United States’ major studios have decided to give digital rights management (DRM) an unparalleled makeover by making devices and services interoperable, irrespective of the company that has produced them.

Warner Bros. Entertainment, Fox Entertainment Group, NBC Universal, Sony, Paramount Pictures and Comcast Corporation, along with retailer Best Buy and Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, Philips, Toshiba and Verisign have all invested in the project that will go by the name of Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), which is aimed at allowing cosumers to play a video they have bought on any device.

The DECE’s lead arhitect, chief technology officer at Sony Pictures Mitch Singer, believes that the ecosystem will be seen as offering people a product which is actually better than a free one, given that the new service provides users with the option to burn any number of copies of a video on a disc or even to stream it from a server whenever they want instead of storing it.

The big absentee from this unprecedented project is Apple Incorporated’s major ally Walt Disney Company. Apple is currently the company that has the upper hand over the digital market, due to its Fairplay system and, although there has not been any talk of them joining the DECE, Singer stated that they would be thrilled to have the company as a partner.

DECE’s brand and logo are scheduled to be revealed at the Consumers Electronics Show that will take place in January. Moreover, other large companies are expected to join the consortium, given that not all the leading ones have been approached since the outreach began in 2006.