The  Walt Disney Company appears to be poised to unveil a new technology that will help it recover from slumping DVD sales - a decline fueled in part by robust Web 2.0 content available to consumers, including illegal duplicating and trading of its own copyrighted material.

Code-named "Keychest," the service will give consumers lifetime rights to a piece of content - say, a movie or TV show - across multiple digital platforms such as a smartphone or on-demand cable service or computer, MediaBuyerPlanner reports.

The technology will use the same logic behind cloud computing in that users access the content from the service provider's own computer servers, instead of storing the content on their own device. Essentially what the consumer will own is the access code to the movie, which is stored in the cloud.

ABC, a Disney company, is reporting that Keychest could be demonstrated as soon as the end of the year, and made available to consumers next year.

"Dad has a Zune, Mom has an iPod, there's a Mac and a PC at home and a Roku box; right now, those devices don't talk to one another," ABC quotes a source at Walt Disney. "We intend to blend those worlds."

Disney is hoping to bring other studios and content providers into this system. However there is a competing digital initiative under way called the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE), that could undermine an industry-wide push towards this concept, writes Christina Warren at Mashable. "Rather than creating or licensing compatible devices that work with already existing digital file formats, the DECE would create a new set of standards and formats that would be then licensed to new devices," Warren noted.

Setting aside the inevitable industry tussle and the fact that Bob Chapek, president of home entertainment at Disney Studios, told the Wall Street Journal that the company doesn't expect Keychest to deliver tangible financial results for five years, the technology poses intriguing possibilities for marketers once it's realized.

For starters, it is part of the larger move by publishers to diversify into the digital arena - efforts that also are expected to deliver new advertising platforms. Other recent endeavors include e-readers such as Barnes & Noble's Nook, the Simon & Schuster-backed Vook venture, and Disney Publishing Worldwide's launch of Disney Digital Books.

Industry-watchers also believe that the Disney venture could represent a significant change in the future of advertising. With enough studios participating and more tinkering with the content model, it could potentially lead to a holy grail, of sorts, for advertisers: one ad that follows one piece of content across multiple devices.

Research from The Nielsen Company supports the notion of content ownership across devices. The most-recent results from its Three-Screen Study found that video viewing - on computer, TV and mobile screens - is on the rise across the board.