All of us involved in "digital homes" are well aware of the irony of that term....Digital Home. This irony is especially profound with the subject of Digital Rights Management. Common sense suggests that if I buy my digital content in the form of an CD or a DVD, or if I puchase a download of digital audio or video and I bring it into MY Digital Home, that I SHOULD be able to move that content around MY home without incumberance.
But as we all know, the simple task of moving digital content around our houses has been anything but simple for a long time. Any yet, this cloud is not without it's silver lining. Many companies are and have been working on legitimate solutions to these challenges. I won't even attempt to compile a comprehensive list here on this blog right now (although it might be fun to try it sometime), but there are a couple of industry pioneers that come to mind. Audio Request (or Request as they are now know) has provided great audio serving solutions for whole house systems for a long time. And they have always been very integration friendly when it comes to controlling their audio servers from 3rd party control systems like Home Logic, Superna, AMX and Crestron.
And Kaleidescape has clearly been a leader in pioneering these efforts for digital video content throughout the home. And as many of you know, Kaleidescape had to endure a pretty lengthy legal battle with the DVD Copy Control Association. But as you have probably already heard, Kaleidescape WON!!!
And there is more good news on both the audio and video fronts of this digital content battle. Earlier this month the Times reported on efforts by EMI to cut deals with both Apple, and Microsoft to start selling "unprotected content" through their respected services. EMI's CEO, Eric Nicoli was quoted in the article..."we aim to address the lack of interoperability, which is frustrating for many music fans". WOW!
Also, just today ARS reported on some interesting comments by Dan Glickman (chairman of the MPAA)at a LexisNexis conference this week. According to ARS, Glickman says the movie studios are "now fully committed to interoperable DRM, and they recognize that consumers should be able to use legitimate video material on any item in the house, including home networks. WOW!!!!!! Did you hear that....and there is more. Apparently Glickman also announced a "plan to let consumers rip DVDs for use on home media servers and iPods", although he later mentioned that the plan is in its very early stages.
Yep, well it's just another day in the life of the emerging "digital home". Again, we're left to see if this just more industry rhetoric or if like we get some real progressive substance like we've gotten for so many years from our friends at Request and Kaleidescpe.
the-day.
