A Tale Of Two Entertainment Paths

from the seems-pretty-similar,-actually dept

John wrote in with a piece from the Denver Post talking about the different paths taken by the music and the movie industry in dealing with new formats. The article suggests that for every music industry misstep, the movie industry has made the right move - which is why the movie industry is thriving, while the music industry is suing 12-year-old girls. It's a nice story, but it isn't really true. Yes, the movie industry has made some correct decisions - such as embracing the DVD and (slowly, slowly) realizing that movies are an entertainment experience - and not just a product. However, they've also made plenty of blunders on their own, and look like they're still making more going forward. The industry certainly didn't "embrace" home movies, and were only forced to (extremely reluctantly) after the famous ruling that home videotape machines were legal. They're also still quite worried about file sharing, rather than embracing it, and Jack Valenti could double as the head of the RIAA any day he wanted to. So far, the industry hasn't freaked out because bandwidth problems and other issues haven't made movie sharing as popular. However, the article does make a very valid suggestion to the music industry at the end: "Spend less on lawyers and more on creative thinkers. You can't subpoena success."

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