Buy once, play everywhere

Buy once, play everywhere.  When it comes to digital content like movies, music and games it sounds like Nirvana.  No matter what my device, no matter what platform it's running I can listen to my tunes, watch my movies or TV programs when I want, where I want.  If I pick up any gadget I should be able watch or listen to any of the content that I have bought, right?

That's why I was excited when I read via Ian's blog post about how Microsoft are working with movie studios, shops, gadget makers and others to figure out a way to make it a reality.

When you put this in the context of Live Mesh and how it allows you to seamlessly sync things like music, movies and other stuff across all your devices you can see how a new type of ownership model needs to be worked.

eWeek put it quite nicely when they talk about a "Virtual Library" or "Rights Locker".  The group of companies is called the DECE (Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem) and more details will be out at CES in January!

For those who haven't seen the Live Mesh vision yet: