Hello to all of you. Here’s a new post!
Today, an Apple clone is running free. The demand is there for cheaper Macintoshes.
Today, cheap “iPod killers” are their own sub-market of the MP3 player industry. The demand is there for Apple to crush their competition and offer their iPods for much, MUCH cheaper.
Today, bootleg DVDs of TV shows and movies that aren’t on DVD in the States are floating around the Internet because the movie and television studios are stupid enough to continue to think that the Internet is just a piracy box. In all fairness, they’ve let the terrorists win.
Once again, the demand is there for these items, if there are bootleg DVDs, or iPod clones, or even Macintosh clones, so fulfill the demand. If you’re going to be pro-consumer, it’s only the right thing to do.
Here’s the problem with this viewpoint: People have misunderstood what I’m trying to do, criticizing the movie and television companies as I have. So I am going to say, right here and right now, my reasoning, loud and clear, so that there is no room for interpretation.
I am only doing this because I care. I am only doing this because I want to buy this stuff legitimately. But the bullcrap excuses I hear from these studios about how they “desire” piracy prevention measures, and yet they overlook the one basic rule that they should follow in order to prevent piracy from ever happening.
Seriously, content is king. I cannot emphasize that enough, so allow me to give you a recent story that shows just how the Internet can be. I’ve gotten hooked on a TV show recently on Fox, the new legal drama Canterbury’s Law. But I didn’t discover the show (OR watch it) on the tube. I’m in a Fox market that has the most clueless management around, and their marketing department sucks donkeys.
I discovered Canterbury’s Law on the iTunes Music Store with a free download of the pilot. I am now buying individual episodes of Canterbury’s Law after broadcast on iTunes, and I’m in for BUYING the season set when it comes out on DVD. You get people hooked on the content, you get legitimate purchases. The “content is king” model is going to win every time. Stop “playing it safe” for “the good of the people”. In all fairness, you’ve already lost.
I would never have found Canterbury’s Law in the old model, and THAT’S what these guys don’t get. The Internet is a fantastic marketing tool, and it is in the best interests of the TV studios and film companies to use it wisely.
If you make this content available, your “piracy problem” will shrivel up and die. If you don’t make this available, and you STILL resort to the “movie vault”, then your “piracy problem” will only get worse.
