A coalition of studios and technology companies operating under the industry standard DRM called Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) has selected Neustar to operate a database that is intended to limit piracy.
The intent is to allow consumers to watch content they have purchased on all their CE gear including PCs, Smartphones and TV sets. The database serves as a “digital rights locker” for consumers. DECE said that in its own polling, 30% of customers are “highly comfortable” with the digital locker system.
The DECE technology is still under development, but it has a stated goal of providing a “consistent user interface and experience” to bolster “convenience and ease of use.” No launch date has been announced.
DECE’s marketing banner is “Buy Once, Play Anywhere.”
Mitch Singer, president of DECE and Sony Pictures Entertainment’s CTO, said consumers are waiting on a technology that simplifies the process of playing their purchased content on all their devices. The inability to do that, he said, has held back the growth of the download video market.
Singer blamed the confusion caused by multiple proprietary standards, no doubt including Apple’s DRM, with limiting the market. He pointed out that a movie purchased from one online video service might play on only one brand of smartphones.
DECE is “optimal for collaboration” because it “standardizes video content” and removes file-structure barriers, Singer said during a panel at this year’s CES.
Disney is the only major studio that does not belong to DECE. Disney pal Apple is also not a member. Lisa Hook, Neustar’s president and COO, said the company’s core business is “managing complex ecosystems around portability.”
Just a day after the DECE made its announcement, Disney showed some a private demonstration of its alternative online distribution method, dubbed KeyChest.
Both platforms attempt to make legal downloads more appealing by dealing with compatibility across multiple devices from one point-of-sale.
The big difference between the two is that Disney is putting the finishing touches to its system before it actively seeks partners – a good thing to present to partners, but it’ll require everyone bending to Disney’s will.
No one else is officially on board yet, but Apple’s non-membership in DECE is a good sign that it’ll be a key master soon.
So far, those who have seen the service have been impressed. According to the Los Angeles Times, the locker gave “purchasers near-immediate access to their movies across multiple platforms (computer, TV, mobile phone) and even across service providers.”
Disney’s Arnaud Robert showed the paper’s Jon Healey how retailers and service providers access KeyChest to share customer purchase information. Healey wrote that this gave consumers access through the providers’ Web sites or set-top boxes and quickly gave access to movie files legally copied from a purchased DVD on a PC “without resorting to a home network.”
Both systems are going to face making content a significant purchase instead of a one-time rental. With the sheer amount of connected CE on display at CES this year, users could easily never be without a device that can rent films.
One area that which Disney will have a leg up on is children’s programming. Not only would having unlimited access to this to make family vacations and car trips easier, but kids could watch their favorite programming on a variety of devices, freeing up their parents to use the TV or PC without having to wait for Bob the Builder to finish his recent construction. Again.
DECE will do well, since it already has a wide variety of partners and will likely have access to a wider range of content through those partners; it just needs to get to the software finish line. Disney has the software locked down, but now KeyChest needs to find a broad range of supporters to truly compete.
The last issue for these two approaches to address is the cost of such a service. How much extra would users have to pay for content? If they have to pay per additional device to access the content, both will be big factors in the users’ decision to support the initiatives?
A likely compromise in all of this would be to allow the first few devices and first few pieces of content to connect for free and from there, allow users to pay any extra when choosing to link either a device or a piece of content. Eventually, this can be included in the price of content and devices; initially, though it could appear too hostile of a move.