When the ants start crawling over the elephant

[eatapeach]

"If your money is invested in any company that distributes books, music, or movies, it’s time to sell. You are on the wrong side of the digital revolution.

Entertainment companies are now facing the end of their ability to enforce copyright protection of their products. This development will force a complete restructuring of their financing. No economic model yet exists to offer them anything like the income potential that enforceable copyright has offered them for 300 years.

On the other hand, if you are looking for ways to get more bang from your entertainment buck, recent technological developments are moving in your favor. The more adept you are with the Internet, and the more spare time you have, the truer this is."

http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north224.html

[sarettah]

Back in 1986-88 all the IT trade mags were predicting "the paperless office"...

We still don't have it.....

When TV first came out, the end of Movies, Newspapers and books was widely predicted...

They are still there.....

When the internet hit and then the E-Book it was predicted that books were gone.....

JK Rowling recently became the richest author in history....

Record albums (vinyl) have recently made a comeback... Bell Bottoms are back in.... Muscle Cars are back.....

What goes around comes around and with every new advance, the oracles will predict the death of everything that was there before it. They will be wrong....

[eatapeach]

i guess nobody bothered to read the article.

the excerpt is about 1/25 th of what the article says.

oh well, i tried to share. ok now, everybody go back and play with grogan!

[Carrie]

I've gotten about halfway through it and it's definitely interesting. Want to comment on this before I forget it:
I predict that Blockbuster will start selling more books and renting fewer tapes and DVDs, following the lead of Hastings, a regional video rental chain that sells books and magazines. I predict that HBO will suffer falling revenues as a result of satellite Internet connections and cable modems. Finally, I predict – no genius required here – that the big three TV networks will continue to suffer falling viewer ratings that mindless sitcom degeneracy with laugh tracks will not restore.

I think all of these predictions are dead wrong.

Blockbuster unveiled a new pricing scheme this week with the release of Finding Nemo - $1.99 for one night. Just like the old video stores used to do. I took it - others will as well. Blockbuster has been selling magazines for well over a year now, all of the top entertainment and gaming mags are right up by the counter. They occupy maybe a 3-foot square footprint out of a huge store.
New DVDs are also out now that disable themselves after 48 or 72 hours and you can throw them away. This means no trips back to the video store to return the disc. I see all of the big video stores turning to these in about two years, and I'll love it.
If anything, Blockbuster, Hollywood Video etc will join the revolution and start offering fully licensed movie downloads from their sites as well as offering the DVDs in their stores.

HBO suffering falling revenue due to satellite and cable? You must be joking. Since the inception of cable, HBO has expanded to have about 5 different channels or so and they're only getting bigger as they (wisely) break ground into niche programming. Satellite hasn't hurt them at all; on the contrary it's been a significant boon to them.

I do agree that the big 3 will continue to suffer falling ratings, but they won't be displaced as the main source of television entertainment for at least another 10 years. And in that amount of time, you'd better believe they'll come up with things that keep people coming back - just look at Survivor, CSI, etc etc.

The author makes a dangerously wrong assumption here - that the *majority* of people are middle-income and above with relatively high IQs who love and embrace technology. Oh how I wish that were true... but it's not.

[kath]

Originally posted by Carrie@Nov 5 2003, 02:23 PM
HBO suffering falling revenue due to satellite and cable? You must be joking. Since the inception of cable, HBO has expanded to have about 5 different channels or so and they're only getting bigger as they (wisely) break ground into niche programming. Satellite hasn't hurt them at all; on the contrary it's been a significant boon to them.

I do agree that the big 3 will continue to suffer falling ratings, but they won't be displaced as the main source of television entertainment for at least another 10 years. And in that amount of time, you'd better believe they'll come up with things that keep people coming back - just look at Survivor, CSI, etc etc.

The author makes a dangerously wrong assumption here - that the *majority* of people are middle-income and above with relatively high IQs who love and embrace technology. Oh how I wish that were true... but it's not.
Gotta agree with you there Carrie - one of the "hooks" for us getting satellite in the first place was that there were several HBO's. The Discovery Channel group has done quite well for itself as well due in part to satellite and digital cable opportunities.

I also have to agree re: the Big 3 - we rarely watch network TV anymore except for certain sitcoms we enjoy, but even then those usually get forgotten if there's a cool feature on Discovery, the Travel Channel or the Science Channel. We also enjoy the Speed Network (lotta race fans in this house!) and are looking forward to the long-awaited (NFL Network - let's hope they don't F*CK it up!!!)... all of these specialty TV channels lead to more TV-watching, more advertising opportunities, more revenues and success for HBO, et al in the long run.

The Big 3? They are going to be left in the dust. If NYPD Blue and CSI are as "risque" as they are allowed to get - HBO/Showtime will win hands down. Can you imagine them trying to do The Sopranos, Six Feet Under or Carnivale on network TV? No way.

Interesting article though - however, I just don't happen to agree with the writer.

[Pornwolf]

He is absolutely correct about most of the article. Not all of it of course but he is correct in theory. Music will be the hardest hit. We are struggling to figure out a new biz model now. S t r u g g l i n g! I-tunes is not going to save anyone.

Television and movies will be a bit different. I think they are about to enter into a new golden age to some degree thanks to being able to cut out the middle man. I think the music business will make more money than ever but they aren't the smartest apples in the bunch.

You better believe production companies (who actually make the shows)have been hoping for the death of the big networks. For a long time they have only been paid enough to make the sitcoms and hopefully be paid when the re-runs hit syndication. A change in the medium and the way we consume entertainment will be good for them.