A few months back, we wrote about Disney’s attempt to create a new kind of DRM called “keychest” that would supposedly let a “buyer” (really, limited use “renter”) access the content he or she paid for on a variety of devices. As I noted at the time, all this was really doing was giving you back your fair use rights on content, while wrapping it in additional DRM. Many noted that this was actually Disney’s attempt to respond to a wider industry initiative (that Disney is not a part of) called DECE for Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem. While many are excited about this, I still fail to see what the big deal is. With the Consumer Electronics Show underway this week, DECE is getting a ton of publicity, where it will be demoed. But it’s still the same old story. It’s giving you your fair use rights wrapped up in another layer of DRM that you have to hope never goes away. It’s good that the industry is finally realizing that locking you to a single device is a bad idea, but this isn’t the solution.
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