Should Apple join new video ecosystem?
news analysis The digital films and TV shows available to consumers now are shackled by numerous DRM schemes. A new consortium of entertainment, software, and retail companies wants to enable consumers to download any digital media from any Web store and enjoy it on any player.
Members include Warner Bros. Entertainment, Best Buy, Toshiba, Sony, Comcast, Intel, Cisco, Microsoft, NBC Universal, and Paramount Pictures. The group, called the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), says its mission is to combat piracy by making the act of buying media so easy that people won't be tempted to steal.
To do that, they want to rid the market of all the confusion about which DRM software works with which players. The company is providing few details on how their "interoperability" will work, but the general plan is to store a list of registered devices in digital lockers so people could gain access to play their media on numerous different devices.
But take another look at the members. Conspicuously missing is Apple, the biggest player in digital media. I've read other coverage about the DECE. Many of the tech bloggers see Apple competitors beating war drums outside iTunes' gates. Untrue, according to DECE President Mitch Singer. He said the group has invited Apple to join. But he added that so far, the company hasn't accepted.
Steve Jobs during the "Let's Rock" press gathering
(Credit: James Martin/CNET News)I get suspicious any time competitors band together to set standards, and wonder if it's ever good for competition. I don't pretend to know whether this group is a Trojan horse designed to loosen Apple's hold on digital media. All I know is when I heard the idea, it raised some doubts I've had lately about my iTunes content.
Recent events have made me wish that iTunes' music and videos weren't as restricted to Apple products. I love my iPhone 3G. On the train ride to work, I'm a walking commercial, yapping on the phone or using it to watch AMC's hit show Madmen.
But it would be nice to know that I'll be able to play my copy of the film V on video players other than those made by Apple. What worries me is that most iTunes content made by the big music labels, TV networks, and film studios is restricted by digital rights management software--just like at other Web stores, including Zune's Marketplace.
But I have Microsoft and Yahoo to thank for illustrating just how little control a consumer has over content wrapped in DRM.
MSN Music and Yahoo Music both announced this year that they would no longer issue keys to unlock their copy protection software. This meant that those who bought songs from these sites faced the possibility of not being able to move their music to new machines or other devices. MSN eventually decided to continue issuing keys for three more years, while Yahoo issued refunds. But the lesson was clear. If your music or video is locked up in DRM , you're dependent on whoever issues the keys.
As I said then, Apple is unlikely to find itself in a similar situation for a long, long time, but who cay say what will happen in 5 years or 10? Aside from that, what happens if someone develops a whiz-bang media player that I like better than my iPhone 3G or someone comes up with a new home entertainment center and these devices can't play my iTunes media?
To some, the obvious answer is for content owners to scrub their videos of DRM. That isn't going to happen anytime soon. Hollywood's attitude is that while the music industry can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on making an album, most feature films cost in the tens or hundreds of millions. Studio execs aren't likely to leave their content unprotected with that kind of money at stake.
I know there are workarounds for many of these DRM issues, but personally, I don't want to hassle with my media or gadgets. I also want to know my content is mine and won't disappear someday if Apple ever decides to stop issuing keys.
I know that Apple joining this consortium is probably a long shot. The company is the overwhelming power in digital media and with the success of the iPhone 3G, its hold over digital media is likely to only increase. Why should Jobs invite competitors to its party?
The only good reason I can think of is that it might benefit customers.
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. He is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sandoCNET. 
"Why should Jobs invite competitors into its teepee?
The only good reason I can think of is that it might benefit customers."
He already did! (At least in music.)
Do you remember his call for DRM-less music? Just only EMI accepted the invitation.
quote:
"I get suspicious anytime competitors band together to set standards. I ask myself if that's ever good for competition? "
Do you remember the saying: "The foes of my foe are my friends"?
This "competitors" just get together because Apple is brushing them out!
It's also important to note that, while I think it's silly that content providers are stopping iTunes from going completely free of DRM; it's also silly for customers to think that Apple's Steve Jobs was the first CEO to publicly call for DRM-less music: Both a Yahoo executive and Bill Gates publicly decried DRM almost a month before Jobs did.
And funny iTunes offers the fewest DRM free songs of the major distributors.
But as long as you bought it and I'm sure many others did too, then the letter did it's job.
Jobs called for DRM-less music AFTER the public demanded it. Apple was making a mint on a monopoly that everybody pretended not to notice. Microsoft has rubbed off on Apple very well, thank you.
Greed will always trump quality.
I'm sorry, but people who yap on the phone on any form of public transit are ********, not commercials.
Apple's market power comes from having great products that are popular with consumers. if someone else comes along with something better then Apple will either have to compete or wither. It makes its money from selling hardware - the software is just an enabler to get hardware sales. Apple's business model is like a farmers market - it doesn't make gobs of money from content (see Roughly Drafted for details on this)..
if there is a better way that enables Apple to still make coin from selling hardware then I think it will be very interested - however, at the moment no one is coming up with anything better...
Apple developed their own DRM system, so they not depend on the content industry, and I personally thrust Apple more then Bluray & Co.
With the Apple DRM you dont need fresh licence keys, you only need a copy of itunes and this programm will run for very long.
The problem is not Apple, the problem is DRM, a restrictive concept for which you have hold the MPAA and RIAA responsible. Groups of tech companies banding together to create a "standard DRM" is stupid, and will only create more animosity with end users (look at what's happening with Spore).
The tech industry should stand up to the hollywood dinosaurs and let them know Jurassic Park was fiction, and that dinosaurs are truly extinct, which is what these big studios will be if they keep insisting on making the consumer the enemy.
Ummmmm......sorry but its already happened. I do buy content from iTunes, and if its not Plus content I remove the DRM. Done and done.
Much of Microsoft's efforts beyond Windows can accurately be described as an unsuccessful search for other large volume platforms that include bundled OEM 3rd party installs for their licensed DRM software. Plays for Sure and HD-DVD are only the latest in a parade of failures.
That means Apple won't join, since they're a huge proponent of the H.264 standard. (Anyone else see the irony in how Apple is now the company pushing open standards, while Microsoft is the company pushing closed, proprietary formats?)
It's like the battle over the MPEG-4 container format: Microsoft pushed a proposed format based on their Windows Media, and Apple pushed their existing QuickTime format. QuickTime won, so Microsoft left in a huff and kept pushing their Windows Media formats to compete with MPEG-4. They didn't have any commanding market presence in media file formats, though.
This time, Apple has even more of a dominant lead, so they have no reason whatsoever to join in with any group that's being coerced into using Microsoft's closed formats.
The failed PlaysForSure "standard" should also give an indication of how interoperable and successful a DRMed ecosystem based on Microsoft's formats will be. This is just history repeating.
As I said then, Apple is unlikely to find itself in a similar situation for a long, long time, but who cay say what will happen in 5 years or 10? Aside from that, what happens if someone develops a whiz-bang media player that I like better than my iPhone 3G or someone comes up with a new home entertainment center and these devices can't play my iTunes media?
I also want to know my content is mine and won't disappear someday if Apple ever decides to stop issuing keys."
First off, Apple's system isn't based on issuing keys to play back content, like Microsoft and Yahoo's systems were. The Apple system is based on a one-time authorization of the player. So once your player is authorized, it'll play back your content forever. The only risk if Apple goes out of business is that you won't be able to authorize a new player on some newer hardware you get.
Secondly, in the unlikely chance Apple goes out of business, bu the time you need a new player on new hardware there will probably be some other new format to upgrade to, with higher resolution, better sound, etc. Your Apple media will then be the equivalent of your existing VHS and cassette tapes, and you won't care so much that you can no longer play it. (And there'll be a LOT of warning before Apple goes out of business, unlike Microsoft and Yahoo discontinuing their music stores.)
Lastly, at least for Apple format audio files you can always burn them to a CD and re-rip them into whatever format you choose, so the only thing you need to fear the obsolecence of are the video formats.
As far as someone developing a media player you like better than the iPhone 3G, yeah, that'd be a problem. It's a problem that'll always exist as long as there is DRM, though. Without DRM-free content, there's always the liklihood that someone will come along with some great new hardware using a new DRM scheme that won't play your existing content. This consortium developing yet another DRM scheme sure isn't going to solve that.
Lastly, at least for purchased Windows Media format audio files. you can always burn them to a CD and re-rip them into whatever format you choose.
Obviously the Zune uses a different, incompatible DRM scheme, but does that mean that the Zune Marketplace also has different DRM key servers?
If they're all using Windows Media DRM, why can't they all at least use one backend system to authorize them, which can be kept running even as vendors stop supporting that DRM?? Good grief.
Ahem - please read the fine print. None of your content is yours. Copyright content is owned by the producer, not the consumer. You have only been granted a limited license to replay that content for private non-commercial use.
Ahem - please look-up "First Sale Doctrine". The individual-copy of a copyrighted work IS -owned- by the purchaser.
And, no amount of "fine print" can over-ride a basic legal-principle. If a contract attempts to do so (such as, say, deprive a consumer of their "fair use" rights)... the contract (license agreement, EULA, etc) is legally considered to be "inherently unfair", and is therefore legally "unenforceable".
With video though, I choose not to purchase that for the most part. I really like the rental market for those though because it's only for a limited time. I prefer to have a video media that has the capability of transferring to different formats, e.g. through handbrake. The stranglehold that they have on video seems very artificial and just plain wrong.
The philosophy and/or of the content owners that consumers have to pay over and over and over and over again for the same content is dishonest and wrong and I believe by supporting organizations such as the EFF (http://www.eff.org) as well as voting with our wallets, we can have a voice.
To express it more clearly ... Negative, No Way, Not a Chance.
Should the big tuna join up with all the little sharks, that have expressed a deep desire to take a huge bite out of them? If the tuna was brain dead, it might happen.
I have not bought a movie or a song in years that is protected. They will not get any more money from me until they wise up and stop treating adults like children. I should be able to play my digital content on any device I own. So get over yourselves big head executives. Why should I suffer. I am the one lining your pocket, and you want to make life difficult for me, forget you!
I no longer have to play by your rules I have other options.
You'd never have to buy new copies for goodness sake.
With Apple, you can authorise and de-authorise any computer anytime. Also, Apple allows you to put your media on an unlimited number of iPods and iPhones, and burn an unlimited number of DRM-free audio CDs things the media cartels are always trying to stop.
I dread to think how much more restrictive the DRM rules would be if Apple let the media industry dictate the provisions. As it was, Apple's Fairplay restrictions have always been far less onerous and almost invisible compared to competitors (did you see how bad PressPlay and others were before iTunes came along?)
Have you seen the terribly draconian DRM shackles that Blu-Ray suffers from that will drop your display resolution down to SD (or even turn your screen black) if it suspects a non-HDCP hardware or software component has been connected into the chain? You really want Apple to be forced down this path as well (Vista is bad enough)?
Also after the fiasco of the incompatibilities of the "Plays For Sure" system (which Microsoft even admitted to when it knifed all it's partners in the back and set up their own walled-garden Zune system), how can anyone think that this DRM consortium with so many more member companies will get it right and not have the same incompatibilities that Apple has totally side-stepped by making the whole widget? Don?t you see this is one of the reasons th public like Apple?s ecosystem?
-Mart
Very few movies make huge profits. Fact.
Big movies cost millions to make. Fact.
Someone has to put up those millions. Fact.
That same someone would like a decent chance on getting a return on their investment. Otherwise they will invest in something else entirely. Fact.
Please would someone explain how removing DRM and allowing anyone to share their movies with all their friends and the Internet at large is going to help more movies be made?
Anyone who lumps the RIAA and the MPAA together in the same sentence is demostrating their total ignorance of the economics of the entertainment industry. The business of Movies is NOTHING LIKE music. What works for music does NOT work for movies, and often vice versa.
Music is different. Musicians will make music for the love of it, it only costs a few tens of thousands to make an album, and they can also get paid from live concert bookings. DRM-free tracks can entice people to buy more music by the same artist, to be played over and over again. Some even make a living just on ad-sales on YouTube.
Movies have no such opportunities. Get a "free" movie from a friend and you will NOT be going to the cinema to see it, nor will you be buying another copy yourself (unless the pirate was really incompetant). In fact, most people will probably not watch it more than once anyway. That movie is more or less dead meat as far as earning more money is concerned.
Now if you only want low-budget movies where six people sit around a kitchen table and chat, go ahead and support video piracy. Some of those are very good, and will no doubt survive. However, if you want movies that feature big scenes, great cast and script, special effects, fantastic sound, and all those good things, please tell me how a studio is supposed to raise the funds to pay for it all?
Please get this into your head; if insufficient people pay full prices, or if everybody pays insufficiently high prices, there WILL BE NO BIG MOVIES! Now, are you really suggesting that YOU and everybody else will want to be the minority who have to pay high prices for these things? I'll bet you are hoping someone else will pay so you dont have to. Guess what? Everybody else is hoping that YOU will pay so THEY don't have to.
Of course, if you can propose a NEW business model to replace the "broken" one you all so despise, and that is capable of funding the type of movies that people really want to watch, go ahead and tell us all. I'm sure a lot of movie people would love to hire you to solve their problems.
The only gap I see lasting is the quality of acting. When the A list people start making their one films the studios will be dead. See http://www.drhorrible.com/
Here's another fact: keep acting like you guys own absolute right over "copyright" and there will be a backlash, and you won't be making anymore big movies.
If Hollywood makes good movies, then people will pay to watch them. Instead, they crank out movies like Meet the Spartans and Disaster Movie. People download them and get them for free because these movies are not quality. Why would anyone pay for something like that. I know loads of people who saw The Dark Knight for free and then decided they wanted to see it in theatres because seeing it on the big screen with an amazing sound system is better than seeing a grainy picture on your monitor with mediocre speakers.
I'll finish off with the fact that I am a student film maker myself. What if I want to become big? Do I have the money to advertise and show my talent and hard work to the world? Of course not! The internet of all things would help me gain the momentum I need to become the great film maker I want to be. Podcasting episodes, getting attraction, this is what happens when people get together and share information with each other. It isn't stealing so much as creating content. I didn't make my films to get money, I made them to tell a story, to have fun, and to be for lack of a better word, an artist.
Any one of those film makers out, just trying to make a movie for the sake of getting money... it shows. One can tell if the passion was in it to create it. IMDB's top 250 movies proves this: The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, Pulp Fiction, The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, etc. were all movies that were made more with heart rather than money in mind.
And people will spend more money on movies that have heart than My Best Friend's Girl or Death Race.
- by Penguinisto September 14, 2008 8:20 AM PDT
- @Turlingdrome:
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- by DrtyDogg September 14, 2008 9:05 AM PDT
- You can't compare the VCR to the internet. While the VCR did allow people to share movies, you had to actually know someone with a copy of the movie. With the internet one person from anywhere can get a hold of the movie and in a weekend share it with hundreds of thousands of people without even thinking about it. It's a whole different world.
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (43 Comments)You do realize that there have been numerous "big movies" that have been passed around with no DRM - for decades now. The age of the VCR is ample proof that movie studios have still made obscene amounts of money in spite of technologies that allow one to freely copy and pass around movies.
Also, you forget: the best movies are not necessarily the most expensive ones to make. Money is certainly no guarantee of quality (proof? this past summer's run on flicks is more than proof - they pretty much all sucked, budgets be damned).
Finally - not see a movie more than once? I have flicks in my DVD pile that I enjoy seeing over and over again - about every 6-8 months (or maybe a year) or so, it's fun to pull a few of them out and re-watch them. Some of these flicks are well over 50-60 years old... but they're still fun to watch.
I'm actually torn in this debate though as I expect that I should be able to play "my media" on whatever device I want, but I also can see why they would want to protect their investment.