What Hollywood can learn from the music industry

Wired has a good commentary on the lessons Hollywood should learn from the music industry. The article points out the folly of the music industry’s strategy to fight piracy while not providing a suitable alternative for consumers. Their obsession with DRM and focus on lawsuits did little to stop piracy. Similarly, movie studios should take a cue and realize that DRM and release windows limit consumer choice. These restrictions may do more to encourage piracy than stop it.

There are a lot of reasons why Hollywood has been slow to open its doors to the digital world (legacy licensing agreements, the ubiquity of the DVD format, the Wal-Mart factor, to name a few). But consumers are paying big money for video-enabled devices, and they’re using them. A recent study suggests that 18% of Internet users regularly use portable devices to watch video. That’s a huge jump from the prior year (8%). Until now the threat of video piracy has been limited by the fact that a) most people don’t want to watch video on their computers and b) they have a difficult time transferring downloaded video to the living room where they really want to watch. The shift in video consumption toward personal devices could be a tipping point for video piracy. If content availability and DRM hurdles remain as constricting as they are today, piracy offers an attractive option for some. To quote the conclusion of the Wired article, “A tidal wave is just what digital delivery brings — a tsunami of content, illegal and otherwise… locks can make you feel safer, but they won’t keep you from drowning in a tidal wave.”

March 1, 2008 | Filed Under Uncategorized 

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