“Get Stuffed”
An absolutely brilliant question was apparently posed today at a session on digital rights management at the 3GSM conference in Barcelona. To a panel debating copyright protection on cellphones, audience member David Birch lobbed this grenade (quote from EETimes):
“Why are you such a bunch of big girls?” asked Birch. “Why don’t you tell the content owners to just get stuffed?”
He continued unabated: “You’re too seduced by the content industry, Hollywood is not even a $10 billion industry. Hollywood is small compared to the telecom industry. Why don’t you take a stronger line? Consumers don’t want DRM at all. You can’t sell DRM.”
Interesting point, given that the movie house business seems to have seen better days (counterpoint to that thesis here) and given that the shrink-wrapped DVD business will go away in 5 years. I’d say the contentholders need the pipeholders / gatekeepers (wireless, cable, wireline) more than the other way around.
Saying this, of course, gives credence to the whole pay-me-for-my-pipes argument from SBC CEO Ed Whitacre, which as a Comcast cable subscriber, gives me some pause. That said, at this point, on a per-MSA level, you effectively have one gatekeeper to buy from in the fields of cable, satellite, and wireline telephony. The leverage would seem to be with the pipeowners.