In recent weeks I've spent a lot of time on a project abroad, which has taken up much time.
It's also got me thinking about rights again.
A lot of people in this industry spend a lot of time analysing technologies and platforms and alliances but rights rarely gets a look-in. And as for boring stuff like metadata well...
I'm very much a believer in getting content out there. It's not that I don't care about rights - every content owner should be able to protect their intellectual property and take appropriate value from it.
But when the attempt to protect property runs head-first into consumer behaviour then it's the rights that have to change.
I say this because on one of several flights and facing long hotel stays I picked up a box-set of James Bond DVDs. It wasn't until I tried to watch it on my laptop that I realised it was a Region 1 (North Am) DVD and both me and my laptop are Region 2 (Europe).
I was graciously granted the right to switch between regions but only four times... gee thanks. I might not even make my way through the box set if I watched Region 2 DVDs in between. Clearly this causes a problem, not least of which is choosing between Goldfinger and The Man With the Golden Gun.
But the main problem is that I am now being penalised for apparently reasonable consumer behaviour. In this day and age of frequent travel and movement, let alone digital access, the idea of geographical restriction is outrageous. I've paid a substantial amount for the DVDs and even more for my laptop, software licences etc. So the owners have made their money but I will be left holding a useless DVD.
So what am I going to do ? Obviously find some way to crack the encoding software or download the movies illegally instead. There's only one pirate in this scenario.
Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
Saturday, 8 December 2007
Thursday, 6 September 2007
Application Wars
Fans of sci-fi will be familiar with the genre that starts in a post-apocalyptic scenario sometime in the future. Terminator and the Rise of the Machines for example, or take your pick of various nuclear meltdown aftermaths.
In my brave attempts to look at the future of content I would base my hit screenplay after the Application Wars.
It seems that there's a new platform - application - client - service every week at the moment. Joost, Babelgum, Veoh, Zattoo, Hulu, iPlayer, 4OD and I'm sure there'll be another by the time I finish this blog.
OK you could download them all and not miss a few gigabytes but experience suggests that people - as in the mass audience everyone is chasing - are not going to download and install more than one or two applications designed to do the same thing.
So there are two scenarios.
Either one application is dominant - the iTunes scenario. That looks unlikely. Major video content owners like NBC, Fox, BBC and others show willingness to distribute widely but also seem keen to avoid a situation where they are dependent on a dominant platform. They are developing their own and supporting others.
The other scenario is that there is a proliferation for some time but eventually the whole idea of a proprietary platform goes the way of the Cold War. Let's call that the MP3 scenario. The barriers to this scenario are that proprietary systems have better control and security but if someone can address those problems then it is undoubtedly the best solution for both content owners and users.
In my brave attempts to look at the future of content I would base my hit screenplay after the Application Wars.
It seems that there's a new platform - application - client - service every week at the moment. Joost, Babelgum, Veoh, Zattoo, Hulu, iPlayer, 4OD and I'm sure there'll be another by the time I finish this blog.
OK you could download them all and not miss a few gigabytes but experience suggests that people - as in the mass audience everyone is chasing - are not going to download and install more than one or two applications designed to do the same thing.
So there are two scenarios.
Either one application is dominant - the iTunes scenario. That looks unlikely. Major video content owners like NBC, Fox, BBC and others show willingness to distribute widely but also seem keen to avoid a situation where they are dependent on a dominant platform. They are developing their own and supporting others.
The other scenario is that there is a proliferation for some time but eventually the whole idea of a proprietary platform goes the way of the Cold War. Let's call that the MP3 scenario. The barriers to this scenario are that proprietary systems have better control and security but if someone can address those problems then it is undoubtedly the best solution for both content owners and users.
Monday, 13 August 2007
Cycling TV - a niche model ?
Everyone has their own niche, or several, and Cycling is one of mine.
So I have mixed feelings about Cycling.tv which has just been sold to JumpTV for more than US$4 million, as reported on DTG.
On the one hand it is a model niche play. A strong and loyal interest group, poorly served in traditional media (outside Europe anyway) and a large industry of potential advertisers. It is often held up as a great success story for Narrowstep, the distribution platform.
But I've never subscribed to it, and nor have all but a tiny handful of my cycling friends - people who seem to spend most of their time either on-bike or on-line.
It's the subscription model that I have trouble with. I know it is nice to have a reliable income, especially as they have to acquire rights from sports organisers. But I'm just not going to part with $30 on the off chance I might have time to watch a live stream of Paris-Roubaix next summer. On the other hand I can think of half a dozen times I might have watched a report or a race and been exposed to advertising.
On some rough calculations Cycling.tv would have needed 40 million views in a year at a CPM of $40 to cover their costs, and that's not easy. On the subscription model they would have needed nearly 50,000 subscribers, and they had just under 20,000, so that wasn't a no-brainer either.
Maybe there's room for a mixture of subscriber and open content as there is in traditional television but I hope the steady increase in online advertising revenue will see more niche players able to support free access.
So I have mixed feelings about Cycling.tv which has just been sold to JumpTV for more than US$4 million, as reported on DTG.
On the one hand it is a model niche play. A strong and loyal interest group, poorly served in traditional media (outside Europe anyway) and a large industry of potential advertisers. It is often held up as a great success story for Narrowstep, the distribution platform.
But I've never subscribed to it, and nor have all but a tiny handful of my cycling friends - people who seem to spend most of their time either on-bike or on-line.
It's the subscription model that I have trouble with. I know it is nice to have a reliable income, especially as they have to acquire rights from sports organisers. But I'm just not going to part with $30 on the off chance I might have time to watch a live stream of Paris-Roubaix next summer. On the other hand I can think of half a dozen times I might have watched a report or a race and been exposed to advertising.
On some rough calculations Cycling.tv would have needed 40 million views in a year at a CPM of $40 to cover their costs, and that's not easy. On the subscription model they would have needed nearly 50,000 subscribers, and they had just under 20,000, so that wasn't a no-brainer either.
Maybe there's room for a mixture of subscriber and open content as there is in traditional television but I hope the steady increase in online advertising revenue will see more niche players able to support free access.
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