To ensure secure content delivery, the Motion Picture Experts Group (MPEG) has dedicated significant effort to the digital rights management (DRM) issues. MPEG is now moving from defining only hooks to proprietary systems (e.g., in MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Version 1) to specifying a more encompassing standard in intellectual property management and protection (IPMP). MPEG feels that this is necessary in order to achieve MPEG's most important goal: interoperability. The design of the IPMP Extension framework also considers the complexity of the MPEG-4 standard and the diversity of its applications. This architecture leaves the details of the design of IPMP tools in the hands of applications developers, while ensuring the maximum flexibility and security. This paper first briefly describes the background of the development of the MPEG-4 IPMP Extension. It then presents an overview of the MPEG-4 IPMP Extension, including its architecture, the flexible protection signaling, and the secure messaging framework for the communication between the terminal and the tools. Two sample usage scenarios are also provided to illustrate how an MPEG-4 IPMP Extension compliant system works.