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DECE Hopeful that Apple will Board UltraViolet

Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) members are optimistic that the new digital rights technology UltraViolet will achieve critical mass.

A panel comprising executives from DECE members Sony, Warner Bros., Fox and NBC Universal as well as Microsoft, Best Buy and Samsung were unsurprisingly unanimous in denying that the two missing gorillas in the room — Apple and Disney — would impact the prospects for UV.

“The hardware side of Apple’s business will be no impediment to UV becoming a service,” declared JB Perrette, president, Digital & Affiliate Distribution, NBC Universal. “There is no issue making UV available on all sorts of Apple devices.”

“On the service side Apple is incredibly successful, but in the same way we have all struggled in making digital ownership a business so have they. Apple has a strong music and apps business but they don’t have a big video business. They want to grow that also and we hope over time that they will participate.”

On Disney, which of course shares Apple CEO Steve Jobs as its major shareholder, Perrette added: “They spent some time and investment in Keychest but they are not looking to be outliers and I am optimistic that they will join at some point.”

So, no danger of a format war then: “You have one versus everybody else,” answered John Calkins, executive VP, Global Digital and Commercial Innovation at Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. “I like this side of the bet.”

Peter Levinsohn, president, New Media and Digital Distribution for Fox Filmed Entertainment said that ownership of a UV account needed to have privileges.

“It needs to be differentiated from the rental model by giving consumers the ability to watch content on a big domain of devices; to access content remotely; to not clog up their computers but enable them to own it with confidence.”

“The lack of flexibility and consumer confidence have been real issues,” he admitted. “Consumers want to make sure that when they buy something it is going to be future proofed, not outdated or unusable. UV is going to take this to next level.”

Thomas Gewecke, president, Digital Distribution, Warner Bros. was excited about UV deployment because it would fundamentally improve the product for the customer.

“We need electronic sell through to be better. We want to make it very simple so that a consumer buys a movie it comes with a copy in the cloud. They don’t have to worry about the hard drive failing or worry that it won’t always be delivered. With UV we will eventually, and it could take a decade, remove the attachment from a physical copy and then from a home-stored file to something that resides in the cloud that the consumer feels confident that they will own.”

(See related post: DECE Announces UltraViolet Rollout.)

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