Movie studios still don’t get it

You would have thought that the movie industry had watched the music industry self-implode and learned their lesson. Alas, nothing seems to indicate that. Far from it actually.

A new initiative driven by Sony Pictures bears stark evidence towards this. They are hoping to rally most of the industry around an Open Market to combat conflicting formats, secure rights management etc. All instead of doing the only real tenable thing: To embrace the market.

Instead of spending a lot of time trying to explain why the various elements of Open Market are not going to work, let’s instead look at what the movie industry should have learned from the music industry. I will try to use myself as an example.

Back when I was single I bought a lot of CD’s. Then I got married and the music industry lost me as a costumer. For a while. Because the iPod/iTunes value proposition changed that. It gave me an excuse to go back and consume again - pay for music - albeit not as much as I used to.

I could have gone to P2P sites and got it all for free, but I’m personally against stealing if for no other reason that I can figure out that if a product is free, noone will invest in it’s ongoing development and innovation. But people do that.´

The iPod/iTunes worked great for people like me, because it allowed us to consume in bits and pieces. It provided an easy excuse to go out and buy music, we otherwise would never have bought. That a lot of people are thinking like me can be seen from the massive number of downloads from iTunes.

The movie industry should learn from this. They should use the already established ecosystem provided by Apple to let me buy my movies with little or no effort. Hey, if it’s that simple, I may not even think twice if a movie costs 99 DKK. I just want to buy it. I will still make the odd physical purchase just as music afficionados do when they want the casing, the disc and the artwork. So everything would be good.

Now, please explain to me again why it is that the movie industry thinks its a good idea to turn a consumer like me into a non-consumer by messing things up, provide lack of clarity, lack of scalability and lack of ease first and foremost? It has to be a really smart person who have thought out that devilish scheme…

Vad NU! is a consultancy company owned by Mads Kristensen and specialized in helping clients take advantage of the business opportunities created by new media. Click to learn how I can help you and your company.