misunderestimation

Sonic Solutions has joined with MovieLink in a plan to offer on-demand DVD burning over the Internet. It would see that Hollywood has finally noticed the success of music download sites and realized the world is changing. Here is what PC Mag has to say:

Movielink, an online movie-download service, has licensed Sonic’s Authorscript DVD-on-demand technology, enabling consumers to browse and purchase titles from the Movielink library and transfer those films to DVD format. The protected content is then formatted for playback on any standard DVD player.

“Sonic is the technology infrastructure and application provider in this scenario,” said Chris Taylor, director of marketing for Sonic Solutions. “Sonic is basically lending its technology to third parties so they can create their own DVD-on-demand solutions.”

What does this mean for the consumer?

Tech Law Prof Blog says:

The deal includes mechanisms for encoding multiple DRM systems on the final product. That ought to appeal to Hollywood as there can never be too many hoops for consumers to climb through to legally watch content. Aside from the technology being feasible, none of the studios have yet to agree to have their movies made available this way.

Biz of Show Biz thinks the key is in the encryption:

Up until this time Hollywood studios haven’t made deals with anybody that won’t agree to include protection through digital rights management software (DRM), which won’t allow downloaded movies to be copied to DVD. The problem with that is that many people resented this and wouldn’t make purchases that forced them to watch movies only on a computer platform.

The Technology Liberation Front sums it up this way:

Memo to Hollywood: The people who are plunking down their hard-earned money for your products are not your enemy. You should be focusing on making your products more convenient for your paying customers, not worrying about whether you’ve thrown up enough roadblocks to their enjoying the product they’ve purchased.

Of course, none of this happens without broadband connections and more storage space. I wonder when Time-Warner or one of the phone companies will jump into the mix…

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