Locking up DVDs

by David Holtzman

Yesterday's entry was cheap and dirty for me--I put up a link to an article that I had running on Business Week Online about the coming DVD wars. I was surprised by the number of comments on the BW site and thought that I might pursue the issue a little further.

Since we're talking about war, let's try and understand that most basic of battle conditions--when do you win? Under what circumstances would Sony and the other movie studios feel that they were victorious? I would suggest that it would be when the pirated movie (and music) industries were defunct. But that's not enough, because they don't want to alienate people on movies in the process, right? They still have to have a thriving business. So they have to stop all copying of movies and leave consumers happy in the process. That seems reasonable.

Now here's the problem...we (consumers) are buying devices that require movies to be copies. Think about using an ipod in an environment where you couldn't copy music. The same thing is about to happen to movies. As storage gets cheaper and people get more accustomed to using, transporting and streaming digital content, they're going to demand the ability to move their paid-for films into any device that they own that can display it.

That desire is completely at odds with Sony's win conditions. This is a battle that they can't win. The demand for copyable films will soon force this conflict to a head. I'd guess in about 3 years.

The answer here is obvious, they need a new business model.

Sony needs to change their win-lose scenario into a win-win one. Who cares about copying? They should focus on sales. If movies are copied onto say, three digital devices, then locked up, we'd all be happy.

What if someone invented a device that would "lock" a DVD into a carousel and permit copying anywhere on a home network as long as the device authenticated that it still had the original safe and secure? Something like would be a better win for Sony. They should focus on what's important, number one-please the customer. Number two-increase sales. Number three-stop pilferage.

Posted on May 31, 2006

1 Comment
Intellectual Property

David,
I have recently started watching your blog feed, and enjoy your writings. Keep up the good work. Now to comment on the above.

I think you came close to hitting the nail on the head, but went a bit sideways on me. The content owners are less concerned about piracy as they are about fully exploiting thier assets. In their ideal world, if you have a copy of their album in your iPod, and a copy in your home stereo, and a copy on your laptop, that is three copies that they would charge you for.

Locking a DVD into a device, and then creating arbitrary limits on fair use, assumes that I am someone that can not be trusted. The law is based on simple concepts such as good faith, and if I want to make use of the content in different ways than what the content owner had original thought of, it would still be a reasonable thing to do, therefore legal.

In my opinion, the real reason behind all of these attempts to lock up all content and bring it under control, is to force every consumer to buy the same content multiple times. If you want to watch a movie on your portable device, buy this copy. If you want to watch it in you home theater, buy this copy. If you accidentally damage the media, sorry backups are not allowed, so buy another copy.

However in the real world, most people will buy one copy of a movie/album/etc., and replicate that content across their own electronic ecosystem. This is fair use of copyrighted material.

The content owners look at your fair use rights as a temporary setback, which can slowly be beaten down through litigation and lobbying. In order to help their litigation and lobbying efforts, there has to be a bad guy. This is why the video and music pirate has been greatly exagerated, and turned into a multi billion dollar red herring.

Posted by Bill on June 3, 2006

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