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Disney Close To Unveiling New "DVD Killer"
Uncle Rummy writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that Disney is close to releasing a new system that will sell permanent, multi-device access to digital media. The system, dubbed Keychest, is being positioned as an answer to consumer concerns about purchasing digital media that are locked to a small number of devices, and thus as a way to finally shift media sales from an ownership model to an access model. They claim that such a service would reduce the risk of losing access to content as a result of a single vendor going out of business, as purchased content would remain available from other vendors. However, they do not seem to have addressed the question of what happens to customers' access to purchased content if the Keychest service itself is discontinued."
I mean, does the solution here have to be complicated?
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
They continue to try and convince the world that THEIR problem is actually the world's problem. No. People LIKE owning. We don't like 'accessing'. If I want to own a movie, I pay the cost to watch it no more than 3 times. If I want to 'access' a movie with a huge screen and fantastic sound, then I go to a theater and pay less than 1/3 that cost. If you want to charge for access instead of ownership, without the enhanced screen and audio, then you have to charge a lot less than ownership. If Disney's new system is going to be priced like ownership, no one will use it.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Why do that, when they can just make sure that people are punished for copying? Make it not worth the risk to copy.
How do you plan on doing that? The risk of getting caught is infinitesmial, so in order for the expected payoff to be negative you would need enormous fines. Even larger than the 80,000 per track Jammie Thomas faces. And still, people would keep copying in the expectation that "it could never happen to me".
The only other option is to make it much harder to copy by locking down our general purpose computing hardware, which would destroy the US's technological advantage.
Neither of these cases are at all sustainable. We do not need an unwinnable "war on copyright violation" in the vein of the "war on drugs". The only sensible solution is to understand that the world has changed, and that some business models are not viable anymore.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The system, dubbed Keychest, is being positioned to lock our customers into a DRM system, so that we can squeeze every penny out of them...
There, fixed that for you Disney.
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
The thing that they have of value is the ability to produce new films
I have to disagree. The one thing that Disney can do like no one else, and which is therefore their primary value, is merchandising the crap out of existing content. When was the last time you saw a good Disney movie (Pixar doesn't count)? When was the last time you saw Disney produce original content that even its current target audience won't cringe at in a few years?
For crying out loud, they're releasing a double-feature of Toy Story 1 and 2 in 3D now! Creatively, Disney is dead. Their saving grace in that department is Pixar. And Disney knows that - which is exactly why they're focusing so much on merchandise, 3D, theme parks, copyright protection, and now this scheme. They know they can't create new content. That's why they're coming up with a million ideas on how to sell you old stuff again. And again. And again.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Oh c'mon, it's not about online movies. This is yet another try at switching users from purchase to long-term rental, in the face of clear evidence that consumers do not want this. Disney clearly hasn't learned anything from DIVX and the 48 hour self-destructing DVD. They seem to think that all they need to do is find the right technology and the right marketing technique, and they can continue to depends on rebuys for a significant part of their revenue stream, despite that business model being dead since the VHS days.
When I purchase a movie, I don't want the content to be out in "the cloud", depending on services that will inevitably go TU some day, or depend on "phoning home" for permission to play the media I have purchased. I want a physical, non-encumbered archival copy, else it's just a high priced rental, competing unsuccessfully against dirt-cheap rentals like Netflix.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.