You know who's missing from the
Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (or DECE) consortium? A group bent on redefining the way we buy, access, and play digital content with a membership roster that includes Best Buy, Cisco, Comcast, Fox, HP, Intel, Lions Gate, Microsoft, NBC Universal, Paramount Pictures, Philips, Sony, Toshiba, VeriSign, and Warner Bros? Right, Apple and Disney, the latter landing a lengthy piece in the
Wall Street Journal describing Disney's own distributed content ownership scheme that goes by the code-name, "Keychest;" a DRM solution that instantly provides access to content on any participating service (digital download store, mobile-phone provider, or on-demand cable for example) when a purchase is made. Keychest does this though a system of unique keys that are issued when a movie is purchased. The keys are then stored in a central repository (aka, chest) that participants would query. In this scenario, the movies would reside with each delivery company on their respective systems -- movies would not be downloaded. On the bright side, if a content provider went out of business you would still have access to your films elsewhere. The proposed solution would work with Blu-ray disc purchases too, since BD players are internet-enabled by design -- DVD keys would have to be manually typed in by the user. So in effect, you'd now be paying once for ownership rights to the film, not to the physical media. If it sounds similar to DECE it is, but Disney claims that its approach is more streamlined and you know, better.
Disney has been quietly courting other movie studios with Keychest and intends to go public with its technology next month. Of course, with Steve Jobs listed as Disney's largest stockholder and the rumored Apple tablet being a media-redefining device that will single-handedly save newspapers while ridding the world of hunger and ignorance, well, you can see where the speculation is headed.
[Thanks, Demopublican]
posted Oct 22nd 2009 7:38AM
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sounds like a great idea. if Disney can tackle this and make it easy for consumers. it would be AMAZING
I'll stick to just buying the disc. They look so neat in my Blu-Ray rack.
Aren't they saying that even if you buy the blu-ray disk, you'll get a code that gives you access to "your" movie on your other devices?
So even if you want the physical disk, it sounds like you get "for free" the ability to watch the movie on whatever device you want.
If this is an accurate interpretation, then it sounds like Disney is the one media company who actually "gets" what all us consumers want -- we don't want to buy the same thing 37 times, and we want to be able to use it anywhere. Sounds good to me.
This would explain why there's been little word from Apple on TV, and the dropping of the low end model and a lowering of the price of the high-end TV.
Buy once, view anywhere...that sounds familiar.....hmm..OH YA, DVD
I'm 68 years old which certainly colors my reaction to this scheme. While I was growing up, going to the local theater often, the studios had an absolute lock on films. There was no videotape and no DVD. You saw a movie when and If a studio cared to release it. If you really liked the film and wanted to see it again a few years later - tough. The studios had the physical prints and they decided if a film would go into re-release and when.
When videotape came along it seemed like the stranglehold was over. Studios were discovering there was money to be made selling copies of films to collectors. DVD continued this. HDTV and blu ray allows consumers to experience something quite similar to the theater experience. But all this "freedom" could be about to vanish.
What Disney is describing is not a purchase. The consumer has not acquired any rights to the film. The studio can still decided a particular title is not generating enough revenue and pull it out of the cloud. See how far you get trying to make a case that this in some way infringes on your rights as a viewer.
This Keychest nonsense will only, truly, be a purchase if and only if Disney also includes the right for the "owner/consumer" to burn their own blu ray copy.
Oh and by the way, wasn't it that group of blood thirsty, cutthroats known as pirates who first introduced us the idea of a keychest?
When you buy media, you acquire no rights anyways. When you buy a song off iTunes and you use that in a broadcast show or for profit, you are in heavy violation of copyrights. And sure, we have the right to backup our media or transcode it to play on our iPod for personal use, but you technically still have no rights. I'm kind torn on this. I'm an Apple fanboy, but yet another DRM scheme doesn't sit well with me. If Disney can get together with all or even most of the other studios, and this is both a physical and digital medium, than I think we'll all grow to accept it.
-Brian
I think Apple is working with Disney on something big. There is a reason the new iMacs are 1080P with no BluRay drive.
Excuse me for being doubtful about Apple and "play anywhere" concept. They've never been open with anything they've done. The company is built on proprietary hardware and software.
Would I rent a movie this way? Yes. Would I purchase a movie this way? No