The Entertainment Industry Is Large & Growing… Not Shrinking http://t.co/mTpfHe2C

Actually this is no surprise. The traditional players – RIAA and MPAA – keep complaining about how their “industry” is shrinking, but in fact: (more…)

How Copyright Industries Con Congress http://t.co/5c9Ye2Yq

I’ve long said that there is no credible support for the ridiculous figures of “loss” to the US economy either in dollars or jobs. Even the US Government Accountability Office says there is no credible support for any of the ridiculous figures of loss promulgated by the MPAA and RIAA. And yet, the numbers are repeated by politicians and the mainstream media to “prove” that “piracy” is a problem “we can all agree on”.

No we do not “all agree”. (more…)

The President’s challenge http://t.co/g4LQL9Ss was to the tech community to “solve” the “piracy problem” in the White House’s rejection of the current form of SOPA.

But it misses the point and Nat Torkington nailed it brilliantly. I’d post the whole thing but that would not be right. It’s short, go read it. (more…)

Apps Are Media http://t.co/8G8sFrcL

About 18 months back I started a blog post “Apps are the future of distribution” but beyond the title, didn’t really have my thinking clear enough to finish the post. Fast forward and now Erick Schonfeld expresses what I could not. (more…)

Filmmaker: BitTorrent Pirates Help Us Get More Exposure http://t.co/8ck2UbBn

To date I have never found a peer reviewed study (i.e. one that has some validity) that shows any harm from unauthorized distribution via bittorrent or other means. There are, however, many studies and examples that show a positive benefit from the publicity and promotion that happens when a project gets released onto a torrent tracker. (more…)

Technology & Creativity to power TV Brands of the Future. http://t.co/he4wemLs

Since ultimately, it’s been brands that have financed Television from the first, I’ve long wondered why it’s taking them so long to realize they no longer need the middle man – the networks or channels – because they can take their message directly to the viewer. Mark Pesce set out the basic proposition in his 2005 article Piracy is Good? which sets out the basic Hyperdistribution philosophy: create the advertising content in conjunction with the program so it is sympathetic and integrated, then distribute it as widely and as far as you can, by whatever method works because the advertising message is integral to the program, and – presumably – targeting the same audience, avoiding the “irrelevant advertising” problem I have. (more…)

Congressional Research Service Shows Hollywood Is Thriving http://t.co/mP0DU8Xc

An interesting research result from a source that isn’t fully bought and paid for by the Studios, that is, a report that may have some chance of relating to the real world rather than the fantasy land that MPAA/RIAA “research” reports come from. (more…)

Make No Mistake: Google Is Taking On The TV Industry http://t.co/6ntzqtFb The traditional TV industry should consider itself warned.

The biggest barrier to Google and Apple’s desire to create a new television distribution network has been the intransigence of the content owners to disrupt their own business model while it’s still profitable. So the obvious answer is for them to invest in content directly. (more…)

Removal of Restrictions Can Decrease Music Piracy, Study Suggests http://t.co/2zV65ehu Finally some facts in the discussion

Studies from the MPAA or RIAA tend to be laughably unscientific, to the point of even drawing the opposite conclusions than the data supports. Rarely are the methodologies exposed (an essential step for scientific analysis) nor the raw data ever shared. For scientific rigour, a study needs to be published so that anyone else in the world could reproduce the study and get the same results. (more…)

If TV Companies Released Authorized Torrents With Ads, Would People Download Them? http://t.co/j6iEg9o

Other than legal constructs that make them different, in practice a download with embedded ads and a real-time broadcast with embedded ads should be the same thing. And yet, no-one in the TV industry has even thought of the possibility, despite it being a very old idea.

For years, I’ve been referring to Mark Pesce’s Hyperdistribution model – both here in the blog and also in some of my public presentations – as one viable alternative to the current situation that would allow more consumption flexibility without changing the economics.

The responses are mixed. There are, certainly, a lot of people who insist they would never do that because they hate all advertising. I still think those people really just hate bad advertising, and don’t realize that they actually like good advertising (for example, the TV shows they download? They’re just “advertising” for other episodes of that TV show). But there are two types of answers that stand out and are seen throughout the comments. The first are that some people would agree to do this, having no problem supporting the TV folks. The second are people who say they hate commercials and wouldn’t do this, but that they would pay for a similar thing without commercials.

I generally dislike advertising, although more correctly I should say that, like others, I dislike irrelevant advertising, so I’d prefer to pay the equivalent (not the inflated prices attempting to be charged via iTunes et. al. ) but might be prepared to receive relevant advertising. Now, I don’t have children, am happy with my current car and already know what will replace it, not planning on going out to dinner or movies anytime soon, really don’t buy many clothes, don’t buy cosmetics…  I am a little non-consumerism, so just what advertising won’t be horribly intrusive and irrelevant?