At a recent analyst call, Anne Sweeney of the Disney/ABC Television Group made the rather illuminating statement that they now regarded piracy as a competing business model that existed to serve a need in the marketplace, and that to compete with this model, media companies had to come up with a strategy to provide attractive, easy ways for consumers to get the content they wanted legally, by keeping honest people honest.
See the ars technica report.
Finally a statement that makes sense from a big media company. But how about rephrasing that statement as --- cheaper prices?
Of course ABC was one of the first to put their TV shows on the iTunes Music Store, and earlier this year started a trial of airing their shows online. I hope the rest of the media companies would finally wake up and embrace distribution online, at fair prices, instead of continuing to bury their heads in the sand and worry about piracy once their contents are made available in digital form - and with terrible DRM management.
Interestingly, Apple's Steve Jobs happens to be the biggest shareholder of Disney. At a recent interview with Newsweek, Jobs was asked about the attempt by the record companies to raise prices on the then iTunes Music Store (after resisting the idea in the first place). Jobs said that the initial strategy of the iTMS was that the way to stop piracy was to compete with it by offering a better product at a fair price. Apple made an implicit deal with the consumers and if they were to raise prices, they would be violating that deal.
Pretty close to what Anne Sweeney was saying, eh?
See the ars technica report.
Finally a statement that makes sense from a big media company. But how about rephrasing that statement as --- cheaper prices?
Of course ABC was one of the first to put their TV shows on the iTunes Music Store, and earlier this year started a trial of airing their shows online. I hope the rest of the media companies would finally wake up and embrace distribution online, at fair prices, instead of continuing to bury their heads in the sand and worry about piracy once their contents are made available in digital form - and with terrible DRM management.
Interestingly, Apple's Steve Jobs happens to be the biggest shareholder of Disney. At a recent interview with Newsweek, Jobs was asked about the attempt by the record companies to raise prices on the then iTunes Music Store (after resisting the idea in the first place). Jobs said that the initial strategy of the iTMS was that the way to stop piracy was to compete with it by offering a better product at a fair price. Apple made an implicit deal with the consumers and if they were to raise prices, they would be violating that deal.
Pretty close to what Anne Sweeney was saying, eh?
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