COPYCENSE

“For years, the entertainment industry tried to fool us — and itself — into thinking that it only prospered by giving consumers what they wanted. The real strategy of the entertainment industry has been to force customers to pay inflated prices to watch the movies and television most profitable for the industry to produce, at times that allowed the industry to rake in the most money, and distributed through channels designed to keep out upstart competition.

“Here’s an industry that for years got away with providing 22 original episodes of television shows for a 52-week year. An industry that makes cable customers purchase 20 channels they don’t want to get the one channel they do.

“But technology now threatens to put the consumer back in charge.”

Steven Pearlstein. Prime Time Gets Redefined. WashingtonPost.com. Nov. 9, 2005.

(Editor’s Note: The Post allows free access to their stories on the Web for 14 days before sending the stories to the paper’s fee-based Archives.)

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.