Skip to main content

Dvorak says Screw Digital-Rights Bugaboo

According to John Dvorak, the content owner's DRM mantra is actually a smoke screen for their anti-competitive behavior, and the protection of a broken legacy business model that intentionally bundles small pieces of good content with lots of 'crap' content.
"The record industry needs DRM more than the movie industry does, because it needs a surefire way to keep people from copying the one good song from an album. It needs the leverage of that one good song to continue to gouge the public with high prices. In many instances, the one good song per album actually amounts to the user spending $15-$18 for one song, since the other ones are junk. The record industry folks hate iTunes and other single-song distribution mechanisms for this reason. They've even suggested that certain singles be sold for more money than usual. They are trying to recoup all the money they would have made selling albums with one good song and 13 pieces of crap.

For the people who run the movie industry, these DRM systems are important so they can carefully orchestrate the worldwide marketing campaign for a movie and not have to worry about it getting into the hands of, say, the Germans months before its theatrical release in Germany. That would ruin the marketing campaign. Movie-business executives also see themselves as being in the music business, with they themselves being the orchestral directors. They pose as conductors wearing tails, directing a marketing symphony."

In summary, Dvorak accuses the entertainment sector of self-inflicted damage, based upon their own continued inability to adapt to demand shifts in the marketplace -- "They do everything they can to ruin their own business by refusing to change anything, and making it difficult for the consumer to do what he or she wants to do."

Popular posts from this blog

Rise of Software-Defined LEO Satellites

From my vantage point, few areas are evolving as rapidly and with such profound implications as the space sector. For decades, satellites were essentially fixed hardware – powerful, expensive, but ultimately immutable once launched. That paradigm is undergoing a transition driven by Software-Defined Satellites (SDS). A recent market study by ABI Research underscores this transition, painting a picture of technological advancement and a fundamental reshaping of global connectivity, security, and national interests. LEO SDS Market Development The core concept behind SDS is deceptively simple yet revolutionary: decouple the satellite's capabilities from its physical hardware. Instead of launching a satellite designed for a single, fixed purpose (like broadcasting specific frequencies to a specific region), SDS allows operators to modify, upgrade, and reconfigure a satellite's functions after it's in orbit, primarily through software updates. The ABI Research report highlights ...