In sum, here's what Rovi Digital Copy offers: the chance to buy a discounted digital copy of a movie you've already paid for that can be played on many computers, tablets, game consoles, smartphones and set-top boxes, but won't necessarily be accessible from or compatible with all of your devices.

As limited as it is, this offer may still appeal to the same people who think it's worth paying Apple $25 a year for an online copy of their digital music collection, or who bought CD copies of the vinyl albums on their bookshelves. and as demonstrated by the popularity of online photo sites, there is something powerfully appealing about being able to shift a media collection from one's living room or home computer to the cloud, where it can be enjoyed from just about anywhere.

Even the relatively small step forward represented by Rovi Digital Copy is still a leap for the piracy-phobic Hollywood studios. Their main argument against other approaches to DVD copying has been that they enabled people to copy movies rented from Netflix or borrowed from friends, creating permanent collections on the cheap. Rovi's software can't stop that sort of behavior, either; instead, it minimizes the effect by allowing only one digital copy to be bought per disc. Nevertheless, that curb was enough to satisfy Rovi's studio partners.

Rovi's service helps plug a gaping hole in Hollywood's UltraViolet initiative, which encourages people to buy Blu-ray discs by including access to a digital copy of that movie in the cloud. So far, however, UltraViolet only works for selected new Blu-ray releases. as a result, it's trying to sell people on the benefits of movie ownership — in particular, the ability to enjoy a film anywhere, any time, and on a variety of devices — that applies only to a fraction of the titles in their collection. Rovi's solution can extend those benefits potentially to a movie lover's entire DVD and Blu-ray collection — for a fee, unfortunately, and with non-trivial caveats.

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– Jon Healey in Las Vegas

Healey writes editorials for the Times' Opinion Manufacturing Division. Follow him at twitter.com/jcahealey.

Image: a chart showing how Rovi Digital Copy would work. Credit: Rovi

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