Later this week several Hollywood-related companies will announce a new digital media distribution system that's suppose to ignite digital downloads of movies (and possible other digital content). They call it DECE (Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem). The key-feature being 'portability'.
This time a name without 'protection' or 'rights' in its name, but the result is much the same.
In the 'old' days DRM was implemented by protecting the resource with a key, and if you had the proper 'key' on your device the content was playable. Downside was that playback was mainly limited to only one device, or it was OS/player dependent (Windows -> Windows Media Player, or Apple iTunes, OSX -> Itunes).
If you wanted it to play on another device you had a problem, since you lacked the proper key to 'unlock' the digital content. Thankfully Apple has lot's of DRM-free mp3's in it's iTunes store, but not everything (like the movies / TV Shows) is DRM free, or watchable on lots of devices.
The new DECE 'system' revolves around an online purchase store/database. All your purchased digital media is listed in this database. If you would like to watch a movie, the device you want to play it on needs to connect to this database to see if you've got the right to play it on the device.
This leaves me with a couple of questions;
No Internet Access
What if there's no Internet connection available? ISP's can have an unofficial day off (or somebody else in the supply chain screws up).
People tend to watch movies when they have time to kill. Like on an airplane (or while waiting for a delayed flight) Most planes don't have Internet Access, and if there is Internet access you have to pay. So you keep paying to watch a movie you already payed for. If you're abroad you have (massive) roaming costs on mobile Internet access most of the times.
No decent 3G coverage like in the middle of nowhere (Africa, or in my case in my living room).
You're getting even more dependent on online access. So if there's no guaranteed Internet connectivity, no guarantee of watching the movie. This risk is almost zero with the old media like DVD (or even BluRay).
Device Dependency
One of the companies not listed on the participating companies list is Apple. So this is basically gonna be a Windows only solution, where OSX AND Linux users will not be able to participate.
Advantage is that this instantly creates an enormous crowd eager to crack it, just to be able to watch it on unsupported devices / Operating Systems.
Privacy
What about my privacy? Who has access to this database? Who can see wat movies I have in my possesion, and how much I watch them? People (especially governments and marketing agencies) are known to assume incorrectly based on irrelevant data.
Past Experiences
Since the system stil relies on a key to 'unlock' the content it's as vulnerable as the 'excellent' BluRay copy-protection (see my post about the most pirated movie in 2009). If you need a key to unlock a local functionality, the 'key' will be locally available (probably obscured in some way), and is therefore accessible for other purposes (like decrypting/ripping the movie).
Having a 'fully-unlocked' version available means watching it on EVERY device you want, and you can watch it ANYWHERE you want. Internet access or not.
In my opinion, this DECE is just another way of pushing other/new hardware through the consumers throat, and locking them in (since Linux and (probably) Apple OSX is gonna be locked out).
Note: I do not promote (illegal) downloading of copyright protected content. I do promote being able to watch the content you BOUGHT on any device you want.