictive when it doesn’t interoperate with all the platforms formats that someone might want to utilize.”

Widevine’s DRM works for both IPTV customers operating in closed networks and over the open Internet and with browsers running on the Mac OS and Windows operating systems. The technology is on display at the NAB Show this week.