Disney To Test "Keychest", A New Way To Own Movies

[admin]

Disney is trying out a new way to "sell" movies to the public. Dubbed "Keychest", the idea is simple. Instead of selling users a copy of a movie on disc or as a download, you are instead sold a "right" to the movie, for non commercial usage of course.

Possibly using cloud storage, you are sold a digital key, or password, which then allows you unlimited access to the movie on any device which supports Keychest. It's does not appear to be a form of renting, as you pay once and get unlimited access, but it does use DRM to prevent unauthorised copying. However, assuming playback support is wide, you won't need to make copies, as you can simply unlock the movie using your key/password on the device you wish to use it on and then away you go.

It's unknown whether this system would allow local cached copies of the content, to allow offline access (including transfer to USB storage, or DVDs) which would be necessary for those with shaky connections. It's also unknown how many simultaneous viewings of the same movie using the same key is allowed.

And of course, whether consumers embrace the idea of not actually having anything to hold on to when they make their purchase is another thing.

More:

http://www.bigpicturebigsound.com/Disney-Wants-to-Unlock-Digital-Keychest.shtml

[drfsupercenter]

So it's like Digital Copy but you can use the key as many times as you want?

*Sees someone's key end up on ThePirateBay, problem solved*

Sounds stupid to me. Give me the DVD and I can play that back on as many devices I want, and nobody's gonna tell me otherwise.

[admin]

The key would obviously have some sort of playback limit, so only a few people can use it at any one time. And it if does end up being posted on TPB without permission, then the key would be revoked.

This is slightly different to the idea of purchasing digital content with DRM, or digital copies, as the key is no locked to any particular format. In fact, purchasing the key may even entitle you to a disc based version of the movie as well. Or the Blu-ray/DVD version comes with the key which you can use online to download the movie in any format you wish, as opposed to having a pre-included digital copy on an included disc.

Right now, buying a movie means you're buying a movie in a certain format that, legally (US DMCA), you may not be able to transcode or convert to another format. "Keychest" changes the definition of buying a movie to buying the legal rights to view the movie for you (and your immediate family, probably), in any shape or form. Obviously, the studios would want you to only use their approved downloads, but the license could* mean that since you have the rights to the movie, you can go ahead and download the pirated version from TPB and still not technically break any laws.

* Could, but also likely to be not allowed, since I'm sure the license will set out the limits as to how you can obtain the content, and what the content must come with (ie, DRM).

[drfsupercenter]

So that "any format" can be an unprotected DIVX AVI file?

It's still gonna be limited, really only Windows Media and QuickTime based formats can have DRM, and therefore they're no good.

As far as the DMCA goes - well, if I buy a movie on DVD and convert it to a portable format for my Zune, I'd love to see the studios try to do something about that. They've got much bigger things to worry about - like why most of their movies suck these days... THAT'S the real cause of them not making money, not piracy.
And before DVDs were as popular as they are now, I remember someone's logic that said if you owned a movie on VHS it would be legal for you to download a DVD rip of the movie online (or even copy the disc from a rental store or something) since you already owned the rights to the movie. That's how they should keep it, IMO.

[Budreaux]

drf... you have to understand something.
Copyright protection comes at a price to the owner. They are practically forced to protect their copyright, each and every time, or else they set themselves up to lose ANY case in the future they decide to pursue. It isn;t just that someone wants to sue an individual for a single incident. It's the fat that they must pursue any known case or else they open a door for lawyers that would defend anyone else that tried to do the same.

They own the rights to the content, they must now protect it by legally approaching every known case as it occurs or else they lose the right to defend it in court.
that's a nutshell version of it, it;s much more complicated than that, but it;s the jest of it.

If you wanna say they just need to forget protecting it and let the piracy go, then you have no idea of how business/corporations work. They are bound by these responsibilities.

[drfsupercenter]

No, I'm saying they need to lighten up a bit.

Think of when copyrights were first formed, in the 1800s... obviously it was mainly for printed material, and it had nothing to do with how you used content (You could buy a book and share it with everyone you know and nobody would care.)
It was mainly for monetary purposes - so that nobody else could publish the same book saying they wrote it, and try to make money off a work that wasn't theirs.

How did that escalate into telling people what they can and can't do with something they bought? I'm not saying I'm in favor of people filming movies out of theaters (and who watches those? It's not even worth it IMO)... I'm saying they should do away with copy protection on DVDs, as people who want to copy them will copy them anyway, all it does is cause more and more frustration.

There wouldn't need to be a "Digital copy" program if they just let you rip DVDs... they can try to milk the cash cow for now but how long will it last? Rips of movies on DVDs always show up online, often times days before the official release... and it's not exactly hard to find, even for people who don't know how to rip DVDs themselves.

[admin]

There's a fine balance between protecting copyright holder's rights, and that of the consumer. The balance is very much tipped towards copyright holders at the moment, if you examine legislations and the mostly improper use of DRM. Disney is at least trying to address this imbalance, but it's hard to say whether they're doing it the right way or not.

I think it should be made implicit that if you buy a movie, then you have the rights to convert or copy it as long as it remains under private usage by you and your household. Authentication is a pain, but I think most people are willing to live with digital watermarking, to prevent the copied files being shared publicly. The studios can make back money by exploring digital distribution, to sell more content more cheaply to a much larger group of people.

[Budreaux]

But the copy protection against ripping is just that. It's them fullfilling their obligations to protect their copyright. What they decide to do from their to go after those that get around it determines what they can or can not do down the road to other offenders.

They are not going to just remove copy protection and allow people to make copies of their content, that just isn't realistic or good business. Like it or not, it is about business and they have to be profitable in order for them to continue. Something that is on our favor as well.

[admin]

The problem is that copy protection doesn't really work, that's especially true of DVDs. Even the most sophisticated protection can be broken, and just one person who breaks it can then upload it for the rest. And the worst kinds of DRM will annoy legitimate customers while not doing a thing to prevent copying, which can hurt the bottom line as well.

If it is just the legal protection and to fulfill their obligation to do something to protect their content, then watermarking should be enough. Those that want to remove it will find themselves on the wrong side of the DMCA, and if watermarking is done in a way that's transparent to most users, then they can't argue they're doing it to for ease of use reasons, which is a valid reason when DRM is implemented badly.

I think what Disney is trying to achieve here is to redefine (or rather, define more clearly), just what "buying a movie" means. The digital revolution had made redundant many of the ideas that were obvious before - with files being so easily shared and copied without loss of quality, the idea of buying the physical media that holds the content cannot go on forever, when physical media might not even exist one day.

DRM was an attempt to lock digital data to the physical media, or to create a "virtual" media for which the content is forever linked to (authentication servers and such). I think that experiment has failed, a hard lesson the music industry had to learn first hand now that almost all MP3s are DRM-free. The other industries haven't given up yet, but they will have to. And in the end, the copyright holders will be the ones that will benefit most from these changes which they oppose so vehemently right now.

[drfsupercenter]

DRM was an attempt to lock digital data to the physical media, or to create a "virtual" media for which the content is forever linked to (authentication servers and such). I think that experiment has failed, a hard lesson the music industry had to learn first hand now that almost all MP3s are DRM-free. The other industries haven't given up yet, but they will have to. And in the end, the copyright holders will be the ones that will benefit most from these changes
which they oppose so vehemently right now.

Well DRM worked when it first was introduced, probably because the general public didn't know what it was. With the iPod, people could buy songs in iTunes and play them back on their iPod, so they were happy. The problem arose when people like me bought a third-party mp3 player and wanted to use their iTunes tracks on it, and then realized you couldn't because Apple infected it with DRM.

I think the fact that DRM didn't work for music should be very clear that it won't work for videos - I'm still awaiting the day that iTunes becomes truly 100% DRM free, videos and all.
I mean, with sites like Amazon, they put a comment field in the mp3 saying it's from their site, so if it winds up on file-sharing it's easy to identify. iTunes took that a little further and actually puts the person's account name in there - which I disprove of, since even if I put a song on my friends iPod or something (hey, we all do that, right?) it'll show as being mine, and who knows what happens next?
And yes, it's possible to remove those "digital watermarks", people who get the latest and greatest DVD decrypting softwares can probably do it easily. But that's one that will always remain true - you simply cannot stop piracy. They should just appeal to the majority of people who do things legitimately instead of assuming the entire world is going to pirate it.

(They should start by making the Digital Copy transfers have no DRM, and see where that leads)

[Budreaux]

It doesn't matter that the protection is easy to get around, they know that, we all know they know that. What it does is fulfills their obligations to attempt to protect their content, thus preventing obstruction of legal process in future battles over infringements. Again, that's a nutshell version of a much longer and complicated explanation.

For the record, I agree with your last post completely Admin, I'm just not certain you understand my topic of discussion. I'm not defending them for using DRM, I'm merely attempting to explain why they will continue to do it, even though they know it is ineffective. Will they cease to use it? Sure they will, at least in it's current form. Will they look for and implement new strategies for protection, of course, they have to, the laws say they have to defend their copyright to retain it.

Dish Network and BEV went through the same situation. They were very lax on their anit-piracy measures because it brought them more subs. Anyone that was in the "hobby" had a legit basic sub for the valid code. That was then altered to open more channels but passed ECM'e (electronic counter measures to attempt to deactivate an invalid tier). Rival companies pressured the right lobbiest groups to force them to up their anti-piracy measures and helped to insure a more balanced sub base. DTV managed to lock their cards out, as far as most people know. All I'm trying to say is that there are requirements placed on copyright holders to take steps like DRM to protect it or lose the right to retain the copyright.

[admin]

For the record, I agree with your last post completely Admin, I'm just not certain you understand my topic of discussion. I'm not defending them for using DRM, I'm merely attempting to explain why they will continue to do it, even though they know it is ineffective. Will they cease to use it? Sure they will, at least in it's current form. Will they look for and implement new strategies for protection, of course, they have to, the laws say they have to defend their copyright to retain it.

That's right. The DMCA was created to protect DRM from being cracked, no matter how easy it was to do it. It was a two pronged approach that guarantees results (either the DRM is unbreakable through technological innovation, or you break the law by breaking it).

But I think their efforts went a bit too far, and it's still going too far with respect to three-strikes laws and all that. There is protecting your content through copyright, but then there's also shooting yourself in the foot with harsh DRM schemes that don't work and cause more problems than it solves, and laws that people do not want. Copyright was always about balancing the need to protect creativity, and the need for the public to be able to consume content freely (as in freedom, not as in cost free), there's very little in the concept of copyright about protecting the corporations which don't even produce the content in question, but merely act as gatekeepers for it (while exploiting those who do produce it). I hope the industry can get the balance right eventually, because they're not doing a very good job of it at the moment.

[Budreaux]

/agreed

and, just because it is a business doesn't mean they are all good businessmen. They have lost focus of the purpose and like a kid throwing a temper fit, they are doing the same by way of the courts.

Funny, when DirectTV was in it's hay day of fighting the hacker community, it was a load of fun. They even had their sense of humor about it. When they finally had enough, they got smart and went after the coders on the boards. It was easy to see who the talent was by way of hack codings. They found out who they were, and they were eventually arrested. DTV told them they could either go to jail or go to work for them. It was obvious what they decided to do because the ECM quality from DTV side greatly increased. BUT, those guys always left a backdoor for us, but the trick was we had to find it. DTV finally took their card production inhouse and developed a card that had better electronic security that Fort Knox, literally. The moral here is, they need to think of a different approach in tackling the problem and their best options may lie on the opposite side of the fence.