Oh, Google… leaving your premium (paying) Google Video customers in the lurch is a big mistake that may tarnish your brand for some time to come. An expiring credit won’t cut it with most of them.
It’s also yet another nail in the coffin for DRM. Can you hear the chorus of “I told you so!” from the anti-DRM movement?
Hi Ho!
-pmh
It’s not often that The Portable Consultant scoops The Economist… well, not exactly but sort of…
Back in July of 2005 I suggested here that Internet options (like podcasting) would compete with satellite radio. I followed this up with a couple of posts… here… and here.
Today The Economist commented on the pending merger of XM and Sirius while noting “…the satellite-radio networks have been struggling to respond to competition from recent advances in broadcasting, such as through the Internet.”
You read it here first! …um… sort of. 🙂
Hi Ho!
-pmh
UPDATE:
Shortly after posting this I was on the road and heard Todd Maffin‘s podcast on this very topic.
Steve Jobs’ already famous Thoughts on Music probably marks the end of DRM.
Certainly it will take time, but when a major force like Apple iTunes’ bossĂ‚Â suggests that the world would be better off without DRM you can be sure they are also working behind the scenes to promote this vision.
The statistics on the percent of DRM protected content found on the average iPod are a strong argument for the futility of the DRM approach. Apple iTunes has done everything by the book, as the media industry demanded, and DRM has been a spectacular failure, to judge from the figures Jobs quotes.
Jobs musings are entitled Thoughts on Music, but with a video iPod and videos available through the iTunes store it seems clear that the lessons learned about music DRM will also carry over to video DRM; same lessons, but I would guess it will take longer for the MPAA and similar industry groups to learn them.
The features incorporated in Microsoft’s Vista to protect so-called “premium content” have been said to threaten the new OS’s stability – and they certainly will raise the cost of many computer components, according to Peter Gutmann’s Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection.
Gradually the industry will realise that there is no ROI to justify these measures.
-pmh