In my post below, I mention Lessig’s notion of reframing the debate around file sharing away from the idea of a ‘War on Piracy’ towards a more constructive metaphor. Well today’s front page article in the NYTimes is clearly influenced by the MPAA. Today’s headline: ‘Digital Pirates Winning Battle With Studios’. Obviously it is going to take some time for this discussion to happen in a constructive manner.
Look, I am very sympathetic to content creators getting their fair share. Movies cost a ton to make and market these days and clearly BitTorrent Trackers are facilitating illegal actions. That being said, just like the record companies fucked it up with Napster and suing 12 year olds, the movie studios should be working that much harder to come up with a viable solution for what consumers are demanding - more on demand availability of movies that have been recently released. That may take reframing some of their notions about theatrical release, dvd release, cable release, etc. But the physics of media (i.e. DVDs) are changing from objects to bits. Accept it.
Just because the old formula worked great doesn’t mean it needs to stay that way. Business models and revenue streams evolve and studios may have to stop relying on the golden goose of DVDs. According to this Business Week article, DVD sales account for 70% of a movies revenue and yet DVD sales fell 14.5% last year and that rate of decline seemed to accelerate in the 4th quarter. Things are changing fast and media companies need to respond with what consumers want not lawsuits and a ‘war on piracy’.