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Miramax CEO Says the Cloud is the Only Way to Survive
Thu Oct 06, 2011 at 02:00 PM ETTags: Ultraviolet, DRM, Cloud, Industry Trends (all tags)
Mike Lang of Miramax says the traditional model needs big changes if it's to survive much longer.
The business of selling movies is in trouble, says Mike Lang, CEO of Miramax. With rental and subscription services like Netflix gaining in popularity, there's less incentive for customers to buy movies.
Lang says consumer needs to be able to buy something and know that it will work on anything they own, just like the way Netflix shows up on a strong majority of home entertainment products. "It’s very difficult for the consumer to know that when they buy something that it works on any device."
The way forward, according to Lang, is to embrace UltraViolet wholeheartedly. He says that really pushing the digital locker system will get consumers interested in making purchases again instead of just renting.
"Ninety-five percent of the software industry in the world is now through cloud-based transactions," says Lang. "I’m hopeful that the movie business gets there."
Source: Home Media Magazine
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Technicolor Sells ContentGuard DRM Stake
Mon Oct 03, 2011 at 01:45 PM ETTags: Technicolor, DRM (all tags)
Pendrell Technologies now owns over 90 percent of the tech.
Thanks to incredibly fast internet speeds, simple file sharing and a public that's increasingly okay with downloading content that they didn't pay for - hey, we're not judging here, just stating the facts - companies have gotten a little DRM crazy.
It makes sense, of course, that they wouldn't want their content distributed without being paid for. One of the options for handling digital rights management that's available to keep movies from getting on BitTorrent is ContentGuard, initially owned by several companies but now almost exclusively owned by Pendrell. Time Warner owns the remaining 10 percent.
"We believe that ContentGuard’s DRM technologies set the standard for protecting content in virtually every instance where content is transferred to a connected device," says Penrell CEO Ben Wolff, "from mobile phones to tablets, set-top boxes, e-readers, game consoles, DVD players, personal computer and televisions."
Source: Home Media Magazine
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'Shameless' Blu-ray Comes with UltraViolet Digital Copy
Thu Sep 29, 2011 at 02:00 PM ETTags: Ultraviolet, DRM (all tags)
We've been hearing about Utraviolet copy protection for some time now - looks like it's finally here.
No matter how you feel about copy protection, you can certainly see where the studios are coming from. They want their content sold, not pirated. That's where Ultraviolet comes in - the new DRM format championed by a variety of studios.
With UltraViolet, you'll be able to watch the movie on your smartphone, computer, tablet or what have you, but you'll need to register your device to do so. You're limited to 12 devices, three of which can be streaming at any one time. As far as DRM goes, it doesn't sound too horribly intrusive.
'Shameless' is the first TV show packing UltraViolet on the Blu-ray release. Executive producer John Wells is pretty high on the technology, calling it a game changer.
Source: Home Media Magazine
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The Universal "UltraViolet" DRM Beta Starts This Fall
Thu Jul 22, 2010 at 01:00 PM ETTags: DRM, Ultraviolet (all tags)
The cloud based "digital locker" system may be the new standard in video encryption in the coming months.
Many consider digital rights management (DRM) a bit of a frivolity, but companies insist on it nonetheless. The latest is a universal DRM now named UltraViolet. It's nothing we haven’t heard before, but the plans are apparently moving forward.
The idea behind UltraViolet is to let users move their digital content from device to device but to enforce the security nonetheless. It involves authenticating your device on a digital storage locker, which would seemingly require internet access for movie watching.
The rights management system will roll out this fall with a Beta test, which should prove interesting. The official launch is expected somewhere in late 2010. We'll certainly be on the lookout for any new info.
Source: Ars Technica
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Are Digital Copies All They’re Cracked Up To Be?
Mon Jul 27, 2009 at 02:15 PM ETTags: Industry Trends, DRM (all tags)
Nick Broughall of Gizmodo Australia posted a story today about his experience trying to use the digital copy on Zack & Miri Make a Porno.
Needless to say, things did not end well for Nick, who ran into some pretty big problems. One of the major difficulties, non-compatibility with Macs, could have easily been solved with a sticker on the front of the case, but perhaps more trying is the issue of Digital Rights Management.
His copy of Zack & Miri came with only one format option, WMV, which of course is incompatible with a great deal of portable devices including the iPhone and iPod. To add to this, the extremely limiting DRM makes transferring to multiple devices not only an annoyance but a hindrance.
There are obvious questions to be raised here, but the one that needs to be answered by consumers as well as publishers is this: Does ultra restrictive DRM end up creating pirates out of paying customers?
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