Standard bodies are not charging money. Standards bodies have to get some money in order to do the job they have to do. SDMI is no different. We received some feedback from a management company that they tried to join and were rebuked. You must have a concrete business interest in secure digital music.
People managing rights for artists are indeed legitimate parties.
They don't have a specific business interest in secure digital music, but they are legitimate. It is possible to join this group and send your people to SDMI meetings in an observer capacity. You're not allowed to make a technical proposal, and indeed, your not supposed to do technical proposal because you don't have technical competence. This is hypothetical, but the artist managers of the future are going to be a lot different than they are right now in the sense that if an artist they manage has the rights to their masters revert back to them, or that artist gets dropped from their label, it might very well be the manager's business model is to help guide that artist towards selling music via some method of digital distribution. I'm telling you that by joining the AIC committee they may join in doing things.