News
Hollywood studios address digital future
Tim Green Aug 29 2008, 12:45pm
The movie biz and digital retailers are working on an interoperable system for film downloads.
It’s called Open Market, and it was first proposed last year by Sony Pictures. The aim is to address the lack of cohesion in the digital market and avoid the perils that have dogged the music industry.
Apparently all of the major studios except Disney are on board. Predictably Apple is absent from the retailers. Mmm, who sells the most DVDs in the world? And who sells the most digital content?
Anyhow, Open Market is a ‘set of policy decisions and a software and services framework’ that will allow interoperability of formats and DRM schemes.
It could be argued that it would be easier to just remove all the DRM, but that would be an act of amazing commercial bravery.
Instead, Sony Pictures has proposed Open Market, which will allow ‘play anywhere’ functionality whatever the different protection system.
A key part of Open Market will be a neutral third party to manage device registrations (PC, televisions, mobiles) and movie purchases/rentals. The idea is that any movie purchased from any service provider can then be watched on a registered device.
