Today, we sort of take for granted that digital media is going to be somewhat “free” of total control by big media producers. Or some of us might be thinking that way. Like inexpensive access to online courses, for example.

Ah, but have we been paying attention to what the big media producers are doing with digital rights for movies? Digital music is released without the DRM controls because the giant music “distributors” couldn’t move quickly enough to adjust to new markets and too many copies of their “library” were already out there online without rights encryption.

While apparently the same has been sort of true for videos, with DVDs being relatively easy to “make backups”…that game isn’t over yet. Transition to digital in the cloud offers a new opportunity to “maintain control” of content.

The “new to me” mechanism/ protocol/ platform for controlling digital video rights is something called UltraViolet. A truly ambitious “one ring to rule them all” plan to keep control of revenue stream from future movie releases……that also implies it may be possible in the future for online course content-such as those deals between Knewton and Pearson- to be “access controlled” as well, in such a way that premium prices can be demanded. As has been the case with textbooks…

And as is the case with iBooks and Apple’s App Store today. Although App prices seem to reflect real variety of sources: competition keeps them low.

To get a glimpse of UltraViolet, here’s a FAQ on it. One of the strengths of this approach is that it’s totally mind boggling…most consumers may be bamboozled into submission, and just pay the going freight. I wonder what prognosticators think of the chances that UltraViolet, or some other “master control device” will succeed in taking over media distribution online?

Or will the hackers in the Chinese Army FunGroup hack the whole shebang…? The next phase of our brave new world after privacy went out the window: can content be protected/ owned??