When your company’s goal is to allow easier sharing of media “between friends and family,” you can be sure you’ll get the attention of the giant media companies. If one of your founders is best known for having helped break the encryption around DVDs and being prosecuted twice (unsuccessfully) for hacking, you can bet the attention the company gets is going to be controversial.
“DVD Jon,” or Jon Lech Johansen, is the cofounder and CTO of doubleTwist, whose free application of the same name allows the sharing of media files between devices, with the application handling format conversions behind the scenes. The application works with Apple’s iTunes so playlists can be synched between phones and media players. That means it can effectively strip away any digital-rights management (DRM).
The new company is partially funded by Index Ventures, a European technology venture firm that has also invested in other Web start-ups such as Skype. Index Ventures partner Neil Rimer said, “Consumers will no longer tolerate having their digital media tied to a single device or platform,” and doubleTwist’s promise “to liberate every consumer’s media should make it a hugely popular application.”
Questionable Business Model
While consumers may love it, industry analysts are skeptical about a long-term vision for the company. Ben Bajarin, analyst and strategist at high-tech advisory firm Creative Strategies, told NewsFactor that the technology used to prevent songs and movies from being copied and sold (or easily shared) will soon be history.
“We believe the DRM technology around music will be gone in this calendar year. That means all music sold in [Apple’s iTunes Store] or any other place will work on any device,” Bajarin said.
But doubleTwist has plans for pay features that could make the business model worthwhile. Its Web site notes that while the application will remain free once beta testing is…