Cable Industry Joins MPAA In Asking FCC To Allow Them To Stop Your DVR From Recording Movies

from the without-any-reason dept

Ars Technica has allowed the cable industry lobbyists' top lawyer to explain why the cable industry supports breaking your DVR in a misguided effort to add more windows to movie releases. Not surprisingly, he simply repeats the MPAA's flat out lies and misrepresentations on this particular issue. For example, he claims that the movie studios need this or they won't get content out to the industry early enough. But that's wrong. There is nothing stopping the movie studios from releasing content whenever they would like. In fact, we've already seen that some of the major studios are releasing movies in exactly this manner (prior to DVD release), despite claiming that it's impossible to do so without enabling this form of DRM.

If the movie industry wants to add a new window where they release movies for pay-per-view offerings before they come out on DVD, there is nothing stopping them from doing so today. Nothing.

The claim that this is about preventing "piracy" is flat out bogus. Even the movie studios themselves claim that nearly every movie is already "pirated" by the time the movies hit the theaters. And these pay-per-view offerings (they like to call them video on demand, but it's really pay per view) are for a window later than the theater release. So the movies will already be available via unauthorized channels. That won't change at all.

So, what are we left with? The two main arguments simply don't make sense at all. There's nothing stopping the studios from adding this window now. And enabling selectable output control (SOC) to stop your DVR from recording these movies won't do a damn thing to reduce unauthorized file sharing of the same content. The only thing it will serve to do is make legitimate customers pissed off, because they'll be confused and annoyed when the DVR they purchased to record what comes out of their TV sets refuses to record this movie that they legally are accessing, but want to time shift (which, again, is perfectly legal).

Contrary to the MPAA and the NCTA's bogus claims, this has nothing to do with enabling some "awesome" new service. This has everything to do with trying to lock down your TV and DVR in an age when consumers are finally getting back some control. What's amusing, of course, is that this comes just as the TV industry is finally realizing that letting consumers do what they wanted with DVRs didn't harm the TV industry, but helped it. One of these days, maybe the MPAA and the NCTA will come to that realization as well. In the meantime, though, they want to get a foot in the door to let them stop your DVR from working as advertised, in the misguided belief that they need to push back on what legitimate consumers want to do with the content they watch.

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FCC Poised To Let Hollywood Break Your TV And DVR

from the based-on-nothing dept

Earlier today, we wrote about how even the MPAA's own members have shown they don't need to break your TV and DVR with selectable output control in order to release video-on-demand movies prior to DVD releases. Yet, if you hadn't noticed, the MPAA has been on a big rampage lately insisting that they need to do this to add yet another window to its release schedule. That's because the way Hollywood thinks is that they only way to make money is to take away what consumers want and, instead, add more annoying "windows." This is faulty thinking. However, it's even more faulty to claim that they need to break your TV and DVR to release this content. The MPAA's basic argument is that without this, there will be piracy -- but even the MPAA admits that every movie is pirated by the time it's in the theaters (i.e., before it would need this window).

Want to know why the MPAA got 60 Minutes to run its propaganda piece on movie piracy this week? Because it knew this fight was close to a deciding point, and a little moral panic might help tip it over the edge into Hollywood's favor.

For a while, the FCC has pushed back and refused to grant the movie studios an exemption in order to break your TV, but word is coming down that, despite promises to make decisions based on "evidence," the FCC is ready to give in and let the MPAA break your TV and DVR in order to stop you from recording the movies it releases. Why? There's no good reason at all, other than the administration's cozy relationship with Hollywood these days. The industry's own actions show that this will do nothing to make it easier for it to release movies earlier. The industry's own claims show that it will do nothing to decrease piracy.

The only thing it will do is harm millions of consumers who believe their TV and DVR should work the way they were intended to work.

Public Knowledge is asking people to send a letter to the FCC, protesting this decision. I'm not a fan of "form letters," but I would suggest reading over the suggested letter and then crafting your own (polite, well argued) version, and sending it to the FCC. Hopefully the FCC realizes that breaking your TV and DVR for the sake of protecting Hollywood's billions (which still continue to go up) is not progress. It's a blatant attempt to take away consumer rights.

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Oh Look: Hollywood Doesn't Need To Break Your TV To Release PPV Movies Early

from the who-would-have-thunk-it? dept

For a while now, the MPAA and the major movie studios have been asking the FCC for permission to break your TV and DVR by enabling "selectable output control," which would block the recording of certain movies. The MPAA's claim for why they needed this is to add another "window" for releasing movies as video on demand prior to them being released on DVD. But that makes no sense. As we pointed out, when they first made this claim, there is absolutely nothing stopping them from releasing these movies earlier for VOD. There's nothing to stop them from doing so -- and it's not like SOC would actually block the movies from being online. Every movie ends up online around the same time (usually before) it gets into the theaters, so these movies would all be available for file sharing prior to the VOD release anyway. The MPAA keeps saying that it simply can't release the movies earlier without this form of DRM, but it appears that the studios own actions prove that we were right, and the MPAA was lying. Public Knowledge is pointing out that Warner Bros. has released two recent movies for VOD prior to DVD, even as the MPAA is still insisting that it's simply impossible. Oops.

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Dear Hollywood: Don't Be Idiots; Don't Delay Movie Rentals

from the seriously dept

Sometimes you just shake your head at ideas that come out of some executives that are just so incredibly dumb, it makes you wonder how anyone ever took them seriously. There have been some hints about this latest one, though. Just last week, in discussing the latest IP Colloquium podcast, we noted (with surprise) that Paramount's top lawyer thought the solution to business model problems in the entertainment industry was "more windows." Windows, of course, are the different time periods in which movies are released solely for different formats/media. So, it starts with the theater (the first window), followed by video, pay per view, cable and network TV -- each representing another window, and another chance to squeeze more money out of the same content.

Yet, with the industry facing some challenges, rather than actually looking at what users want, its top brains seem to think that the answer is more windows. It's hard to explain how incredibly short-sighted this is, because it's so monumentally backwards that it makes you wonder what they're thinking. At best, my guess is that the execs are extrapolating out in the simplest form that with the launch of each "window" they make more money, so the way to make even more money must be to offer more windows. Of course, this assumes two rather basic things that are totally wrong. One, is that these windows won't piss off users and two, that those users have no alternatives.

But, apparently not realizing that, these execs have hit upon a few different attempts to add more windows. First, they've been pushing for the permission to break your TV or DVR with selectable output control barring your ability to tape movies. This way, they can create a new "window" of movies on TV that you can't record, that they can offer before the movies even get out on video. Of course, this will (a) piss people off and (b) drive them to more piracy. Brilliant.

The other attempt, is to get video rental places to stop renting movies when the DVDs first come out. The LA Times had an entire article explaining this plan, whereby the studios would force all rental services, including Netflix and Blockbuster to not rent certain films -- but only offer them for sale. The idea (short-sighted as it is), is that this would somehow force people to buy more DVDs, which gives the studios a higher margin than rentals. We actually heard about this earlier this year with the contract terms that the studios tried to put on Redbox, but it's apparently trying to do the same with Netflix and Blockbuster as well.

This idea is so bad that even the LA Times, who tends to support its hometown industry more often than go against it, put out a separate opinion piece with the original article, calling this new idea "crazy" and "absurd."

In the meantime, what do customers actually want? Well, there's pretty good evidence they prefer choice not being limited by windows. They've been clamoring for so-called "day-and-date" release, whereby all these windows are compressed. If you don't want to see a movie in the theater, why not be able to get the DVD? It's as if the studios don't realize that part of what they're selling is the social experience of "going out" to the theater. Even better, if the DVD comes out at the same time as the theater version of the film, less marketing money needs to be spent to sell more DVDs, and you can do nice tie-ins, like having the ability to buy the DVD as you walk out of the theater. Giving people more value and more choice is what the market is asking for.

Instead, Hollywood execs are trying to take away choice and limit value. Incredible.

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Hollywood Can't Handle Anyone Connecting With Fans... So It Contractually Tries To Stop Them

from the suicide-in-the-making dept

The whole "connect with fans" and give them a "reason to buy" mantra fits with pretty much any kind of content creation -- and absolutely works in the movie industry. We've talked, for example, about the amazing job that Clerks writer/director/filmmaker/actor/funny guy (he recently said he doesn't like being described as "just" a filmmaker) Kevin Smith does in connecting with fans and giving them a reason to buy. Lately, a lot of that has been happening via Twitter, which is great. Except in the minds of the Hollywood studios. Apparently, lots of new studio contracts are including anti-Twitter language, forbidding writers, actors and others from chatting too much about the movies they're working on. Some just talk about "confidentiality breaches" while others forbid saying anything disparaging.

This is the typical Hollywood "control everything" mindset, but totally goes against the way fans want to connect, these days, and will do a lot more to harm these movies than help. People want to follow their favorite actors/directors on the set and know what's going on. It helps get them more excited about the movies, well before they otherwise might have. Shutting them down, just because some studio execs, who have probably never used Twitter, are too paranoid to recognize it as a great promotional vehicle, seems backwards and shortsighted.

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Hollywood Still Thinks That The Industry Needs DRM

from the history-lessons-missed dept

A bunch of folks have sent in various versions of how the entertainment industry is trying to convince the Copyright Office not to grant a special DMCA exemption for breaking DRM in the very limited -- but quite real -- scenario where a DRM server goes dark, taking away access to content people thought they had legally purchased. This seems like a perfect example of a reasonable DMCA exemption (people legally bought something, and they can no longer access it without getting around the DRM). On top of that, the music industry especially has finally come to terms with the fact that DRM not only doesn't work, but decreases the value of the music and makes people less willing to buy. So you might think that they wouldn't put up much of a fight. But, you'd be wrong.

Nate Anderson's coverage does the best job highlighting the absurdity of the response representing the RIAA and MPAA:

"To recognize the proposed exemption would surely discourage any content provider from entering the marketplace for online distribution... unless it was committed to do so... forever. This would not be good for consumers, who would find a marketplace with less innovation and fewer choices and options."

The mind boggles. This reads like copy from a Bizarro World manifesto on DRM, since the reality of the market for downloaded music (which was the issue behind the proposed exemption) has shown quite clearly that people don't want DRM on their tunes and providers are happy to comply once the labels allowed it. The current situation, with several major stores and little or no DRM on downloads, is manifestly better for buyers.

Just an ordinary day for the established entertainment industry's lawyers, where they love to insist that, theoretically, what's happening in reality is impossible.

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US Switches To Digital TV And The World Doesn't End -- Nor Does Hollywood

from the phew dept

We were quite surprised to find no further calls for delays on the switchover to digital over the air TV from analog -- but we're not at all surprised to find out that the actual switchover happened with relatively few problems. Sure there are some people who are confused or who are having difficulty getting their new converter boxes working properly, but there's been no catastrophic failure or problems, and most of the issues seem to have been resolved pretty quickly. Perhaps the gov't really did need a few extra months, but my guess is that the same thing likely would have happened back in February... or if we had done the switchover years ago. So, now can we put the old spectrum to good use, finally?

Separately, the EFF is noting that (once again) it appears that Hollywood lied and exaggerated its claim that it needed a broadcast flag that would stop DVR copying of digital TV or it would start pulling content off the air. Funny thing... that didn't happen. As the EFF notes:

Entertainment industries like to argue that they "need" DRM to make works available. And policymakers have eagerly adopted this argument. But when the bluff is called, it turns out that the DRM wasn't so necessary after all.

So will our politicians recognize this? Or will they continue to believe Hollywood, everytime it insists it needs some new kind of DRM with legal backing from the gov't?

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VP & Commerce Secretary Suck Up To Hollywood, Cite Bogus Stats And Promise Misguided Action

from the just-what-wasn't-needed dept

The Obama administration continues to give in to pretty much every wish of the entertainment industry. At an MPAA-sponsored dinner, VP Joe Biden repeated a bunch of Hollywood talking point myths as fact, and promised stronger intellectual property enforcement. He incorrectly referred to file sharing as "pure theft," claimed that it hurt the economy (with no evidence to support that) and said that it caused lost jobs. Of course, the industry has been putting out bogus studies claiming such notions, but they're easily debunked when you look at the details. Biden also promised that the "IP czar" would be "the right person," which (given the audience was Hollywood execs) almost certainly means someone who will roll over and obey the industry, rather than focus on actually increasing innovation and protecting consumer rights.

Earlier at the event, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke noted that the recent leak of Wolverine "underscores the problem the industry faces," while saying that he "believes in the full and impartial enforcement of the law." Again, as has been discussed widely, the leak of Wolverine doesn't demonstrate any problem at all. Plenty of people will still go see the movie in the theater, and if the industry had reacted intelligently, it could have turned the leak into a marketing coup. Instead, it acted stupidly, and because of that, the administration is going to bend over backwards to help the industry keep acting stupid rather than adapt. What a shame.

These moves represent a real loss to the economy, society and culture. For whatever reason (money has a lot to do with it), the administration seems to have bought into the totally unsubstantiated claim that there is only one business model for entertainment (selling content), and thus it needs to create laws to make sure that such a business model works. In doing so, it's creating massive inefficiencies, decreasing content production and making it even more difficult for new and innovative business models and services to thrive.

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Boxee Routes Around Hulu Ban

from the this-ought-to-be-fun dept

We were among those surprised and confused by content providers trying to prevent Boxee from accessing Hulu content. If you don't know, Boxee is basically an interface for watching video content from the internet on your TV. You hook up a computer to your television and effectively use Boxee as a more TV friendly browser. As part of the list of internet content you could view, Hulu was a popular option, but Hulu's content partners protested -- perhaps because they're negotiating with cable companies on exclusive internet rights. But, there seemed to be absolutely no legal reason to stop Boxee from offering the content. After all, Boxee was just a browser for the content, like Firefox or IE or Safari.

Well, now it looks like Boxee is trying to push the matter a bit. It hasn't re-enabled access to Hulu exactly, but it has launched an RSS reader that will handle video, including Hulu's own RSS feeds. It's not a perfect solution, but effectively Boxee is pointing out to Hulu and its content partners, that they've made the content available for consuming, and all Boxee users are doing is consuming it as offered. It will certainly be interesting to see how Hulu responds...

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Hollywood Shoots Itself In The Foot... Again; Removes Content From Boxee

from the there's-stupid-and-then-there's-hollywood dept

I've been hearing such wonderful things about Boxee lately that I had actually been meaning to test it out in the next few weeks. It makes it quite easy to view internet content over your television -- helping to bridge that "final gap" between the internet and your television. Boxee has done a nice job integrating a variety of different legal online video services so you can watch them all via your TV. Obviously, one of the big ones was Hulu, which provides video streams of some of the most popular shows on television. There are some dumb limitations associated with Hulu -- including geographic restrictions and music licensing restrictions -- but for those who can use Hulu it actually works quite well (surprising for an offering set up by NBC Universal and News Corp.). The folks at Hulu have actually been pretty upfront in explaining the limitations and their own frustrations in dealing with some of the very content providers who funded them in knocking down some of the more idiotic restrictions.

However, now it appears those content providers have shot themselves in the foot again. Christopher Froehlich alerts us to the news that Hulu's content providers have demanded that Boxee stop streaming Hulu content and Boxee is going to comply. Hulu has a post on their own blog, where they certainly sound quite apologetic about the whole thing:

The maddening part of writing this blog entry is that we realize that there is no immediate win here for users. Please know that we take very seriously our role of representing users such that we are able to provide more and more content in more and more ways over time. We embrace this activity in ways that respect content owners' -- and even the entire industry's -- challenges to create great content that users love. Yes, it's a complex matter. A tough mission, and a never-ending one, but one we are passionately committed to.

For those Boxee users reading this post, we understand and appreciate that you're likely to tell us that we're nuts. Please know that we do share the same interests and won't stop innovating in support of the bigger mission.

Kudos to Hulu and its CEO for at least explaining the issue in a human, rather than corporate-PR-speak way. And, yes, it's the content providers who are nuts, rather than Hulu. After all, wasn't the point of putting the content on Hulu to get more people to watch the content? Why would they possibly try to make it more difficult for people to watch. Oh, wait, we forgot. NBC Universal thinks it's a good thing to make their content hard to watch.

But, to be honest, it's difficult to see how there's even a claim at all by the content providers at all. They put the content on Hulu so that anyone watching the content via the internet on a computer within the geographic restrictions should be fine. Boxee is just an application on a computer. It's functionally identical to watching the content on your computer screen. The only real difference is that the "screen" is a television instead of a monitor. But the mechanism is identical. It's difficult to see how the content providers can claim any right whatsoever to say that you can watch the content that they purposely put online only on a specific type of screen. I can understand Hulu not wanting to upset its content providers. And I can understand Boxee not wanting to upset Hulu... but I can't see how those content providers have any legal right to make this request at all.

Hell, I imagine users of Boxee (depending on their setup) can simply use the computer they already have hooked up to their TV to surf directly over to Hulu. The interface might not be as nice, but they'll still get to see the content. In those cases, it's not even about the screen -- but the browser. It's perfectly legal for me to hook up my laptop to a TV, surf over to Hulu in Firefox and watch a show. All Boxee does is put that into a different browser -- a better browser for TV. Since when does any content provider get to say that it's okay to watch the content they put online in one browser, but not another? In the end, what good at all does it do to ban Hulu on Boxee other than piss people off?

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Hollywood: Where Up Is Down, and 'Anywhere' Is Actually A Small Number Of Places

from the truthful-advertising-and-other-non-sequiturs dept

The latest Batman film, The Dark Knight, released on DVD this week, and I saw a TV ad for it the other night, touting the "digital copy" of the film you get if you buy certain editions of the DVD. That sounded like a great idea, and then the voiceover guy finished his sentence, saying that the digital copy could be enjoyed "anywhere." Given Hollywood's long and storied history of using a different dictionary than the rest of us, I was more than a little curious to see what exactly "anywhere" meant to them. The first thing I learned was that different studios use different copy protection, so the digital versions of different movies can be played on different sets of devices, which is a really nice way to make things easy for consumers. So I clicked around and found out that The Dark Knight is a Warner movie, and followed the trail over to its site, where I discovered Warner's "anywhere" means an internet-connected Windows XP or Vista machine and PlaysForSure-enabled portable devices. So Macs or Linux machines, iPods and other portable media players without Microsoft's copy protection (you know, the one they've been wanting to shut down), apparently aren't included in Warner's definition.

While it's not surprising that the digital copy will play on a narrow range of devices, Warner's advertising of these as "anywhere" is more than a little grating. It reflects the mentality that they know what's best for consumers, and they should get to determine exactly where, how and when people get to enjoy their legitimately purchased content. For Warner's purposes, iPods, other brands of PMPs, Macs and Linux machines don't exist, so in their own minds, saying the digital copy can be enjoyed "anywhere" is true. And thus the mentality that gives us the current state of affairs, in which the MPAA thinks that by limiting how people can playback their legitimate content, they're doing them a favor is explained. In addition to being the year's highest-grossing movie, The Dark Knight was also the year's most pirated film. Given the wide availability of the film on file-sharing networks, what incentive does a consumer with a playback device outside of Warner's "anywhere" definition have to buy a legit copy? And how can that be good for Warner?

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Cantor Fitzgerald Revives Hollywood Stock Exchange Plans To Let Studios Bet Against Movies

from the seems-like-an-odd-time-to-announce-derivatives... dept

Boing Boing has a post that caught my eye about Cantor Fitzgerald's plan to offer bonds based on the performance of movies, basically allowing movie studios to "hedge" bets on the investments they make in certain movies. Now, in theory that could make a lot of sense, but as we've seen with the credit default swap market and the resulting financial meltdown, what starts as a "hedge" can often turn into something very different. Either way, it struck me as odd that any financial firm would be rolling out some new, high profile, product like this in the midst of so many questions about similar products. The Boing Boing post also includes a pointed criticism of the plan.

However, the story was also intriguing because in the back of my head I vaguely remembered that Cantor Fitzgerald had purchased the Hollywood Stock Exchange years back. HSX had been something of an early web success story -- getting people to bet on the success or failure of certain movies and actors -- but it had all been with play money. In wondering about this, I did a quick search here on Techdirt, and actually found a remarkably similar announcement from seven years ago, all about how Cantor Fitzgerald was getting ready to launch a real futures market for movies. Of course, even more noticeable was the date on that post: September 4th, 2001. That's exactly one week prior to September 11th, and the attack on the World Trade Center... where Cantor Fitzgerald was headquartered. 658 employees from the company died from the attack in one of the many tragic stories to come from that day. I'm not sure if the Hollywood futures market actually will do very well, but it's still interesting to see them revive this idea.

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Writers' Guild Claims Studios Ignoring Earlier Settlement As Actors Get Ready To Strike

from the this-won't-end-well dept

While I have no doubt that the movie studios are being sleazy and underhanded in how it deals with both writers and actors concerning various contracts, it still seemed like both movie and TV writers were making a big mistake in demanding residuals for internet usage. All that does is make it more difficult to get that content online. And, of course, it meant that actors were going to fight for the same thing.

Now, just as the studios and actors had their negotiations breakdown, the Writers' Guild is claiming that producers are not living up to their end of the deal struck earlier this year. The writers claim that they're not getting the promised residuals, and the producers seem to be disputing which content is covered by the agreement. The writers say that all modern content from the past few decades is covered, while producers say the agreement only covers content made after February 13th of this year -- the date of the settlement.

To be honest, the whole dispute is rather silly. Any such system of royalties is going to break down. It may have worked in the past, but it's based on that same old concept of artificial scarcity that makes it more difficult to adapt to the modern economic reality of digital content. By insisting that the studios have to pay residuals on content reused on the internet (effectively getting writers and actors paid multiple times for the same work), it just solidifies the barriers for the folks who employ those writers and actors to adapt to the modern economic and technological reality. The writers and actors are just harming themselves by making it harder for studios to move into the internet era, adding tremendous additional costs beyond what was already paid for.

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Hollywood's DVD Cash Cow Starting To Falter

from the more-for-less dept

DVDs are Hollywood studios' most significant moneymaker these days, but sales are falling: one service says they're off 9 percent overall this year, while sales of higher-priced new releases are down 22 percent. With the way the economy is going, a spending slowdown isn't all that surprising, though entertainment revenues have historically held up quite well in down times. But studios are facing a scarier fact: perhaps consumers are losing interest in buying DVDs. One particularly bleak spot is the sales of Blu-ray, which was intended to spur consumers to buy expensive DVD players to match their new HDTVs, then replace their libraries with expensive new Blu-ray discs so they could get better picture quality than from standard DVDs. But sales of players have been slow, and sales of the discs haven't been much better.

The original article spends a lot of time talking about price, but never goes so far as to say that it's starting to look like consumers have no willingness to pay a premium over regular DVDs for Blu-ray's supposed benefits. For many people, the difference in picture quality simply isn't enough to justify buying a new DVD player -- no matter how cheap -- and buying more expensive discs, particularly as money gets tighter. James Surowiecki at the New Yorker has a good post on this angle, saying the vast difference in picture quality between VHS and DVD helped drive sales of the latter, but the difference between DVD and Blu-ray isn't wide enough to have a similar effect. But the studios say the down economy will give Blu-ray a boost, because "the supply of Blu-ray players is likely to sharply exceed demand in the coming holiday season, pushing down prices." That seems like a nice way to spin low sales expectations, but even if you ignore that, Blu-ray prices have a long way to fall before they're anywhere near competitive with upconverting standard DVD players.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Hollywood Again Tries To Stop Innovation: Threatening Redbox DVD Rentals

from the felony-interference-with-a-business-model dept

I have to admit that when I first heard about the whole Redbox concept of renting DVDs from a kiosk I was skeptical, but that was mainly because previous experiments had all been quite expensive with very limited selection. However, in actually offering super cheap prices ($1 rentals), I've been hearing from many Techdirt readers who swear that Redbox is fantastic and, at such a cheap price, often easier than downloading the movie.

So, wouldn't you know it? Hollywood is trying to block Redbox from doing business.

The company has filed a lawsuit against Universal Studios for trying to coerce the company into signing a ridiculous, business-destroying agreement -- and threatening to try to stop others from supplying Redbox movies if the company didn't agree. Specifically, Universal wanted Redbox to agree to:

• wait 45 days after a DVD's release date before renting it;
• pay a royalty of 40% of gross rental revenues;
• promise that prices never dip below $0.99 per night; and
• destroy all previously rented DVDs rather than offering them for purchase for $7, as Redbox currently does.

In other words, Universal Studios is basically trying to kill off Redbox, a company that has innovated in its business model, and, in doing so, effectively trying to circumvent the first sale doctrine by controlling how a copyrighted product can be resold. Universal threatened that if Redbox did not agree to these business-destroying clauses, it would stop supplying movies to any distributor who supplies Redbox. Effectively, that would mean that those distributors would stop supplying Redbox, rather than lose Universal as a supplier. This is, quite clearly, a case of corporate bullying. It's also yet another example of how the movie studios want to stop any innovation in the industry that doesn't come directly from the studios.

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Actors Now Fighting For Royalties That Will Make It Harder For Big Studios To Compete

from the short-sighted dept

After the TV writers' strike from earlier this year, we noted that the final settlement actually was not in the best interest of the writers, even though they got much of what they wanted in demanding royalties from online usage of their content. The actors unions are now gearing up for that same battle, as well, as they, too, are demanding rights over online usage, including royalties and the right to demand permission before any of the works they appear in can be used online. It's difficult to feel sorry for Hollywood producers here -- as they very much brought this on themselves, convincing lots of people that they should get paid every single time any of their content was used. Thus, it's no surprise that the writers and the actors are now demanding the same rights.

However, just as it was wrong for the producers to be demanding a fee for every usage, so is it wrong for the writers and the actors to be demanding such a fee. All it will do is make it much more difficult, time consuming and expensive for any of that content to go online. And that will open up much wider opportunities for other content to go online instead, decreasing the overall value of the content made under these agreements. It's hard to fault the actors (like the writers) for looking out for their short-term interests and demanding the same sorts of things that the producers have demanded of everyone else -- but it's setting up a bad situation over the long-term, where the studios under these agreements won't be able to adapt to the changing media landscape.

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DirecTV DVR Will Delete Pay-Per-View Shows

from the record-at-your-own-risk dept

First we had ABC thinking that not allowing people to fast forward through commercials on a DVR-type product was a good idea, and now comes the news that DirecTV will automatically delete Pay-Per-View shows you record with your DVR after 24-hours. This is apparently at the request of the major Hollywood studios who have decided that the best way to build up an audience is to piss them off by not allowing them to record the movies that they legally paid for via PPV, and then chose to record and time shift. Time shifting is perfectly legal, so there's absolutely no legal reason for DirecTV to ban the practice. As for the Hollywood studios, this is more backwards thinking. One of these days, someone in Hollywood is going to realize that pissing off your loyal customers isn't a good idea.

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Hollywood Continues Its Worldwide Push To Have ISPs Block Sites Like Pirate Bay

from the why-innovate-when-we-can-legislate! dept

It would appear that the IFPI is following in the footsteps of the US entertainment industry in pushing government around the world to force ISPs to block access to sites and content that the entertainment industry wishes weren't available online. This is the latest in an ongoing effort for the entertainment industry to pretend that the internet needs to conform to the way it wants the world to act, rather than conforming to the way the internet actually works. The push would include requirements such as having ISPs set up massive filters, similar to China's "Great Firewall," to block sites like the Pirate Bay (despite the non-infringing uses of such sites) and also to block any downloads of certain digital audio and video tracks as recorded by a digital fingerprint. The fact that the IFPI is pushing for this is no surprise, given the RIAA/MPAA's similar push within the US, as well as recent efforts in both France and the UK to implement such policies.

There are many, many reasons why such policies aren't just bad, but dangerous to innovation. As we're already seeing elsewhere, the entertainment industry now seems to think that any new innovation that makes it easier to distribute, copy or promote content now needs to get approval from the industry (while also paying a royalty fee). If Hollywood had its way, things like the VCR and the iPod wouldn't even exist -- despite the fact that both devices have helped to provide new life to the entertainment industry. The same will be true of various internet services -- but not if Hollywood succeeds in getting them blocked completely. It's amazing how many times Hollywood will need to relearn this lesson. Every time some new technology comes along, Hollywood freaks out that it might need to adapt -- and yet, time and time again, that new technology has only helped to reinvigorate the industry. Yet, by spreading FUD all over the place, the entertainment industry has become much better at bending politicians' ears to the point that those politicians incorrectly believe that the industry is doomed if it actually needed to adapt and change its business model, despite plenty of historical and economic evidence that those adaptations will come if the market is left alone to innovate.

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Hollywood's Worried About The Wrong Thing When It Comes To Digital Archives

from the misplaced-worries dept

Is it really any kind of surprise that Hollywood is worried about the wrong thing? The NY Times ran an interesting article this past weekend about how Hollywood is starting to freak out over the potential costs of digitally archiving movies. Currently, film archives are simply stored in cool places, like salt mines -- but Hollywood doesn't quite know what to do with digital archives, and a new report has them freaking out about just how expensive it will be to store digital content. There are many reasons why this worry is misplaced -- starting with the simple fact that whatever it costs today is only getting cheaper, and that trend is only going to continue for the foreseeable future. However, we've talked about the risks of digital archiving and "digital extinction" before, and the threat is completely overblown and often misplaced.

The problem isn't with what it costs to store content. Storage is cheap and getting cheaper all the time. The real problem is that those doing the archiving keep wanting to put their content into proprietary formats which will rapidly go extinct. If, instead, Hollywood focused on storing (and making many, many copies) of the content in more open, easily accessible formats, this wouldn't be a problem at all. Hell, I'm sure the experts over at the Internet Archive, Google or Amazon would all be thrilled to help Hollywood preserve its digital films. However, since Hollywood is so freaked out by technology these days, the chances of them letting any of those organizations help out (even a not-for-profit one like the Internet Archive) seems slim to none.

In the meantime, why not get creative? How hard would it be to create a system that would build a p2p storage system for Hollywood archives, where lots of folks could store bits and pieces of movies for the studios in exchange for... say... a free sneak preview of an upcoming blockbuster? It's the sort of thing that the community would love to take part in... but, of course, in MPAA land anything P2P must be evil.

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Hollywood Writers Eye Startup Life

from the risky-business dept

The LA Times reports on ongoing negotiations between writers and venture capitalists to create Hollywood startups. Apparently "dozens" of Hollywood writers are looking to launch companies that would allow them to produce video content that would be distributed directly to fans on the web. We've noted that there are already a number of companies pursuing this strategy, and with thousands of talented writers sitting idle, this is an ideal time to start more of them. In the long run, these kinds of startups will ensure writers get compensated fairly because it will give writers who feel they're under-compensated an exit option. On the other hand, the LA Times makes clear that writers jumping into alternative business models may find that the reality of Hollywood startups to be a culture shock. A lot of successful online content outfits tend to be shoestring operations, and it's likely to take a few more years before the bulk of viewers make the switch to Internet-based sources of information. Writers used to the relatively large budgets and large audiences of Hollywood studios may find it difficult to adjust to being at a web startup that no one has (yet) heard of. This may explain why in a town with ten thousand writers, only "dozens" are looking at the startup option. On the other hand, those writers with an appetite for risk or a thirst for creative control may thrive in an environment where they call the shots and reap a much larger share of the rewards if they succeed.

Timothy Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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