Go With the Flow
I’m constantly amazed at the content industries and their inability to adapt to new technology. Rather than find a way to profit from the shift, entities like the RIAA and the MPAA do what they do best and lobby government to castrate the encroaching technology. Of course this rarely works as Cory Doctorow says “bits will never, ever get any harder to copy than they are today”. Now, I was resigned to the fact that Hollywood would fight tooth and nail and we’d have some kind of broadcast flag however, I ran into something today that gives me a glimmer of hope.
Clive Thompson posted this piece about how KFC is actually using Tivo to their advantage! Rather then bemoan consumers ability to skip commercials, they’ve chosen to embrace the fact that people will fast forward by embedding a subliminal message that gives you a secret code for a free sandwich! I hope this is a measure of things to come. Think this approach might work a bit better than trying to change the technology?
Along the same lines, I hope more people follow the NBC’s lead and release some of their content for free. Think a few people might give Conviction a try if they can download it gratis? Sounds an awful lot like Cory Doctorow’s approach to his books…obscurity is a bigger deal than piracy. As Seth Godin points out “Getting people to PAY attention is enough for most media companies.” Compare that to Ricky Gervais; his podcast (which is pretty funny) is now in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most downloaded podcast. Pretty impressive stuff. How does he choose to follow that up? By charging people for the next one. Think he’ll get three million downloads at $7 a month? Once again, I agree with Doctorow. There is an awful lot of great free content out there – to break through that, Gervais will have to offer something truly compelling. I wish him luck.
