What if Kaliedescape, Inc. WAS the VAULT?

[iansilv]

Alright- here is an idea, just putting this out there for shits and giggles- what if you bought your Blu Ray, loaded it, and sent it to K. The system then checked with K over the internet once to confirm you had bought the disk, and the authorized its playback.

Sure you may have to wait until the disk gets authorized and cataloged by K, but that would be the price. However, you would not have to reauthorize the thing overtime, just once to confirm with K that you own it.

Delete the file from your local system, you could rerequest it to be sent back, pay a fee with shipping, heck maybe you just rebuy the damn thing. But K puts in to its database that it is holding your library of blurays that you have loaded, authorizes it over the internet.

And, taking this one step further, maybe you buy the bluray through K and either load a local disk you have, or download it from K.

Either way, you have confirmed that you own the disk, you have purchased it, and no one else can copy it from you. This would even be better, as you would then not be able to load your friend's disk and borrow it, or even load from netflix. Might incentivize more people to buy disks instead of renting them.

And yes- if K burns down, you're effd.

Thoughts anyone?

 

[AnOutsider]

Problem is, I believe the article stated they did this to get around the "disc must be present" issue. I'm not sure if it needs to be in the same household, but I think storing a vault of discs somewhere and remotely authorizing them MIGHT be bending things a bit too far.

Would be cool though. K charges a fee to store your discs and then remotely authorizes your players. Sounds like a good solution IMO.

 

[JerryL]

Me likey.

 

[josh]

It's an incredibly attractive idea! But if I remember right, I believe Michael Malcolm told me that this had been examined by Kaleidescape as a possibility years ago, even for DVDs, but found to be impossible according to licenses or something the studios would reject. had to be done and stored in the home.

Your logic is sound - what's really the difference where the vault is as long as it validates you're a legitimate owner of the content? But as we know, logic rarely plays into these decisions for the studios...

 

[iansilv]

I would think that this would be an easy negotiation to make- it would literally GUARANTEE that eve single K customer bought and paid for every single one of its disks, never rented and then returned, and they would not even be able to loan the disks to a friend. I would think that this would be an easy solution for AACS-La to agree to, unless they are just a complete bunch of idiots. It would not sell any fewer disks, it could only possibly sell equal or greater numbers of disks.

 

[josh]

there you go, assuming a logical argument will convince them.

 

[JerryL]

Agreed. Though, I would actually think this would be difficult from the stand point that you've got little new revenue coming in- unless K would pay a fee to them- and you've got probably some healthy legal costs to do this- or anything.

 

[AnOutsider]

Wait, WHO would have little new revenue? Movie companies? We'd have to BUY their discs... K? There'd likely be a storage fee... not sure who loses fee-wise here

 

[JerryL]

If there is a storage fee then that goes to K yes? If K pays a fee to the association than thats a different story. My point is simply that if I am the licensing body and if you want to make some kind of negotiation with me then that immediately costs me money to start considering it and if its for a tiny subset of enthusiasts then I'm not real motivated. Basically, consider K's position with regard to the audio issue, it only affects a small % of its clients- so regrettably- they are doing what they have to do. This would be an even smaller % of BR disc owners. Not worth it to engage expensive legal counsel unless there is a nice payday. Sad but true.

 

[Transepoch]

Requires internet connection to verify content... where have I heard of this as a bad thing before?

 

[brodricj]

Requires internet connection to verify content... where have I heard of this as a bad thing before?

How about this. You buy the disc from K, then they OK your server to import it. When you receive the disc you can import it if you want. They could even set up a collaboration with Amazon or other e-retailers, so that once a sale has been completed then K is advised and in turn your server is given the OK to import the disc. Presumably this whole process could be automated so the on-going cost of maintaining it would be minimal. There could be a small premium applied to the sale of a "K importable" disc that goes to the monkey who's hanging off K's back, so then Mr Monkey gets his cut. There is no need for K to store the disc as proof of ownership, the disc is kept at the same premises as the server.

Where this approach falls down of course is if the owner of the disc later sells it to someone else, then in effect the disc has been turned into two copies. But the main aim of Mr Monkey is to prevent rental discs from being imported to a server and thus they've missed a royalty for a sale. This wouldn't apply here because the original "K importable" disc does not end up in a wide distribution like the rental disc does.

Taking the "premium on sale" approach a step further. What if the disc you bought from K was about double the normal price. You import the disc to your server and then when you're done you can either keep it or send it back to K (or whoever). If you send it back after import they give you a credit for about half of what you paid, so in effect you've paid about full price for the content, or perhaps less. Only draw back being you don't have physical possession of the disc any more. You always have the choice to keep the disc, but you've had to pay a premium for the ability to import it.

If you later choose to sell the disc, or give it away or whatever, you tell K and they give you a credit for the premium you paid for it. K then sends the order to your server to delete that content. A bit like recycling schemes where you take your empty coke cans down to the recycling depot and get 5c for them.

 

[Transepoch]

That all sounds fairly complicated. If those are the alternatives, just offer to charge me $6 for the download, send Mr. Monkey a check for $5, and call it a day.

 

[brodricj]

... just offer to charge me $6 for the download...

In that scenario all that remains for many International K owners (like me) is to convince their respective Governments to install the $billion+ broadband infrastructure so that we can do those $6 downloads

 

[Transepoch]

In that scenario all that remains for many International K owners (like me) is to convince their respective Governments to install the $billion+ broadband infrastructure so that we can do those $6 downloads

Don't forget to have them start with ours, so that K can have a big enough upstream pipe to feed your spiffy new infrastructure. Or maybe the new USB ports are for the optional satellite relays. Besides, doesn't throwing international commerce requirements into the "buy from K" plans just make all of them even more complicated still?

Anyway, just because they would be welcome to offer it doesn't mean that I would be any more interested in downloaded content then I already aren't.