Sony is back – with more DRM
p2pnet view Freedom | P2P:- A group of media and electronics corporation have re-invented the wheel.
It’s called DRM — Digital Restrictions Management consumer control.
It goes around and around and around and spinning it — again — is Sony which, with BMG, its former partner, injected DRM and rootkit spyware into the computers of people who’d bought some of its music CDs. The software, equally dangerous to users and computers, was hidden on Sony BMG discs, secretly installing itself when buyers played the music.
Now “the inter-industry Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem”, aka UltraViolet, which “boasts 58 members from the entertainment, consumer-electronics and tech industries”, grew out of an effort by Sony’s Mitch ['Better than Free'] Singer to “overcome the incompatibility problems caused by the various anti-piracy technologies being used by online retailers”, says the Los Angeles Times.
UltraViolet would be better named UltraViolation.
The story goes on:
“The result is a system built around an online locker that will store the rights people obtain to movies, music and other types of entertainment. Participating retailers and service providers will send information about each customer’s purchases and rentals to his or her rights locker. The locker, in turn, will enable compatible devices to download or stream the content from the retailers’ or service providers’ sites in accordance to the rights they’ve obtained.”
But “Although the consortium contains a broad swath of companies including Toshiba Corp., Best Buy Co. Inc. and Netflix Inc., it does not include Apple Inc., or The Walt Disney Co.
Disney is apparently trying to develop its own digital locker called “KeyChest” that “seeks to accomplish roughly the same thing” and “Apple representatives declined to comment”, says the story.
“Is Apple’s iTunes the be-all and end-all when it comes to corporate online digital distribution?” – asked p2pnet a couple of years ago, continuing >>>
The application has captured the minds of the great executive unwashed in a way no other technology has. They believe Apple Rulz. And that must be true because Apple says so.
What to do? What to do?
And then along came John, smooth talking John, in the shape of Mitch Singer (right), Sony Pictures CTO, with something better than free.
He’s succeeded in persuading Warner Bros Entertainment, Fox Entertainment Group, NBC Universal, Sony, Paramount Pictures and Comcast Corp, retailer Best Buy, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, Philips, Toshiba and Verisign but not, obviously, Walt Disney, into signing up for his Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE).
He’s told them he can, “actually develop and deliver a product to the consumer that’s better than free,” according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Like whiter than white? Or wetter than water?
Nope. It’s all about ……..
But hang on a minute.
According to the story, Singer said he’s been developing DECE inside Sony Pictures for the past six years, “constantly changing the formulation to meet the latest technologies”.
“Outreach” to other companies started in 2006. But by then, wasn’t Sony in all kinds of serious (and ongoing) trouble with its rootkit DRM efforts? You know, when it when it planted dangerous-to-computers spyware on music CDs without bothering to tell the people who bought them?
It was. But now, under the principle there’s more than one-way to skin a consumer, it’s decided to organise what he describes as what may be the, “most radical redefinition yet” of Digital Restrictions Management, in corporate parlance, Digital Rights Management.
Had it already been redfined somewhere by someone?
“In its current form, DRM largely confines content to a limited number of devices depending on the source of that content,” explains the story, going on, “For instance, a song purchased on Apple’s iTunes can be accessed on no more than five different computers and can’t be legally played on a portable device beyond the iPod.”
And then along came John, smooth talking John, and, “If DECE takes hold, it would institute several precedent-setting principles,” to wit:
- “Participating devices” and services would be “interoperable regardless of differing brands or corporate provenance” and a TV episode could, for instance, “be just as easily accessed on Microsoft’s Zune as it would a Philips broadband-enabled TV set.”
Wow! What a concept!
- DECE would allow an, “unlimited number of copies of a video to be created or burned onto a disc”.
The mind boggles!
- Consumers, “would even have the option of not storing the copy at all, but rather streaming it from a server-based ‘rights locker’ that can be tapped from any location.
A rights locker? Absolutely amazing!
- DECE would “create open standards whereby any company that chose to create contents or services can do so to available specifications”.
“Available specifications,” eh? Corporate DRM for corporations, in other words. Nice one, Mitch. 
CBS Corp, Amazon, Walmart, AT&T and Verizon haven’t joined up yet —- but that doesn’t mean they’re, “necessarily opposed to DECE, according to Singer,” says the Hollywood report, which has him saying:
“If I had to characterize it, it’s more of a wait-and-see mode than something they don’t want to be involved in.”
Yes.
“DECE represents yet another ambitious attempt by Hollywood to avoid the fate of the music industry, which has largely dropped DRM altogether,” the story says, adding:
“The consortium aims to give digital distribution a shot in the arm. For all the success of iTunes, XBox and Amazon, their collective sales haven’t matched the growth curve experienced by DVD.
“DECE plans to announce a brand name and logo, as well as a more detailed plan, at the upcoming Consumers Electronics Show in January.”
There’s more than one sucker born every minute.
No need to stay tuned.
Jon Newton - p2pnet
… and identi.ca
secretly installing itself – Sony BMG rootkit ‘peace treaty’, December 30, 2005
Los Angeles Times – DECE turns UltraViolet, July 19, 2010
p2pnet – New Sony DRM: ’something better than free’, September 13, 2008
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July 20th, 2010 at 11:20 am
I am pledging never, never, never to buy a CD or DVD from these pieces of *censured*.
July 20th, 2010 at 2:24 pm
“whiter than white”
They were a french comic guy calling himself Coluche and he had a sketch about TV commercial:
During the sketch He was asking the CEO of a Landry detergent company:
Whiter than white? What kind of color is that?
The executive answer briskly not to address the stupidity of the concept: “It’s new! it’s just came out!”
Better than free could exist but don’t count on the corporate parasites to come up with that and I am not going to tell them what better than free could be as far as entertainment is concerned.
Better than free with DRM? He must be kidding!
However I see their worst than death future which will consist in rotting in jail for the rest of their life with the bankers the oil company executives Ben Laden and George W Bush Junior!
July 20th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
PS – Do they know too much ultraviolet causes serious burns, do you think?
Cheers!
July 20th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
LOL
July 20th, 2010 at 4:02 pm
Download everything you want without dropping a penny, if you can’t find a specific album or movie, buy used CDs and DVDs. That way no money goes back to the corporations, not to mention used are much cheaper.
July 20th, 2010 at 6:02 pm
After the root kit thing I will NEVER buy anything from Sony again, ever. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me…
July 20th, 2010 at 11:56 pm
And I thought Ubisoft was dumb with their big fiasco back in march, stopping people from playing games they bought legally. It was easier to pirate the game than it was to buy it for most people. Brilliant. I’m sure glad I didn’t give sony any money when they did this the first time, You can be sure they’re not getting anything now. Used and free, its they way to go. Make these idiots realize that suing customers does not make for a good marketing scheme, and neither does bribing Cough Ahem I meant Lobbying with the MPAA, RIAA or any other MAFIA like organization. (Screwing artists since 1937)
July 21st, 2010 at 9:04 am
Ultraviolet the movie, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0370032/ ,Ultraviolet the light http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet , or Ultraviolet the trademark http://www.trademarkia.com/uv-vu-ultraviolet-77851253.html
hmmm smells fishy indeed…