The fruits of abundance

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I have to admit to be more taken with the statistical analysis of the sales of music and films which come from the so-called pirates, than from the music industry. After all, if where we are trying to get to is a 'moment of truth', then it is hard to ignore the reality that music and video sales are, against all the supposed odds, UP.

Oh you, in Hollywood, who defend your industry with such vigour and vim. Art thou telling the truth? Or art thou in the same quandary as the telcos? Distorting verity to defend an 'art' whilst benefiting, forsooth, from the private industry, and innovation, you do profess to hate?

Can we finally say, 'Ah woe, methinks you doth protest too much'? All of you.

Stop wingeing and start being open and honest. Sack DRM as it has cost you a fortune for no good reason, and open up the music and films to which everyone wants access. You know that people will pay to watch a film IF REASONABLY PRICED.

For years, you have penalised the consumer for your greed, and cussed and sued when that consumer has sought, on your behalf, to reduce your costs to bring open access to your products, to share them with others who will buy the full product from you, to market your goods - at no cost to you.

Now your takings are up, what do you do? Pah, let's sue the ones who are out there saying, "This is a great film/game/CD etc. I'll bluetooth it to you".

Genius.

Who will win this battle? The ones who are in the app stores at 79p. The ones who show you, for free, how to plug your HD laptop into your TV so you can enjoy the film on your TV with your family in comfort in the sitting room, not some over-commercialised pigpen of a cinema. The ones who say, "Have the first episode/ series of Heroes for nothing....because we know you will remember us for letting you do it." (That'll be Hulu.com then).

When the music and film industry stop lying about their supposed declining revenues, then I might have some sympathy with them. In the meantime, I am kicking myself for not taking a box full of dongles to the USA and spending 10 days downloading films to watch with my kids.

When the next Ofcom report tells me that the UK uses broadband for email (1), , surfing (2), IM (3) etc, I am going to stand on a plinth in central London (apparently the only place where anyone in Britain can be heard) and shout out why - "We can't download a bloody film to watch on this utterly pathetic infrastructure, you morons".

Sadly those of you I now know in the States will probably be unable to watch it as I am not sure we can unicast, multicast, or any other variety of webcast or streaming from this country without looking like puppets on strings.