"Formerly known as "Project Hudson," the effort will kick off publicly Monday, with the announcement of new digital rights management (DRM) specification from industry group the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), as well as the formation of a new licensing body led by Intel, Nokia, Panasonic and Samsung that will promote the technology, according to sources. Toshiba was originally a member of the licensing group but has since backed out.

Entertainment companies have embraced wireless devices as a means to market their artists and as another avenue to sell their goods. Many major record companies create ring tones, song snippets that replace a phone's prepackaged ring. A growing number of TV stations sell, usually through carriers, 15- to 30-second downloadable videos based on sports highlights or news broadcasts. While it's too early to measure the revenues from watching television on a cell phone, the market for ring tones and downloadable music for cell phones was $4 billion worldwide last year."