CHRIS BARLAS is a founder and senior member of Rightscom, the digital rights management consultancy, based in London. With a background in TV, in the mid 1990s he led the Imprimatur project (the first major pan-European digital rights management initiative, supported by the European Commission) and gained an extensive knowledge of Internet based IPR protection and trading.

Since the founding of Rightscom, Chris has developed working relationships with major rights holders and technology companies, gaining insights into the needs of all parties in the value chain. Chris has been active in the standards environment where he is regular contributor to MPEG. Chris edited a major European Commission report on standards for digital rights management and is a co-author of a WIPO report on DRM published in 2003. He has contributed articles to IEEE and to the recently MPEG-21 book. Chris has been a frequent speaker on DRM issues at conferences on both sides of the Atlantic and in East Asia.