Warner Blows Dark Knight DVD Opportunity – And Completely Lies to Buyers

Along with all the other major studios, Warner is trying to figure out the best way to beat the pirates and keep a hold on the ancillary revenue generated by DVDs, etc.

In what looks at first to be a step in the right direction, the latest Blue-Ray release of The Dark Knight includes a “digital version” that can be played on your computer or PMP.  Sort of…

“I discovered Warner’s “anywhere” means an internet-connected Windows XP or Vista machine and PlaysForSure-enabled portable devices. So Macs or Linux machines, iPods and other portable media players without Microsoft’s copy protection (you know, the one they’ve been wanting to shut down), apparently aren’t included in Warner’s definition.” (via)

So, instead of providing the movie in a format that replicates the pirated versions, this is just another completely limited copy that makes you feel like a schmuck for shelling out your cash to “buy” something that turns out not to truly be yours to use as you please.

And they wonder why people still download pirated copies?

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Can Curating Save the Labels?

Short answer: I don’t think so.

However, over on TechDirt there are some comments on Ian Rogers (former GM of Yahoo Music) open letter to EMI in which he talks of a new(ish) idea:

“affinity labels. Put together various mini-labels under which similar types of bands are associated. And, include on those labels a few of the “big name” EMI artists. Thus, for all the fans who are fans of some huge artist, by creating these affinity labels, it will help drive the fans of the big name artist to those other bands as well, knowing that they all have a similar sound or musical philosophy.”

I might be crazy but this sounds a lot like every indie label out there except with the idea of using big bands to attract fans to smaller bands.  Every indie label that’s any good is good because of its taste and fans of a label trust each new band the label releases will be worth listening to.

Applying this basic concept to the major labels – basically turning them into a bunch of mini-labels – is something the big film studios have tried to do over the past decade or two.  They formed little “indie” studios within their bigger frameworks to distribute smaller films.

Now, these same studios are discovering that smaller films simply make less money and they are shutting down their “indie” wings left and right (Warner Independent and PictureHouse are recent examples) to focus on big-budget blockbusters.

I don’t see how it will work any better for the labels.

If You Hear a Song We’ll Tax Your Ears

The internet has been all aflutter since first Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and then Jim Griffin of Warner Music discussed the idea of an internet tax.

According to CNet:

“The proposal outlined in the interview Griffin gave Portfolio.com suggested that ISP fees could create a $20 billion pool that would go to artists and copyright holders. Consumers would have the option of paying the fee or submitting themselves to advertising. ”

First of all, the term “submitting themselves to advertising” is a great phrase.  Probably more truth in it than intended.  As I see it, the big problem with a fee attached to you ISP bill is that it doesn’t account for all time people are accessing the web from something other than their own ISP connect (like I’m doing now as I write this post in a cafe in NYC).  This only gets more complicated as municipal wifi rolls out.

In terms of ad-supported music, that works fine when streaming music since ads can simple be placed in the mix, just like radio, but it doesn’t really help when people are downloading songs to listen to on their iPod.  I don’t imagine I would put up with pre-roll ads on my songs.

Obviously, the music industry is going through some seismic shifts and ideas like a music tax sound to me like the big guys scrambling for some way to maintain centralized control.  Instead, I think more musicians are going to be leaving the big label system and taking part in smaller organizations that are more artist-centric.  This will lead to fewer platinum-selling artists, but a huge growth in artists making money playing music.

The End of Networks

It’s exciting to see really big names in the media world coming out and saying something I’ve been talking about for a while – that the Age of the Networks is drawing to a close.

“Warner Bros. TV’s president said the studios will bypass broadcast networks next decade using broadband and cellular. “We will go directly to consumers with content,” President Bruce Rosenblum said Tuesday in a notably candid insider’s talk to Stanford law students. “Your generation” is witnessing “a complete disaggregation of the networks,” he said. Warner leads in supplying prime-time shows to the networks, and going around those big customers will usher in an era that will be very expensive for his business but offer it exciting prospects…”

See the whole article here (via NewTeeVee)

Warner Music Misses the Beat

Wired has a good look at the upcoming lawsuit against the music-search site Seeqpod

“Even though it’s just one company, the stakes are high. The future of search itself could be in jeopardy, because Warner Music Group’s suit attacks a key provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that, broadly speaking, allows search engines to link to anything on the net.

But for the music fans who have embraced SeeqPod since its debut in September 2006, it’s another instance of the labels clamping down on a cool new way to tune in online.”

At the risk of sounding redundant, this is more proof that the major labels simply do not grasp the way the world has shifted and will likely go the way of the dinosaurs before too long.