We've heard this about this dream so many times before, DRM that will make digital media as easy to use and as consumer friendly as a physical medium like DVD. We'd normally be quick to disregard this as yet another DRM "ecosystem" for digital media, but the list of players backing the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (or DECE) has us taking notice. As impossible as this seems, if anyone could make it happen, it'd be a group composed of: Best Buy, Cisco, Comcast, Fox, HP, Intel, Lions Gate, Microsoft, NBC Universal, Paramount Pictures, Philips, Sony, Toshiba, VeriSign, and Warner Bros -- yes, we also find it hard to believe that all these companies are working together. We'll have to wait until January at CES for the ins and outs of how this would actually work, but we do know it'll be based around a "rights locker" which will amount to a website where digital purchases will be stored -- we assume this is where VeriSign fits in. Oh, and Apple is noticeably absent from the list
posted Sep 13th 2008 6:11PM
What is totally missing from the article is that one company that may have the most DRMed content out there isn't represented. What about Apple?
Meh, screw Apple.
The problem with standardized DRM implementations is that once they're released, they can't be modified (unless a single entity controls the whole ecosystem, a la Apple). This is actually great for the consumer: consider that CSS and AACS are both cracked, and you can free your media content to play on any device you like, including Linux-based devices and those that don't pay in to the system, or are too old for the standard.
As long as they enable content resale/transfer, make it transparent to the user, and make it compatible across all platforms (either by making it open source or freely licensable and fully documented), I don't see a problem with it.
We can only hope. We may get compatibility across platforms, but surely not resale.
Engadget was quick to point out that Apple isn't on this list. Nor is Dell, Disney, Samsung, LG, and many other notables that would have to "fall in line".
One other thing that has me thinking... What is the significance of Best Buy being a member of this consortium? I'd be far more concerned about the electronic manufacturers and content providers being on the same page.
And, as mentioned above, if Best Buy is integral to this plan, then there are many other companies that need to be on board, like Wal-Mart and Target.
Best Buy can invest and cooperate in education of the masses of consumers. But Walmart is the king in this department, and unless they are on board, it will be hard to get anythign done.
Apple needs to be in due to Itunes not as a hardware manufacturer. But they likely never will be. They like their hardware and software systems closed and locked down, so they can derive the most profit.
Yeah, and Apple is noticeably present on the blu-ray board.
Digital downloads is not going to take off while it continues to be a mess of proprietary formats, proprietary DRM, and proprietary devices all tied to proprietary services. At most it will succeed for rentals where nobody cares about this stuff. Anyone who actually builds a purchased collection tied to Amazon, Apple, Microsoft or whoever's service is a moron.
If they really are building out an industry platform with proper key management then that's a massive leap forward. The devil is in the details of course. I wonder if they'd be better off junking DRM entirely and using watermarking to depress content sharing.