Microsoft Files Patent to use Kinect to Detect Audience Size for Licensing Content

Microsoft wants to use the Kinect to determine if the viewing audience has enough "per-user-view" licenses to watch a movie, TV show, or special event. From the patent application:

A content presentation system and method allowing content providers to regulate the presentation of content on a per-user-view basis. Content is distributed an associated license option on the number of individual consumers or viewers allowed to consume the content. Consumers are presented with a content selection and a choice of licenses allowing consumption of the content. The users consuming the content on a display device are monitored so that if the number of user-views licensed is exceeded, remedial action may be taken.

If the studios decide to use the Kinect to limit viewers of a title, will you be putting a towel over the Kinect (or unplugging it) before streaming movies or showing a pay-per-view event at a party?

via the Launch Ticker.

Comments

[Tvaddic]

While I don't think Microsoft wants to do this, I believe they only got this patent, so if anyone else wants to do it, they have to pay Microsoft money. This is a horrible idea, I would hate a tv watching you, for anti-consumer things like this.

[Xaionik]

Who would willing pigeon hole themselves into using a device that charges a retroactive fee on a whim.

[social campaigns tool]

this is what's wrong with the Patent System, MS are patenting this idea but have no workable prototype and the wording is quite ambiguous, So if someone invents a their own propriety system the records movement in order to interact with a 3D background, they will automatically be breaching this patent, even if it does not use MS software or technology....

[Jason]

This is why concepts and ideas aren't patentable. They are.obviously trying to do just that. They can patent a specific design on how to do that but not the idea or concept itself. As i said before, it's like the light buld. It's not the idea of producing light with a bulb that is patented it is how the bulb is made to produce the light that is patented.

[Crow550]

Do they want to encourage piracy?

Really?

Or Kinect smashing?

Is the Kinect really all that useful on the 360 or has it already worn it's novelty?

[Kayla Sonergoran]

I was considering buying a Kinect. If this happens, then I have no intention of buying it. I am sick of how the movie studios are behaving and if Microsoft is going to make it easier for them to behave that way, then I am not wasting money on their devices.

[Joe Whitehead]

You all know that you can just use a reverse projector, right? ;)

Well, a picture of a person in front of the camera to fool it. If they get clever and make you move, then hey, an LCD in front of the camera. THIS is why these kinds of technologies are stupid. Energy/space/material inefficiency and clumsy/less convenient to own and operate, easy to defeat, and who the he** would want to buy a TV limited that way, in the first place?!