Big Content Still Not Learning

Evidently, Big Film hasn't learned the lessons that Big Music just seems to be sorting out for itself. From BBC News this morning:

Hollywood has locked horns with the technology industry over who will control digital entertainment and how it is watched. The six big film studios say a program called RealDVD violates copyright. This week a San Francisco court could decide if DVD users can make personal backups the way people do with audio. [ Link ]

The first mistake these companies make is in believing that digital content can ever be free of infringement. How many times do the attorneys have to be told what engineers have been telling them for over a decade? DRM (Digital Rights Management) doesn't work. Jeremy Allison, a software engineer at Google, says it better in a blog posting at ZDNet: "Trying to make Digital Rights Management (DRM) work in the real world is like asking engineers to do "Star Trek" style magic, rather than real engineering. DRM simply cannot work" [ Link ]. Why?

A content provider will "protect" digital content with DRM software, which will encrypt the data using an encryption algorithm and a key. This content, once sold to the consumer, requires a decryption key in order to be played. To the non-techie reading this, it's probably starting to sound complicated. It's not. Take, for instance, a DVD. Every DVD sold is so encrypted, and every DVD player within a region has a decryption key for every DVD sold within that region (say, North America). Insert the disc, the player decodes the data, and you can watch the latest Jerry Bruckheimer explosions in way-cool surround sound. All it takes is for content to be playable on a computer, or for some clever little git to connect one with a debugger or logic analyzer to the player, and voila! someone who understands code can now copy the files at will. DRM can never work because, simply put, the decryption code must be available in order for the "protected" content to play. Nobody's going to buy a DVD player that requires Sony Pictures reps to come to his home and enter a password.

The problem I really have with all of this is that we saw it before with music: declining quality in product (eg, a CD with one decent song and 12 fillers), plus consumer frustration with cost, plus the ease with which digital content can be replicated perfectly and redistributed equals a recipe for people to no longer pay for overpriced trash. The worst thing record companies ever did for music was doing away with singles and EPs: it got people out of the habit of going to the local record shop on Tuesday and made them wary of spending $18 on a one hit wonder and getting burned. I say it all the time: I prefer having the CD, the artwork, the physical artifact; however I really only buy albums if I can enjoy 85% of them. I'll buy a single online, but I buy albums at the local store (which has a better selection of music I like than iTunes or Amazon anyway).

People are applying the same logic to movies. If a movie is worth a dollar, they'll rent it from a Redbox and watch it. If it's worth fifteen, they'll buy a DVD. If it's worth less than five, but more than one, and they forsee themselves watching it occasionally, or if its a piece of crap that the kid loves enough to watch on repeat but not be careful about smudging with peanut butter, they'll rent it from a Redbox, or Netflix, or Blockbuster, rip it, and stick it on a burnable disc. Load it up with cool extra features, and if it's good enough, people will buy the original just to retain all that content without the extra work of making a real DVD from all the ripped clips. In short, my advice is to ADD QUALITY to the product. Make it worth shelling out the extra bucks.

Take the recent Pearl Jam reissue of Ten. They offered a few editions, some had the remix and the original only on CD, some had concert downloads included, etc. They offered a wide range of sets at varying price points, but to the real fan, they made a golden ticket deluxe edition (pictured), with vinyl and CD versions of the original mixes and remixes, bonus tracks never released, a double LP concert album with a digital download ticket for iPods, a DVD of the previously unreleased MTV Unplugged appearance, a composition-notebook formatted (and thick) scrapbook of the Ten tour, lyrics, notes, and memorabilia, photo prints, a huge poster, replica memorabilia, and so on. The band even spent half a day autographing boxed sets that were ordered through the fan club. They added value and original content, and were able to sell a TON of sets for $150+.

05 May, 2009 | Chris |

Here I am Now... Entertain Me

Well, here it is... a new blog with its own domain name, since the world seemed to have problems subscribing to one on a subdomain. I'll be snobbing and complaining, pontificating and more at this address for the forseeable future.

24 Apr, 2009 | Chris |