VeriSign getting into the movie business

The increasingly crowded online movie distribution scene is gaining another entrant, as VeriSign has announced a new, family-friendly movie service. Best known for administering the .com and .net top-level domains, VeriSign will be partnering with AxiomTV for the new venture.

VeriSign's movie service will use Kontiki's peer-to-peer distribution technology, and all movies will be locked down with DRM. Although the company hasn't released any technical details about the service, it is expected that it will require a Windows PC.

AxiomTV and VeriSign will ensure the family-friendly quality of the movies in part by using "Mother," a content filtering system that will keep swearing, violence, and nudity from innocent eyes and ears. The companies say that the new service is the first of its kind to focus on family-friendly content.

"We are a groundbreaker as the first Internet movie service focused on delivering family-conscious entertainment as it pertains to online video," said Daniel Cobb, president of AxiomTV. "As families bring their children online, we need to ensure that the movie content is not only high quality, and most of all, legal and secure."

There is definitely a market for "family-conscious entertainment," but the combination of P2P, DRM, and the need to watch the movies on a PC is going to limit the appeal of the new service.

VeriSign will begin testing the movie venture on January 8 with an eye towards a full launch on February 1.

:source: Source: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061220-8470.html