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Apple's upcoming new content distribution system

3 December 2005 16:23 by James "Dela" Delahunty | 4 comments

According to Think Secret, Apple is planning to launch a new content distribution system alongside the Mac Mini in January at the Macworld Expo. This service is made with content providers' interests in mind more than those of consumers. To ease worries about Digital Rights Management (DRM) protection on video content, Apple's new service will deliver content to customers in a way that it will "never" be stored on a user's hard disk drive.

Instead it will be stored on a user's iDisk which Front Row 2.0 will tap into. When someone wants to watch content they have purchased it will have to be served live at the highest bandwidth the Internet connection will allow. It is more than possible that video content can be stored on a video iPod however, but never on a computer HDD. There are a few advantages to this approach for consumers however.

Consider that you pay 99c per track on iTunes per music download, they are then stored (DRM protected) on your HDD (or your iPod). If you somehow lose those files, they are lost forever and it's just tough luck for the consumer as far as Apple is concerned. With the new distribution system, you are guaranteed not to lose your content. Also, purchased content will not fill up a user's hard disc drive either since it will be stored on Apple's servers.

However, in this case for consumers, the bad may outweigh the good. Consumers generally prefer to have a product, even if it is just data stored on a HDD, it still gives some feeling of ownership. This new system seems more restrictive than helpful, and I think most users here would agree it would be undesirable to see systems like this dominate media content purchasing in future?

Source:
Think Secret

Permalink to this article

Softvault sues Microsoft and others over DRM (18 January 2006)

iTunes sold 3 million videos (7 December 2005)

TiVo plans to bring TV programming to PSP and iPod (23 November 2005)

iPod-compatible copy protected CDs from EMI (20 November 2005)

Apple sells million videos in just 19 days (31 October 2005)

Hollywood sets eyes on revenues from video iPod (17 October 2005)

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Discuss this article!
tozzich (Newbie) 4 December 2005 10:37
Who ever thought that people would buy a million of these in 20 days to begin with. The problem I see is that Idisks are not free, and extra storage on them is expensive. This could be going back to free .mac. A couple hundred megs won't go very far at all though. It really does not increase the amount of trouble it takes to get a non-DRM copy on your machine. If storage is free, I think I like it. I will never lose it again, and I can get a copy any time wiht no problem. [ + quote]
Reasons? (Inactive) 4 December 2005 17:32
This is bullshit, who buys content if they can't unlock it and use it how they want? I know I wouldn't. Honetsly this is ridiculous. Why does no one care what Apple is doing? Shit, this is horrible, and could lead to far worse is consumers just bend over and take it. [ + quote]
evilh0ly (Senior Member) 4 December 2005 17:49
ok what if some people have dial up lol [ + quote]
Lethal_B (Moderator) 5 December 2005 0:30
I ain't touching this DRM filled crap... Anyone? [ + quote]