Day: August 16, 2010

Why DRM Doesn’t Work http://bit.ly/aIRiuL

Forget the other arguments against DRM – that it doesn’t stop unauthorized distribution, that it harms you customers, that it is always circumvented, that it’s a way of controlling distribution and limiting it to big media – the real argument against it is that DRM doesn’t increase profits.

This basic misunderstanding between pirates and companies is the reason why anti-piracy measures will never work as a means of increasing profits. Game companies assume that if they decrease the ease with which people can pirate their game, they will increase their sales. But that is not the case. The vast majority of people will, if they lose the ability to download an illegal copy of a game, simply choose to not pirate the game and not purchase the game. I’m not making this up, either – independent game developer Reflexive published an article on Gamasutra about their experience trying to curtail piracy to increase sales. Their conclusion was that making pirated copies of their game more difficult to obtain did not increase sales. And this, mind you, was regarding game that only cost 10 dollars to purchase.

Although it focuses on game distribution the lessons apply equally well to music, movies and TV.

Tiny Number Of Creators Hitting The Jackpot… Or Many Making A Living Wage? http://bit.ly/b3Yaog

Put me down squarely in the corner of those who’s goal from “democratized” television (music and film) is to have more people making more money (decent living/middle class wage) than ever before. This will inevitably mean that fewer people win the jackpot of success.

To me this is a much better goal than trying to win the jackpot lottery of outrageous success., Every $2 milliion that a big name makes equates to 20 people early a very decent $100 K. And Ryan Seacrest’s $15 million a year to spokesmodel American Ido is obscene: That’s 150 people’s decent middle class income.

In that post, Parsons calls the old model — the one we described as the lottery ticket — as the “gambler model,” where you’re basically rolling the dice on whether or not your career will be a success or will plummet. And notes that the “cobbler model,” may not be as sexy, but you have a higher likelihood of success. The risk is lower, and the payoff is likely lower, but you can actually build a predictable career around it — and for many content creators, that’s certainly good enough. This isn’t to suggest it’s the only model. In fact, it’s not. There’s still room for rock stars and lottery tickets. But, when we’re looking at some of these content creators who are making a good living as professional musicians, the proper comparison is not to Mick Jagger, but to what they’d be doing if they were living in the world a few decades ago: and the answer is they probably wouldn’t be making music at all.

5 Actions You Want Every One Of Your Video Viewers To Take http://bit.ly/bwbsMK

A good basic reminder that we actually want people to do something when we post a video:

1. Find it
2. Start playing
3. Finish playing
4. Convert – do something as a result (like buy your product)
5. Share

Now, this is just my list.  You might group these behaviors differently, and that’s completely valid.  But don’t lump all these actions in together as one, because they all have different triggers and they all have a different impact on your overall success.  Additonally, don’t assume these actions will take care of themselves.  Put yourself in the mind of the viewer.  Not just any viewer, but the specific kind of viewer this video is created for.  And ask yourself what would cause you to click ‘play,’ and then to complete the clip, to perform a conversion action, or to share it with friends.