That story we brought you a few weeks about Sony seeding the creation of an Open Market in digital video – basically by putting some kind of trust authority above multiple DRMs ‘ has been partly announced, although there are no technical details yet, and it is being called the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), a similar name given to a paper that Sony staff have given.
It is being billed as a consortium with Warner Brothers, Fox, NBC Universal, Sony, Paramount Pictures and Comcast along with retailer Best Buy and technology giants Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, Philips, Toshiba and Verisign.
Although there are very few details outlined, this has the size of one of those talking shops where because not all of the vested interests involved can be resolved, ends up doing nothing. But let’s hope not, because it is clear what this is aimed at. Each of the companies has invested some money and Mitch Singer, chief technology officer at Sony Pictures will be the lead architect.
The idea is that they will create co-operation between various technologies so that all of their entertainment can be consumed on any device. Any, that is, except an iPod or iPhone.
A DECE device would be able to have an identity under any of the DRMs or delivery mechanisms so that it would be able to play the content sold by ‘any’ entertainment service. This is clearly a stab at Apple and its proprietary iTunes Store, which only sells music that can play on a device which has the Fairplay DRM ‘ an Apple device.
DECE would offer film especially, which could be protected on any device but also allow copying to other devices and burning into DVDs without removing the DRM, so not risking the content becoming pirated by the average user. And content would not be losable, because it could be stored in a rights locker and retrieved from there from any DECE registered device.
Apple just couldn’t join the organization since Apple is really the target of the initiative, but DECE members have said Apple would be welcome and its studio partner Disney has been approached and although it has not yet joined in, is in a wait and see mode.
Faultline will be getting a briefing on the technology in the coming weeks, but we continue to think that it is based on the Sony and Philips owned Intertrust’ ideas. There is little point in not going ahead with this approach, since every member is being killed by Apple’s iTunes on content sales and the only way around a proprietary lock in is with an open environment. However it is going to take a monumental effort to get all those power bases to agree on anything.