In Reaction to Apple’s Upcoming Movie Store?

Breaking…Today in Hollywood, burning a movie to DVD has just been made easier. In trying to counter illegal movie downloads, the nerdly named DVD Copy Control Association is trying to be proactive. Seeing what happened to MP3s, they don’t want a repeat. So they’ve changed their rules to be more flexible with emerging and legal distribution concepts…

A film industry group is set to remove some of the procedural hurdles that prevented the legal recording of movies onto blank DVDs in a further sign that Hollywood studios are preparing to expand what consumers can do with downloadable movies.

Under rule changes expected to be finalized soon by the DVD Copy Control Association, retailers could create movie jukebox kiosks with which customers can select, say, an obscure title and burn it to a DVD on the spot.

Online merchants, such as Apple Computer Inc.’s iTunes Music Store, could start to allow video downloads to be transferred onto DVDs.

The impending technical and policy changes involve the copy group’s proprietary technology known as the Content Scramble System, or CSS. The association, an arm of Hollywood studios, licenses the encryption technology to makers of DVD players and other electronics companies and applies it widely to movies on DVDs to restrict illegal copying.

The association said it will soon expand licensing to movies that are digitally distributed on demand or a la carte - and not just for movies that are mass-produced on DVDs.

The group also is working with disc makers to produce CSS-compatible blank DVDs.

Hollywood studios have been experimenting more with digital distribution. But until recently, they have been reluctant to allow consumers to transfer online purchases onto DVDs, limiting playback largely to computers or entertainment systems that are linked to a computer network.

Source: LA Daily News