(
Secure
Digital
Music
Initiative) An earlier digital rights management (DRM) system backed by more than 200 companies, including the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Sony, Warner, BMG, EMI and Universal, the top five music production companies. Announced in late 1998 and designed to combat illegal copying once and for all, SDMI never came to fruition because it required cooperation from too many hardware and software vendors. See
DRM and
RIAA.