A group of media and technology companies including Microsoft Corp. and Walt Disney Co. have agreed in principle to allow consumers to make legal backup copies of next-generation video discs and share their content on portable devices.
The group, which also includes International Business Machines Corp., Intel Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. and Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros., will not have any technology to license until the end of the year.
But the announcement, released late on Tuesday, marks a shift in the way the movie industry has reacted to the threat of online piracy of its films.
