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."

Comments

Can I avoid this simply by avoiding Disney?

[oldspewey]

I mean, does the solution here have to be complicated?

Re:Can I avoid this simply by avoiding Disney?

[TheMeuge]

In order to provide the most choice, freedom, and protection for consumers, use of Keychest will become mandatory.

Re:Can I avoid this simply by avoiding Disney?

[ColdWetDog]

I mean, does the solution here have to be complicated?

For you, no. All you have to do is 1) purchase the DVD (or whatever), 2) rip it to a hard drive, 3) transcode to whatever format the playing device will accept (MPEG, AVI, MP3, whatever 4) transfer it to the device 5) enjoy 6) Backup original so you don't lose or destroy it. Repeat as desired.

For Mush-for-Brains average consumer - it might be a bit much to expect. Hence, other ideas.

Re:Can I avoid this simply by avoiding Disney?

[camperdave]

I'd ask if you're new here, but your UID suggests you may be one of the original bearded ones.

It's amazing what you can buy on eBay these days.

Re:Can I avoid this simply by avoiding Disney?

[Kulfaangaren!]

On April 21st 2011, Keychest becomes self aware and realized that the only way to protect Disney's content is to terminate all human life. Keychest takes control of the worlds nuclear arsenal and attacks. Mysteriously, sales plummet.

Re:Can I avoid this simply by avoiding Disney?

[jdgeorge]

I'd ask if you're new here, but your UID suggests you may be one of the original bearded ones.

Food for thought: Early Slashdotters were just as mentally handi-capable as the recent Slashdotters.

Re:Can I avoid this simply by avoiding Disney?

[Hognoxious]

Low 5 digit numbers indicate people who became unemployed in the original dotcom crash. Low 5 digit numbers who still post ... form your own conclusion.

Re:Can I avoid this simply by avoiding Disney?

[davester666]

No, sales go up. With everybody dead, it realizes there is nothing to stop it from using identity theft to get everybody to buy all Disney merchandize at full retail price...

Re:Can I avoid this simply by avoiding Disney?

[pipedwho]

No, he's using the same 80x25 computer monitor he had when he created his Slashdot account.

Disney sells product that solves Disney's problem.

[gurps_npc]

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.

Watermark

[iamacat]

Watermarked content can be played on unlimited number of devices, but can not be posted to thepiratebay. Pirates can attempt conversion, but by the time you are sure you stripped all possible watermarking techniques, the video is so blurry people will buy a legit version anyway. This currently works for Apple/Amazon audio with zero issues. It's too sad that Disney wants both legal and technical special treatment to keep protecting Mickey Mouse.

Re:Out of Business?

[oldspewey]

what if Disney itself goes out of business?

Then all is lost. You will be too busy fighting for daily survival - trying to outwit gangs of bandits, scrounging or stealing whatever scraps of food you can find, amputating your own gangrenous limb using nothing but rusty garden tools - to think about movies or entertainment of any kind.

Re:Out of Business?

[Hatta]

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.

Dead DRM remote-authorization services.

[Animats]

If you bought into any of these, you're a sucker. They don't work any more.

• Divx (1998-2001). "Disposable" DVDs tied to a remote authorization system. Promoted by Circuit City and Thompson. Content now unplayable.
• WalMart Music (2007-2008) Downloadable music tied to an authorization server. Content now unplayable.
• PlaysForSure (2004-2008) Microsoft system. Downloadable music tied to an authorization server. Content from AOL MusicNow (closed), Musicmatch Jukebox (closed), Yahoo! Music Unlimited (closed), Spiralfrog (closed), MTV URGE (closed), MSN Music (closed), Musicmatch Jukebox (closed), Ruckus Network (closed) now generally unplayable, although exit strategies exist. Authorization servers were to be shut down August 31, 2008, but were kept up after that date.

Next, Disney.

There's a typo...

[thestudio_bob]

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...

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.

Re:Disney sells product that solves Disney's probl

[NeutronCowboy]

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.

Re:Disney sells product that solves Disney's probl

[jedidiah]

This bears repeating.

If not for Disney, you would already be able to take home your Bluray of Snow White
and suck it straight into iTunes where it would be immediately accessable to any of
your AppleTV units.

Similar non-apple solutions would exist including one from Microsoft and one from Tivo.

Any "barriers" to your grandmother having Desperate Housewives ripped to the rediculously
oversized hard drive in her clone crapbox PC are artificial. Technology really has squat
to do with it.

Re:Out of Business?

[Chosen Reject]

If we're going to go the law route, I say there oughtta be a law that says if you use DRM then you don't get copyright protection. With patents, you either keep your stuff locked up, or you publish it and get the government to enforce exclusivity for you. Same should be true with copyrights. You can have the government enforce exclusive rights to copy, or you can use DRM and try locking it up yourself.

Re:Out of Business?

[R2.0]

"Then all is lost. You will be too busy fighting for daily survival - trying to outwit gangs of bandits, scrounging or stealing whatever scraps of food you can find, amputating your own gangrenous limb using nothing but rusty garden tools - to think about movies or entertainment of any kind."

Yeah, but what do I do when I get OUT of Disneyworld?

DVD killer? Really?

[roc97007]

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.