MovieLabs?

Much like the cable TV industry founded CableLabs to spearhead new technology development in the face of the face of the Baby Bells, Hollywood has joined together to fight their common enemy: pirates. Finally realizing that consumer electronics manufacturers have little incentive to get tough on copyright issues (why invest money in a technology that makes your product harder to use?), the studios are going to do it themselves. We reported on the DRM that will be included in the Blu-ray and HD-DVD specs previously, but the studios recognize the future of their content is outside the discs and want to be out in front of it. I think they're probably a little behind at this point but for them better late than never.

What's the upside for you the viewer?  Well, much like CableLabs brought you cable modems, digital cable TV and phone service, MovieLabs may be able to ease convergence among the various devices we all carry that we want to access content on.  Bottom line, their focus is obviously first on protecting their copyright, it may also give consumers more ways to view movies and easier access to them, but how far off that is remains to be seen.