Disney is planning for a world less dependent on DVD and Blu-ray. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, the company has confirmed that it is working on a new business model for the digital media age.
Its so-called Keychest initiative aims to solve the conundrum of how best to distribute its content to a wide variety of platforms and devices while maintaining robust digital rights management (DRM). At the heart of the Disney proposal is an attempt to completely redefine the concept of right of ownership. In the future, consumers would effectively purchase access rights to a feature film or TV show, rather than have physical ownership of material on a disc. One Keychest solution would involve digital files being stored on a cloud server rather than on PCs owned by consumers.
Time Warner has been exploring a similar concept, which it has dubbed TV Everywhere; this also involves users paying a subscription to view its content on different devices.
According to Disney president Bob Chapek, the Keychest project is unlikely to deliver ‘tangible financial results’ before 2015. Whatever the time-frame, it looks like the days of disc collecting could be numbered...
Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited
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In the latest Home Cinema Choice:
I cannot see this working.
Alan Smithee (not verified) - 22 October 2009 - 12:28amI cannot see this working. People like to feel they "own" the product and this goes against that.
Keychest
Arris King (not verified) - 22 October 2009 - 8:45pmHave you heard of ipods? napster? audible? People are fine with not having a 45 record or a book to lug around with them, this is the same thing.
I see the point on ipods
Mikey Morse (not verified) - 23 October 2009 - 10:18amI see the point on ipods etc, but i need to be able to re-download without issue for anything i've bought. If people own what they've bought it won't be so bad, but i think most will be put off if it's subscription. And once you buy it, it should be yours always e.g. like a dvd is (and that's probably issue for movie companies, but people will be keeping dvds for a long time i think anyway.
Never bought from itunes anyway because of the drm and because i use flac. I buy the cds and convert to flac. There is a lot of uk that still has woeful broadband connections, so that will be an issue too.