Blame CE Industry for ‘Consumer Frustration,’ Warner Chmn. Says
Warner Bros. Chmn. Barry Meyer went on the offensive against the CE industry at MPAA’s Business of Show Business conference Tues., accusing CEA Pres. Gary Shapiro of doublespeak.
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Meyer portrayed the entertainment industry as the bastion of flexibility and consumer choice, and criticized Shapiro’s characterization of Hollywood at CES as an industry that “limits” and “smothers,” presumably through digital rights management. “The only choice that we're not offering is free. How is this limiting or smothering?” Meyer asked.
“Any distribution scenario… involves a certain amount of regulation,” Meyer said: “It’s easy to demonize” copy protection, but it makes business models work. DRM is “incredibly consumer friendly,” letting people who want to, say, watch a movie just once pay less than someone who wants to own it. Hollywood is careful not to “trample revenue streams,” but studios are often “early adopters” in disruptive technologies, most recently HD, he said. “We've very tech friendly” -- Warner Bros. has deals with Apple, AOL, BitTorrent, Google, Microsoft, Movielink, CinemaNow and Sprint, and that’s just in the U.S.
Who’s to blame for these gaffes, Meyer asked rhetorically: Multiple HD formats, the inability of iTunes-purchased tracks to play outside iPods, and difficulty transferring content between devices. Shapiro’s hardware manufacturers are “contributing to consumer frustration, not alleviating it,” through interoperability disputes and platforms that are closed to guard the business model, he said.
Meyer mocked Shapiro’s protest that “unauthorized” content isn’t the same as piracy. Does that mean breaking into a car and driving out of a garage is simply unauthorized? Citing former HP chief Carly Fiorina’s coined term “Kazaa’s law” -- tech changes eclipse the sense of right & wrong -- Meyer said the industry must hope that “reasonable alternatives” to P2P downloading will sway customers. But the shoddiness of some content on P2P networks should give pause to finicky teens as well: Image quality is low and “spoofs” proliferate, so a downloaded movie may turn out to be “2 hours of C-SPAN.” -- Greg Piper
MPAA Notebook…
Senate Judiciary Chmn. Leahy (D-Vt.) said he plans to “redouble” intellectual property efforts in the committee. People must understand “we can no more trespass on a copyright than we can… take their car without their permission,” he said: Both should be “held as illegal” in the U.S. IP protection is “high on my agenda,” Leahy said, naming his PIRATE Act -- presumably to be reintroduced this Congress. International prosecution needs to rise, as does federal assistance to local police and prosecutors without a piracy background, Leahy added. Stiffer penalties need to be enacted, including jail time: “Somehow [jail] focuses people’s attention more profoundly than all the philosophical discussion you might make.” Leahy said he has started “discussions” with DoJ, State and Commerce departments. on putting more “enforcers” abroad and no longer ignoring govt.- backed piracy, “whether they may be allies or not.” In diplomatic efforts, this subject “tends to drop down on the agenda… It’s going to be raised back up,” he said.