Home Media Magazine - May 18-24, 2008 - (Page 22)

NEWS MPAA Files Suits Against Consumers Editorial: Blu News is Underreported Continued from page 11 www.homemediamagazine.com “It’s unfortunate that MPAA is following this approach,” McSherry said. “File sharing is hotter than ever. Millions are still doing it. [It’s] not being demolished or arguably diminished by litigation.” She said the defendants would be under financial pressure to settle rather than push for a trial. McSherry said she believed previous settlements between individuals and studios ranged from $3,500 to $5,000. She said fighting the studios in court would incur substantial legal costs. “Attorneys don’t come cheap,” McSherry said. She said studios have been more proactive than record labels regarding dissemination of their content on the Internet. And she agreed there is a difference pursuing commercial pirates versus individuals. “[It’s] not a very clever business model to sue your [potential] best customer,” the lawyer said. The MPAA earlier this year retracted a previous claim that 44% of movie piracy in the United States was committed by college students. The trade group later downsized the estimate to 15%. The trade group is using the data to push for federal legislation mandating colleges and universities enact stricter filters on their networks. “No matter how many times you sue, it is just a drop in the bucket,” McSherry said. “Right now [file sharers] are your enemies. Make them your customers.” Continued from page 5 CLASSIFIED SHOWCASE B R O W S E R D I S P L AY S CO M P U T E R S O F T WA R E easy to understand. For two years, the media spotlight was focused not on the many benefits of high-definition media, but on the bruising format war between Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD. While this war was raging, the mantra among industry analysts — duly reported by the press — was that if Hollywood and the CE companies couldn’t get their act together and agree on a single format, then HD media was doomed and disgusted consumers would stick with standard DVD in the short term and ultimately migrate to the Internet to get their movies through digital downloading. This faulty train of reasoning has always stumped me. Consumers are investing thousands of dollars on creating elaborate home theater systems that practically beg for highdefinition programming. So why would they snub packaged media and turn to the Internet, where the quality of downloadable movies isn’t even up to par with standard DVD? Sure, HD movies are slowly becoming available on Thomas K. Arnold’s e-mail address is tarnold@ the Internet, but even on the best computers questex.com it takes hours to download a high-def movie — and then there’s still the problem of getting that downloaded movie to the living room. The studios have little motive for hastening this transition, since the profit model is murky at best. And without Hollywood’s support, digital downloading will remain an afterthought, as evidenced by the fact that the average number of movie downloads on Apple’s vaunted iTunes Music Store actually went down in 2007 from 2006. But you don’t read much about that. Even after the format war was resolved in February, there was precious little in the mainstream media about the promise of Blu-ray. There was always a cynical analyst or two to quote about how the future is all about digital downloading. Maybe the drive-by media should slow down a little and take a look at what’s really happening. Either that, or clean their windshields. Copyright Law Is a Sensitive Topic Continued from page 11 BUSINESS FOR SALE BUSINESS SERVICES USED TAPES & DVDS REDUCING YOUR INVENTORY? FOR ADVERTISING INFORMATION CONTACT: Kurt Wohlman (714) 338-6749 kwohlman@questex.com www.homemediamagazine.com We Buy VHS, and also DVD & Video Games xtreme deo E 733-7370 (203) Vi might have been possible, one in which the CD became an adjunct to other, more-profitable endeavors, including touring and merchandising. In that alternate universe, according to Sprigman, both recording artists and the recording industry might have made money. Clay Shirky, a professor and author, noted that by making services such as Hulu.com free to end users, content producers are beginning to acknowledge what has been true since Napster: “If you give someone a piece of equipment that allows them to do something they want to do, it’s hard, in a democratic society, to keep them from doing it.” Panelist Tim Wu, professor at Columbia Law School, observed that what one company regards as copyright infringement, another may regard as marketing. Wu used as an example the current court case brought by “Harry Potter” creator J.K. Rowling against Steve Vander Ark to prevent him from publishing the Harry Potter Lexicon, a comprehensive index of the author’s series of novels. Wu said that the question of what people think is right or wrong in the world of copyrighted works is as central to the question as the law on the subject. He noted that nothing like the kind of “bizarrely detailed fan-produced trivia” that is included in the Harry Potter Lexicon has existed until this century. Wu said that in the early days of fan sites, Warner Bros. issued “cease and desist” letters to protect what it perceived as its property. But, said Wu, in 2000, the company began to change its policy toward fan-produced content. Now there are a number of large “Harry Potter” fan sites, and Warner Bros. enjoys a friendly relationship with those sites, even though many of them include clear-cut cases of copyright infringement. That friendliness lasted up until one of the fans decided to publish his work as a book. But, according to Wu, whether Rowling wins or loses the case, she has already won in what is, arguably, a more important court. “The fans have sided with her,” said Wu. That means, he noted, that even if the book is published, the audience most likely to purchase it — rabid “Harry Potter” fans — has a built-in prejudice against it. Panelist Michael Carroll, a professor at the Villanova University School of Law, noted that “whatever the technological environment, people will want other people to tell them stories, they will want the news of the day, they will want new songs. People are going to want culture. If you want that to happen in a marketbased society, you need to create a way to get people paid.” Unfortunately, he said, how that might get codified is anyone’s guess. What is clear is that current law doesn’t address current technological capabilities, much less make room for future innovations. He pointed to the lack of restrictions on device manufacturers as one example of how current copyright law is not current. “Apple was able to go to market with the iPod without first getting permission from record companies,” Carroll said. During a panel that looked at the question from the creator’s point of view, singer/songwriter Suzanne Vega played recordings of her a cappela song “Tom’s Diner,” both as she originally recorded it and as it has been sampled by more than a dozen other artists, some of whom had asked for permission and some of whom have not. According to another panelist, Jonathan Lethem, a novelist, extracting and protecting original ideas is not an easy task. “Nothing comes from nowhere. We all cobble together pieces of what’s lying around,” he said, adding that some of that will be protected. 22 Home Media Magazine May 18–24, 2008 http://www.homemediamagazine.com http://Hulu.com http://www.rapidrental.com http://www.corporate.com http://www.homemediamagazine.com

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Home Media Magazine - May 18-24, 2008

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