ManyMedia

Walk into CompUSA for software and walk out with custom CDs from their SoftwareToGo machines. That is, if you stop to see what the machine offers.

CompUSA currently offers about 900 titles, from games to spreadsheets, by more than 200 software publishers and is negotiating for more. There are more than 20 titles from Activision, 10 from Edmark, more than a dozen from Microsoft and Symantec but none from Broderbund, Electronic Arts, Adobe or Intuit.

“It broadens the number of titles without needing to carry the extra inventory, and it will diversify offerings into things like Spanish-language titles,” said Tony Weiss, president and chief operating officer of Dallas-based CompUSA.

The machine displays descriptions of software titles, pictures of their boxes and images of how the programs will look on a computer. When a customer picks up the CD at checkout, it is stamped with the software title and logo, and inserted in a case that includes a printed sleeve and information on how to use the software.

Content CDs, CompUSA, customize, distribution, software

Under the aegis of preventing illegal use of commercial media, IBM announced new plans called extensible Content Protection (xCP).

xCP includes encryption software that allows media providers to give consumers the right to, for example, watch a movie on a DVD player and any other xCP-compliant device on that consumer’s home network. The software will let media companies protect their intellectual property and be simple enough for consumers to use, according to IBM.

Such safeguards will allow the media and entertainment industry to develop viable business models for content distribution, which at this point are lacking, said Steve Canepa, vice president of strategy for IBM’s media and entertainment industry.

“The ground we’re trying to get to is to maybe take the focus off rights specifications for control and limitation in what can be done with content and to change the focus to self-enablement and a new user experience,” Canepa said.

Sure, take me, I’m yours. I’m only a consumer, after all.

Content copy protection, distribution, DRM, P2P