Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem

The Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem - DECE - is a consortium consisting of trade associations, consumer electronics firms, major Hollywood movie studios, DRM firms, entertainment companies and more.

The DECE was founded in 2008 with a mission to develop standards for the distribution of major film titles.

There is no shortage of online firms selling movie and TV show content to customers, and there is also no shortage of platforms on which digital content is playable. This presents a problem when digital rights management (DRM) comes into play, in that it limits the number of devices that can be used to play back virtually the same content.

DECE set out to define a set of standard rules and a back-end system based on them that could enable customers to play digital content across a wide variety of consumer entertainment products.

The group is behind the development of UltraViolet, a cloud-based DRM and licensing service. Using UltraViolet, a consumer can watch the same content across a wide variety of devices, as the licensing details are locked away in a single UltraViolet account.

All the major Hollywood studios, except for Walt Disney, have backed the UltraViolet system. The DECE also touts amount its members Sony Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Intel, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Samsung Electronics, Panasonic, NetFlix, LoveFilm and dozens more.