It's Time for Change -- in Digital Media Rights

Some entertainment bigwigs are finally getting the picture, it appears.

Some of the honchos have formed a consortium, the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem, that will, according to the Associated Press, "come up with technical specifications that content distributors and manufacturers can follow to ensure compatibility. The idea is to let people know that content and devices carrying a special logo will play nicely with one another."

The AP does a nice job explaining this long-standing problem. In a nutshell, think of the problem like this. What if, back in the 1970s, you bought an album. But that album would only play on a turntable from the company that sold you that album. If that happened, you would not be feelin' groovy, man. It would've been enough to throw your Frampton Comes Alive! album across the room at your Farrah Fawcett poster.

This is the way the AP explains it.

Buy a CD or DVD, and it should work on a variety of devices and personal computers.

Buy the same music or movie online, and you're on your own: Songs bought at Apple Inc.'s iTunes will generally work only with Apple products like the iPod, while many movies sold in Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Media format will require a Windows computer or device. Leading entertainment and consumer-electronics companies -- including Microsoft -- are trying to change that.

... By reducing confusion, consortium members are hoping to see the digital marketplace grow, said Mitch Singer, president of the consortium and chief technology officer of one of its members, Sony Pictures Entertainment.

Consumers will be able to use digital products they buy on cell phones, set-top boxes, computers and other devices made by a slew of manufacturers. A virtual locker will store those digital products remotely, and the system will permit some copying onto physical media like DVDs.

It'll be quite a while before this comes to fruition, maybe even as late as 2010. And I'm not crazy about the name "virtual locker" (makes me think of smelly high school gym lockers), but forming the consortium and creating technical specs are definitely steps in the right direction for those, like me, who believe in fair use of their digital media.