Kodak Kills Off Kodachrome; Entertainment Industry Take Note

from the changing-with-the-times dept

Back in 1997, while I was in business school, I was working with a professor who was doing some consulting work for Kodak, and I ended up writing up an analysis and a report about what Kodak needed to do, facing the obvious coming onslaught of digital when its business had been based on analog photography for ages. We basically made the case for how Kodak could shift its focus to digital, and that it needed to get started right away. We actually got significant pushback on the analysis (not surprisingly), and it took a few years before Kodak woke up. But, around 2003, the company really started to bet everything on digital, and recognize that, as much of a cash cow as analog film represented, everything about the future was digital. So it's quite a milestone to hear that the company is finally killing off Kodachrome, the company's iconic color stock film.

The reports about it note how Kodak's business is now 70% digital and the company has very much embraced the digital age. It certainly hasn't been all smooth sailing, and some still question whether or not Kodak can really survive in this new world. Yet, the company has made the switch much more effectively than many imagined was possible, and folks there seem to live and breathe digital these days (though, there was heavy turnover associated with that change).

Still, as one reader sent in, it's rather interesting to compare the experience of Kodak with, say, the recording industry, which is still fighting the move to "digital" to some extent. The big record labels fought every new efficiency at every turn, while Kodak quickly learned to embrace digital efficiencies and look to see where its own core skills could be applied to make them better. The record labels? Not so much. After fighting the entire concept for ages, they just handed the business over to Steve Jobs and still have done very little to see what they can do to make the digital experience better, based on their own skills and knowledge. Just as the Kodak transition hasn't been perfect, if the labels had embraced digital and things like file sharing early on, they wouldn't have been perfect or easy either. But the labels would be in a lot better position than they are today.

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So Much For That Plan: Google CIO Doesn't Even Last A Year At EMI

from the whoops dept

Nearly a year ago, we were surprised, but hopeful when it was announced that Doug Merrill, former CIO of Google was joining EMI to head up its digital initiatives. It definitely seemed like the big record labels could use a nice injection of Google-style thinking -- though, we were worried that Merrill would be pigeonholed as a "techie" rather than someone integrated into the wider strategy. And, indeed, watching EMI continue to make a series of self-destructive moves left us wondering how much influence, if any, Merrill had on the firm. Just a few weeks ago, we pointed out that Merrill should be ashamed to be associated with a company that is actively stomping out innovation left and right.

Who knows what the real reason is, but it looks like Merrill didn't work out at EMI. Less than a year after taking the job, Merrill is no longer employed by EMI. Neither side is talking about why -- though EMI said something about how it's unnecessary to have a separate "digital division." That goes back to our original fears: suggesting Merrill was limited just to digital issues, rather than overall strategy. But, the fact that he's totally gone from the company so quickly suggests that perhaps he tried to shift the direction of the company and was unable to get very far. That's a loss for EMI and the big record labels, who never seem to miss an opportunity to make things worse for themselves.

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Universal Music Just Realizes That Digital And Physical Distribution Should Be In The Same Group?

from the a-bit-behind-the-times,-eh? dept

We were pretty shocked that it took until just last summer for the LA Times to realize that it didn't make sense to have separate digital and print newsrooms, yet it seems that some other industries are just now learning the same lesson. Universal Music has had a reorganization, where it's finally admitting that digital and physical sales should be in the same group. This is the sort of thing that should have happened at least five years ago, if not ten. The fact that they're just coming around to this realization now suggests how out of touch the major record labels remain.

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Universal Music Playlist Your Way: Not Really A Playlist, Not Really Your Way

from the this-isn't-burger-king dept

It's so cute when the big record labels pretend like they're embracing the digital era sometimes. Check out the latest effort from Universal Music, which the company has dubbed "Playlist Your Way," and which it purports is a new sort of physical/digital hybrid for the internet era. It does have a few good elements -- but it wraps it up with plenty of bad elements, most specifically the name. This isn't a Burger King "Have it your way" type of thing. You don't get to select the tracks you want in order to create your own CD or anything. No, you're buying a ready-made greatest hits CD (from artists who almost all already have out existing greatest hits CDs), plus a few digital extras.

Jess Hemerly over at the Institute For The Future breaks down both the good and the bad of this idea, noting that doing "podcast liner notes" definitely makes sense. These podcasts do sound interesting:

The biographical download brings alive the artist's history, including archival interviews and commentary from journalists, friends and family members. Each audio documentary runs approximately 15 minutes.

Yes, that absolutely could be quite cool, but it comes tied to forcing you to buy another greatest hits CD. If anything, all this really seems like is Universal Music trying to convince you to buy the same music you already own by adding a few random extras.

And, then, of course, there's the totally misleading name. It's as if Universal Music thinks its customers are stupid. If it advertises something as a customizable playlist, people are going to probably expect a customizable playlist -- but that's not what you get. You get a set playlist on a greatest hits CD, and then the option to download some extra stuff: "Consumers may choose six additional tracks and/or a full-length original studio album." Of course, if customers really want a playlist "their way," they're going to do it the way so many people do it these days: they're just going to download the tracks they want, and not feel suckered into buying the packaging, even if it's "designed to be digital friendly, with more color and new impactful designs." As Hemerly points out: "How does "impactful" design make a physical CD more "digital friendly?" What does this sentence even mean?"

The idea of including a podcast about the artist is a good one. It's just too bad Universal Music is basically only using it to get you to buy yet another greatest hits album, and then making a bunch of boastful claims that either don't make sense or simply aren't accurate. At what point do the big record labels realize that they should offer people real options to get what they want, rather than trying to hype them into buying a bunch of crap they don't care about to get at the tiny nugget of stuff they do want?

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Should Organizations Get To Ignore Copyright For The Sake Of Preservation?

from the glossing-over-a-bigger-problem? dept

Copyright was clearly designed for a different age: when not everyone was a "publisher." And while we've spent years pointing out many of the different problems that has caused, here's another one: how is a library or some other institution charged with "archiving" written works for posterity supposed to deal with copyright laws that can often make such archival activities against the law? Well, the Library of Congress and a bunch of other organizations have a suggestion: let them all ignore copyright law for the sake of archiving. Basically, the report recommends that certain organizations be designated as "preservation institutions," which are then more or less allowed to ignore copyright law and copy-at-will for the sake of preservation. Of course, this is clearly going to lead to many questions, including just who would get designated as such. Many people can probably agree on public libraries and such -- but what about Google? After all, Google is already one of the largest players in "preserving" what's online and also, with its book scanning project, what's in books. Yet it's a private, for-profit company. Should it qualify? I would argue that it makes sense to allow it, given how beneficial the archival activities of Google have already been. Even if it is for profit, the public benefit has been tremendous as well. But then what's to stop any other company from arguing that it to deserves an exemption for preservation purposes? Wouldn't a better solution be to start rethinking copyright law altogether, since what has become clear from this is that copyright doesn't quite fit today's world any more?

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Time For Congress Folks To Go Digital

from the about-time dept

Two separate agencies that supply Congress with important reports, have simultaneously recognized that they're wasting a ton of money printing up reports for Congress critters each year. Both the Government Accountability Office (the GAO) and the Office of Management and Budget have announced plans to stop printing out the reports they deliver to Congress. Instead, they'll be delivered electronically, saving the agencies somewhere around a combined $0.5 million/year in printing costs. That's a tiny amount in the grand scheme of things, and you might argue that Congress will simply spend that (or maybe even more, given the way they spend) taking the electronic copies and printing them out themselves -- but it certainly seems like a reasonable point for Congress members to at least start recognizing that there's a digital age going on out there.

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Hollywood's Worried About The Wrong Thing When It Comes To Digital Archives

from the misplaced-worries dept

Is it really any kind of surprise that Hollywood is worried about the wrong thing? The NY Times ran an interesting article this past weekend about how Hollywood is starting to freak out over the potential costs of digitally archiving movies. Currently, film archives are simply stored in cool places, like salt mines -- but Hollywood doesn't quite know what to do with digital archives, and a new report has them freaking out about just how expensive it will be to store digital content. There are many reasons why this worry is misplaced -- starting with the simple fact that whatever it costs today is only getting cheaper, and that trend is only going to continue for the foreseeable future. However, we've talked about the risks of digital archiving and "digital extinction" before, and the threat is completely overblown and often misplaced.

The problem isn't with what it costs to store content. Storage is cheap and getting cheaper all the time. The real problem is that those doing the archiving keep wanting to put their content into proprietary formats which will rapidly go extinct. If, instead, Hollywood focused on storing (and making many, many copies) of the content in more open, easily accessible formats, this wouldn't be a problem at all. Hell, I'm sure the experts over at the Internet Archive, Google or Amazon would all be thrilled to help Hollywood preserve its digital films. However, since Hollywood is so freaked out by technology these days, the chances of them letting any of those organizations help out (even a not-for-profit one like the Internet Archive) seems slim to none.

In the meantime, why not get creative? How hard would it be to create a system that would build a p2p storage system for Hollywood archives, where lots of folks could store bits and pieces of movies for the studios in exchange for... say... a free sneak preview of an upcoming blockbuster? It's the sort of thing that the community would love to take part in... but, of course, in MPAA land anything P2P must be evil.

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