Disney Ditching DVDs in Favor of Cloud

When Disney announced its acquisition of Marvel in late August, Michael Nathanson, an analyst from Sanford C. Bernstein and Co., expressed concerns about the deal keeping Disney in the faltering DVD business. (Nathanson's report was cited by the Los Angeles Times' Company Town blogger Joe Flint.)

Well, it looks like the Sorcerer's Apprentice may have a trick—and new medium—up its sleeve that will make DVDs, already in sales decline, all but irrelevant, according to the Wall Street Journal's Ethan Smith.

Disney is reportedly developing a cloud-like technology called Keychest, that, per Smith, "would allow consumers to pay a single price for permanent access to a movie or TV show across multiple digital platforms and devices—from the Web to mobile gadgets like iPhones and cable services that allow on-demand viewing."

Smith notes there are other similar systems in development, like Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem, whose website modestly proclaims it "the future of entertainment" and invites people to "join the movement," but what's interesting about Disney's possible jettisoning of DVDs is how closely the company has been linked to the technology in the past. Disney didn't merely release DVDs, they released Disney DVDs (and, more recently, Disney Blu-rays). The company's whole marketing of these releases were so rare, so scarce, they had to be released from the Disney Vault. (This bit of trumped-up scarcity was so ridiculous, Saturday Night Live's 'TV Funhouse' even lampooned it in 2004.)

Of course, the company also used to be pretty proud of Walt Disney Records, and you don't hear about those releases (besides Hannah Montana) too often anymore.