mfwic-o-rama

Even the Bit-Torrent (BT or peer-to-peer) file-sharing program used by the pirates to download film copy will be useful to make more money.

The BT program has attracted a huge number of online pirates, for it always speeds up the piracy procedure for each movie when there're more people downloading the same copy at the same time.

Though having caused a headache for authorities, the big number of people using the technology also provides a huge untapped market for advertisements and other form of intellectual products that can use the Internet as a vehicle, said Yu.

Yu also doubted the feasibility of the catch-and-sue procedure currently used to bust online piracy, given the difficulty of identifying online pirates and the fast growth of technology innovation.

"We need to change the basic business model, the traditionally production and distribution system," said the scholar, adding "the technology development is always faster than the change of law."

Yu thus urged the entertainment industry to look beyond their intellectual products but make good use of the cross media convergence to earn profits.

Using the film industry to elaborate the idea, Yu noted that the Star Wars series produced by Hollywood made billions of dollars in selling music, souvenirs and toys based on the movie, much more than the box office income.

Furthermore, Yu questioned the direction for media development. Society advancement and technology development should guarantee public access to good intellectual products, he said.

"Good intellectual products should be enjoyed by the public for free or a low cost, the same as library and museum," he told Xinhua.

Yahoo Music chief Dave Goldberg raised eyebrows Thursday at the Music 2.0 conference in Los Angeles with a proposal rarely heard from executives at large digital music services: Record labels should try selling music online without copy protection.

According to attendees, Goldberg pointed to the experience of eMusic, which offers its subscribers access to MP3 files without any digital rights management attached. Rights management restrictions have created a barrier for consumers, he said, making it a hurdle to transfer music to portable devices, and creating incompatibility between music services and MP3 players.

A Yahoo spokeswoman said that Goldberg was "basically trying to move the industry forward," and wanted to prompt industry-wide discussion "about what the consumer experience is."

Okay, so maybe doom is a strong word but I still feel that Hollywood and the RIAA are stifling innovation and subsequently sales volume in the tech industry. There is an abundance of FUD(fear, uncertainty, doubt) regarding hardware purchases, software purchases, music and movie purchases. It's only going to get worse with the current content distribution system in place. More rootkits, more families getting sued, more failed attempts at locking down content, ad infinitum.

The content industry is using copyright law in the wrong spirit. It is meant to protect the artist/owner of the "original work". But instead it being used to scare people from sharing and fairly using their movies and music. The end result is wasted efforts by the tech industry to introduce truly new products. New in the sense that they perform a novel function. Apple is the only one that has done anything "new" in the 21st century. The iPod. There could be more competitors if the devices would play nice together. As we learned from the explosive growth of the InterWeb in the late 90's, people want to connect and to share. And that begats more interest in the "new". Loyd at ExtremeTech laments the effect of copyright paranoia in this article.

I know I am not excited about buying the next generation VIIV PC for fear of not being able to use a DVD I backed-up from the original. Yes I backup all my DVD's because I am tired of my kids scratching the originals and then I have to replace them. Now I back them up and burn a new copy when the old one gets scratched.

I also know that I would be more likely to buy VIIV PC, or a new DVD player, or a new TV with HDCP if fair-use was really considered; as opposed to how can Hollywood and the RIAA track me and my habits, which include making my own backups or ripping all my disks to a hard drive so that I don't even have to deal with the fragile disks.

But with my fear that some copyright owner can easily send a cadre of lawyers to my door to take whatever they feel fairly compensates them for the crimes I have committed, I don't want the risk what the new DRM/DMCA technology brings. The content industry feels that the answer to their problems is more control. But they don't seem to realize that people are not that excited about buying into a Draconian control system for their content. Surely alot of people will buy into it the first time. And then when they get burned they won't buy again.

What's the answer you ask ?? I like what Hannibal has to say about Birch's outburst.. The rant doesn't give justice to what he is saying. Instead of fighting the current, go with what we know works. Free stuff gets people to buy other stuff. Works for Best Buy and CompUSA all the time. Think about it. They have been granting generous rebates for years. It must be working or else they would have stopped already.

If Apple, Intel, IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, Google, Yahoo, et al. bought some content companies for a fraction of the cost of their combined R & D budgets then they could really generate a real digital entertainment ecosystem that is fair to the customers while generating billions in sales.

Instead we get new devices that are half-baked the day they are released. Who is willing to buy this stuff ? I'll just stick with what I have. I know it works.

And the AACS is exactly what we don't need. Boycott HD content and devices. Use The Democracy Player instead.