There's a lot going on at CES, and one of those things was a presentation by Disney explaining its
KeyChest concept. We attended and was surprised to learn that KeyChest has almost nothing to do with DRM. We were rolling our eyes when we heard
Disney proclaim that KeyChest was complementary to DECE, but now that we understand what KeyChest is, we agree. The easiest way to explain it is with an example and the most obvious to us is iTunes and Comcast. Both companies offer video on demand and use their own DRM to prevent copying. If both participated in KeyChest -- this isn't studio based -- and we bought a movie on iTunes, the next time we hit up Comcast VOD we'd be able to watch the same movie without paying again. The genius of the idea is how simple it is, basically the participants report your purchases to the KeyChest and query it to see what else you bought. It is a simple transaction, but Disney didn't tell us what strings were attached to join up, but did say that the product wasn't meant to be profitable, but of course would not operate at a loss either. The other obvious thing mentioned was that Disney realizes that the entire system is useless if it doesn't reach critical mass.
posted January 10th 2010 7:29AM
yay! not drm
@007
Hate to break it to you, but it says 'DRM' right there on the diagram. Three times.
@007
its still drm, just in another form
I'd suggest this is a slightly better idea than having things locked to one single protection scheme.
If all the keys get grouped together, then once you've paid for something you can access it elsewhere.
Disney aren't (probably!) going anywhere any time soon, but the smaller poxy little companies might. At least this way your purchases are getting a little more protection should the smaller company suddenly vanish, and you'll still be able to access your movies, just from another company..
@(Unverified)
I wouldn't classify it as DRM. From what I've read, and how its currently being explained, its more like "permission to stream". Disney just keeps track of all your purchases, which everyone else can look at for verification. Only problem is if you buy from Acme corp. why would Pinnacle ltd. want to use their bandwidth to stream you the media?
@credo
Well, I guess I shouldn't have inferred this was limited to streaming. The DRM you're looking at is simply the DRM from either Pinnacle or Acme (specific to those entities). The KeyChest is a back end "receipt" system as I said above.
Bandwidth shouldn't be an issue.
Disney's blu-ray combo-packs include a real DVD & a very DRMd Digital Copy (expires in 12 months.) They could adjust their DRM servers or use use p2p for delivery.
@73ChargerFan
Well, again, this isn't Disney specific. And P2Ping DRM media could pose an issue (unless they can add the DRM separately from a main server and allow the bulk of the media to come through the P2P cloud).
@EdZ Well technically there's DRM because you'll still be watching the same content you are now. The difference is you can get the DRMed content from multiple sources that sell it without having to illegally copy it. So if you buy a digital copy of something, it will definitely help if your computer crashes and you lose it. However, this really won't do anything if you rent a movie for 48 hours and want to "share" it with everyone on P2P.
What could happen, but unfortunately never will is buying a game on XBL and being able to download it free on PSN. That will probably be the most useful thing that could ever come of this, and I would love to see it happen. Even though I don't really need the game for both, I paid for a licensed game and should be able to play it on either system.
@EdZ right.. UNDER keychest.. it points to DRM gates that exist already. Keychest is a good thing.. but.. they are wading into troubled waters.. I pay $200 a month to comcast... why should I have to pay for daily show on my iphone? (lord knows, I don't...) I have Lilo&stitch on DVD AND VHS.. but still had to pay $3 to get it on demand..
Keychest is a step in the right direction.. but, the chest might just be pandora's box raising consumer expections of what fair is. IMO, if I bought it once--it's my license forever, period. I have no qulams over ripping DVD's or downloading an MP3 for the CD I have stashed away somewhere..
@007
So.... how do you unlock the KeyChest? With a Keyblade, I suppose?
"We attended and was surprised "...
@Paulo i can't believe i actually read that!
@shakerben
sounds like edit creep. change from "I attended" to "we attended". I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.
Let me know when this becomes adopted so I can purchase a movie on DVD, still get access to it when Bluray comes out, and even after newer formats come out. Purchase of one IP should be for all forms of different media versions.
@bahgger Thats not going to happen unless you purchase the most expensive version first. E.g. if you purchase Bluray then you should have access to all lower quality media versions of it however if you purchase DVD then you would only be given the lower quality media and not Bluray.
@Paulo And probably not even then. Remember, when you already purchased the right to play a song (Don't think you simply "purchased a song"...) in a certain form on a certain medium, then they still want you to pay again for the 30 second version you would like to use as ringtone on your mobile.
This is DRM, just "cross company" - and cross company only in Disney's dreams. I doubt that other companies would like to share their profits with Disney for - nothing?
@Paulo
If you bought a disc from me with my content on it, are you suggesting that I should then be required to provide you with additional discs of that same content any time you want?
I don't think so - even the discs themselves cost money (not that much, of course, but the point is that a company can't be mandated to *GIVE* you stuff.)
Digital downloads, if the customer offsets the bandwidth requirements, I see as a possibility for "lifetime" content replacement, but that's about it.
It's not DRM, but a mediator between DRM schemes. Yeap, nothing to do with DRM.
@thoughtmonster It's "nothing to do with DRM" in that it is a project designed to EXPAND consumer rights without naïvely hoping to abolish the existing DRM scheme.
Abolishing DRM worked for music because everyone and their brother already had a library of thousands of non-DRM mp3 files. Video is a little different.
I'd love it if all the studios dropped the requirement for DRM, but they won't. Not soon anyway.
The trouble with this is: the studios (Disney being one of them) get their licence fee regardless. Comcast, iTunes, whoever, they're all paying Disney. But why would Disney want to lose a sale by helping out the customer like this? Sure, it'd be nice of them, and in a perfect world that sale wouldn't need to exist anyway - but surely they'd rather a customer CONSIDER buying a video file twice rather than not? Right?
Any project that relies on the altruism of huge media distribution companies to succeed is doomed.
I'm surprised Disney haven't realised that themselves.
@TomWB
Thinking that everybody and their brother doesn't already have access to DRM-free, unrestricted video of almost all the Movies and TV shows in the world is naive to say the least.
Getting access to DRM-free video is now just as easy as getting DRM-free music. And makes much more sense considering the arbitrary region al limits and staggered release of many popular movies and TV shows.
@Mojzu Except that if you have a library of copyright non-DRM video files today, you have to have committed piracy, or willfully circumvented DVD encryption (DMCA violation, IIRC).
If you had a library of copyright non-DRM audio 5 years ago, you just (legally) ripped a bunch of CDs.
The only reason iTunes et al went DRM-free is political. Record labels offered competitors non-DRM music files in order to try and destabilise Apple's hold on the music market. It didn't quite work, but customers got used to the idea (and were apparently willing to pay more for) non-DRM music. The studios capitulated and let Apple in on the deal primarily because it meant they could sell chart singles for $1.29 instead of 99¢.
Anyway, the studios won't condone file sharing, piracy, or encryption circumvention by legitimising non-DRM video. Not soon anyway. Not while 90% (pulling figures out of my arse) of video file owners have got there via the above methods and not via putting cash in the studios' pockets.
Pretend you're a studio big wig, why would you want to make it easier for people to pirate video (theoretically) when you're not even making much money off video downloads anyway? The studios will wait until they are making a nice steady income from video downloads some time over the next 5 years before they pull the plug on DRM.
@TomWB
The problem is that DRM does not stop piracy, I have a spare hard drive filled to the brim with movies I ripped from legally purchased DVD's. To be able to do so was a simple case of finding a couple of pieces of free software. Studios may be unwilling to relent on DRM because they fear it will increase piracy but the opposite is true, the sad fact is that to get video files of my legally purchased DVD's onto my computer I had to jump through several more hoops then would of been required to just visit the Pirate Bay or a similar site. Like it or not the studios are in competition with the pirates, and by putting up barriers to viewers they only drive them to easier, more widespread services. The studios have made one step forwards and a few steps back with services like Hulu, as they seem incapable of realising that leaving months between the release of popular TV programs in the US and the rest of the world creates a massive opportunity for pirates.
The studios so far have only asked how they can stop piracy, which is simply put, impossible to do, costs a lot of money and generally annoys your legitimate customers and makes your illegitimate ones more vitriolic. They should be asking why people are turning to piracy, and the answer to that question lies in the fact that these studios have failed to serve their customers demands. Ad-supported streaming services are a great idea, but have only been done properly in a few cases, and Hulu is turning into a great example of what not to do with a VoD service.
@Mojzu
"legal" is most likely an improbable statement. While yes, it is true that legally you are entitled to a backup of all of your movies, it is also true that breaking the encryption to get the backup is illegal... Sort of a catch 22 huh? Any way, I can see this KeyChest as a way to counter that argument. If you have a Disney KeyChest record, then perhaps they could say you legally have a backup, or at least a means to retrieve one, and that you were no longer entitled to a NAS filled to the top (personally I would counter with an "not if I'm offline" defense- but then I'm toying with some ideas).
Any way, this system doesn't specify that a vendor does or does not have DRM on the media. Say you bought DRM protected media from iTunes (as in the article example) but later were using DRMfreemedia.com (does this exist?) to download your previous purchase again. If this new source gives out the media w/o DRM, well, then thats up to them; but you shouldn't have to pay for it again...
> @Mojzu Except that if you have a library of copyright non-DRM video
> files today, you have to have committed piracy, or willfully
> circumvented DVD encryption (DMCA violation, IIRC).
So? What's Disney going to do? Haul you into court and watch as you drag out your entire legitimately purchased collection to show the jury? The only people the "DMCA problem" is going to stop are those people that desperately want to give Apple a distribution monopoly.
If they can rip a CD, they will rip a movie. Both sets of tools are readily available. The only real barrier is comfort and technical understanding.
@Mojzu
"The studios so far have only asked how they can stop piracy, which is simply put, impossible to do, costs a lot of money and generally annoys your legitimate customers and makes your illegitimate ones more vitriolic. They should be asking why people are turning to piracy,"
Right there. +1
Please Engadget, do not applaud this idea for it has EVERYTHING to do with DRM. All Disney is doing with Keychest is attempting to apply a little duct tape to the sinking mess that is DRM. Keychest may not be DRM in itself, but it's hoping to legitimise DRM in the eyes of consumers while still offering absolutely no benefits. DRM = bad for consumers, in every way possible, and instead of attempting to fix a broken system, Disney should be doing away with it altogether.
These companies keep complaining about increasing piracy whilst all they do is add more levels of complexity and obfuscation to their own products. Which in the end will only increase the costs of the 'legitimate' products.
@Mojzu Even if DRM disappeared tomorrow, that's not going to give you the ability to buy one movie that'll work on your HDTV (in HD, mind you), your iPod, and your laptop in yet another format/size. Keychest would, and it makes DRM irrelevant and transparent to the consumer.
Walt Disney is rolling in his hermetically sealed cryogenic jar.
@Teslanaut You win the internetz of the week IMO.
The idea sounds kinda like Steam, but unlike Valve, I can see them screwing up the implementation to make it as borked as current DRM schemes.
@r3loaded To be fair, Valve did kind of do that with Steam.. but thankfully fixed it before it had a chance to fail completely.
@r3loaded
Exactly what I thought, sounds like Steam for movies. Let's hope they don't ruin everything, and we might get a decent product out of it.
How are they going to reconcile everything? Will we have a single keychest login that Disney will share with everyone that does content or will you have a keychest identifier that you will be giving every content provider under the sun?
I have no doubt that Apple and Microsoft will get in on this, I wonder what Sony will do since they run their own video store on the PSN.
Buy a copy of a movie somewhere and all of a sudden they're providing bandwidth for a download they have gotten no revenue on.
And when Keychest close their servers you'll be locked out of your purchases.
Not DRM at all. /irony
@Slaarg I think devices should only need to check for your rights once. It would be balls if your iPod had to check on every song before it played it. So yeah, some devices would be locked out, but I don't think you'd be THAT up a creek.
Three words" digital restrictions management.
Hey, Hollywood, you know what'd be an easier _and_ better solution? You could *gasp* NOT put DRM in your content in the first place! Shocking, isn't it?
I don't usually comment on folk's writing style, I personally tend to overpunctuate everything all the time, but I really found the overuse of the word but to be slightly annoying, but it's down to people's preference, but I just couldn't wrap my head around how many times it was used in that one single sentence, but it doesn't really matter I suppose, but it was really annoying to read.
Its not one, not two, but THREE DRMs in one!
So, if the KeyChest dies, not only that you loose DRMed content from one provider, but you loose all your DRM content. Bloody genius! I can't see what could possibly go wrong there...
The more you try to lock out your customers, the more they will turn to pirates. I have now way more pirated content than I had 10 years ago, and 10 years ago my country was a pirate heaven! Way to do your business...
@incognito
KeyChest is will just simplify DRM verification. If KeyChest dies, you go back to the old (awful) way of verifying your media is yours...
@incognito
Your the sort of person that should be banned from watching TV/Film etc or Listening to music. If it wasnt for people like you we wouldnt need DRM in the first place.
I mean to think if they remove all DRM, that people will go "hey, they removed the DRM. I'm now going to legally buy all of my content" is just plain stupid.
@nabberuk
I'm with you 100%
If They got rid of DRM THE ENTIRE SYSTEM COMEPLETLY
What in heck is going to change a pirating person from not downloading it illegally.
I mean even the people who go "The reason all these pirates exist is because of DRM." And they claim to pirate too.
They aren't going to say "OH WELL LOOK AT THIS, They stopped DRM. I am not GOING TO LEGALY BUY THIS SONG/MOVIE/etc."
NO They are not, They will continue to pirate them like before.
There is nothing we can do to stop piracy unless they got court orders to search all your hard drives for illegally gained material and charge them all.
But they won't. Can't. And wouldn't have the resources to.
@Drybones5
**EDIT***
I meant:
They aren't going to say "OH WELL LOOK AT THIS, They stopped DRM. I am *now* GOING TO LEGALY BUY THIS SONG/MOVIE/etc."
@Drybones5
You can't stop piracy. Period. Researchers have come to that conclusion, and it plays out that way in real life. However, you can encourage piracy by making it a great pain to use legitimately bought media how you want to, which is what DRM does. Dropping DRM doesn't give really give you legitimate customers, but it will stop you from losing them.
And this is DRM, just a different flavor. Also, a huge privacy problem.
i'm a bit shocked by some of the comments. I mean this is surely a good thing for consumers? purchase a film once and have access to it over many platforms.
i cant see DRM for film/tv going away anytime soon, so something like this is a step in the right direction.
What? People objecting to a system that requires that their every move be tracked? Imagine that. You know, there is the sales pitch and there is the way that things will actually be implemented. There are the technical and business problems and there's corporate human nature. All of this is pretty foreseeable if you have any experience with any of the component parts.
Of course my first thought when seeing that diagram was: "the ultimate spyware".
Sorry, no thanks. I prefer the simple option: NO DRM.
@jedi
I'm sorry, but is letting a company know you bought music/films really that big a problem for you?
@nabberuk Consider if the film you bought is some ultra-kinky fetishist porn, and you are running for public office, and the company in question opposes your stance on certain issues.
Even if it weren't something quite as extreme as that, there are various situations in which such knowledge gives the company some power over you. If you don't think so, you probably haven't thought this out much.