Break

Edgar Bronfman, CEO of the Warner Music Group, has publicly framed the music industry’s failure to accommodate file-sharing as an ‘inadvertent’ war on consumers. I’m left wondering how you can file a series of lawsuits inadvertently. ‘We expected our business would remain blissfully unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and file sharing was exploding … By … moving at a glacial pace, we inadvertently went to war with consumers by denying them what they wanted and could otherwise find and as a result of course, consumers won.

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RIAA Hits a Sour Note With Its File-Sharing Witch Hunt

If I were a big-shot L.A. music mogul, Jammie Thomas would not be my ideal poster child as the face of illegal file sharing.

Thomas, you’ll recall, was convicted last week in a Duluth, Minnesota, court for violating copyright law by making a couple of dozen songs available to the multitudes. For this she was ordered to pay the recording industry $222,000 in damages, and she could lose even more to court costs and appeals.

All because she was among the 26,000 people sued by those Brioni suits known collectively as the Recording Industry Association of America, and hers was the first case to actually reach trial. The RIAA, faced with plummeting CD sales and increasingly restive artists, wanted to “send a message” to all the lowlifes out there who download music for free and undercut their profit margins.

The message, apparently, is this: “We’re idiots.”

Technorati Tags: RIAA, Music, file sharing

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There has been a recent spat between Apple and NBC Universal over pricing TV shows on the iTunes Music Store (iTMS). The net result is Apple is no longer offering NBC Universal programming on the iTunes Music Store.

Centered around the argument was the desire for NBC Universal to charge consumers 4.99 per episode of popular content. After reading that, I began to do some investigating of popular NBC Universal DVD box sets. Here’s what I came up with.

Heros Season 1
39.99 / 23 episodes = 1.73 per episode

The Office Season 3
31.99 / 24 episodes = 1.33 per episode

30 Rock Season 1
32.49 / 21 episodes = 1.54 per episode

and the most expensive example I found

Battlestar Galactica Season 2
51.99 / 20 episodes = 2.59 per episode

Based on their pricing model, the Battlestar Galactica box set would cost $100. Why would they care to raise prices to the point that no one would buy their content? I can think of only two reasons.

They are starting their own online service. While this is certainly not necessarily a bad idea, spending the money to create a competing service is ultimately going to fail. Like it or not, the iPod and the iTMS is the premier content delivery platform. For any competing platform to be successful they will need to have a smooth process for allowing downloads to an iPod. The only way they could possibly compete in this space is if they offered DRM free shows (which they won’t).

They want to minimize individual unit sales and drive DVD box set sales. I’m less inclines to believe this but this is only based on my experience. With the advent of DVD rental services and now digital delivery, I’m less inclined to want to take up valuable real estate in my house to contain walls of DVDs. The physical disk really has limited value.

Content providers have to get over the fact that with the competition for eyeballs from multiple sources, their content is not worth very much. I predict that while NBC Universal will be back on iTMS either by the end of this season or the beginning of next.

From DailyKOS

In February 2003, a Florida Court of Appeals unanimously agreed with an assertion by FOX News that there is no rule against distorting or falsifying the news in the United States.

Lawyers paid by Bill O’Reilly’s bosses argued in court that Fox can lie with impunity.

It’s their right under the 1st Ammendment.

This suit was brought about because of a couple of “Investigative” journalists hired by a local Fox affiliate refused to insert false statements into their news piece to placate the programs producers. When they were fired for not changing the story, they sued Fox News.

I now finally have an excuse to get an HDTV and HD Cable/FIOS. TiVo HD gets official: $299, loaded, with SATA and TTG coming

I am addicted to my TiVo and hate watching TV without it. When Verizon called offering FIOS service I turned them down because I couldn’t easily use my Tivo. If this thing can work with Digital Cable/FIOS then I’m all over it.

Technorati Tags: tivo, video, hd

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