Sunday Morning Blog

November 21, 2005

When Will the Mass Media Entertainment Bubble Burst?

Has the recent uproar over copy-protected CDs and digital rights media software (or DRM) awakened the entertainment industry? The entertainment industry has an increasingly unhappy audience, yet they continue to show their disrespect for their consumers. It is frightening how out of touch they have become with their audience. Perhaps they just don't care. In an age when entertainment should be as simple and seamless as ever, consumers are faced with more difficulty than ever. Have digital audio/video and the Napster debacle forever changed the landscape of mass media entertainment for the consumer, the artist and the industry itself?

Consumers just want to be able to copy and share music as they always have (at least in all of my 36 years). That the medium for the sharing of music and video has changed should not alter that most basic practice between friends and family, or the act of making music mixes for personal use. Yet, we find this an increasingly difficult, annoying and, in some cases, an impossible process. The industry justifiably looks to increase and maintain profits, and the musicians themselves seem to vary greatly in their opinions. On one side, we have artists who simply want people to hear their music, and on the other, musicians and bands who view their craft as a commercial enterprise and want to protect their revenue at all cost. The consumer just wants their music back.

The music industry is not the only offender; the movie industry is far from immune to growing consumer wrath. Many DVDs are restricted to playback only in certain media players, and they have also grown increasingly annoying in their protections, previews and add ons. The days of popping a movie in the VCR and settling in for a movie are gone. Remember when you could put a movie in for the kids and walk away? It is the rare movie in which this is the case anymore. Not only are you forced to endure previews (fast forward is a thing of the past), but once you finally get to the menu screen, every movie seems to come up with new bells and whistles to get you to its main menu. Many are also designing tricks you must learn to enter the movie or different features different features. The movie watcher ends up like the puppy who has retrieved its first ball each time one succeeds in starting a movie or discovering a feature. Good boy Drew, good boy! There are even DVDs that have hidden eggs (hidden features) that can only be accessed by keying in special codes from secret screens. Anyone remember the old Dire Straits tune, Money for Nothing, and its lyric, “I want my MTV.” Well, here we are twenty years later and we just want our TV... forget the M and everything else you people are trying to force on us! We want control of our TVs back! Don't force us to watch your previews, and don't play games with your menu. If you want to play games with a menu, include it as one of your add ons, so some fool who doesn't care to get to the movie can select your flashy games from the menu. Maybe we'll even go back and watch your inventions afterward.

Okay, I feel better now to have vented a bit. I hope the entertainment industry gets the message. I know some of my favorite living artists are on the side of consumers in this. Perhaps it will take more loss of revenue for the industry to realize that their attempts at self preservation are coming at the expense of simple respect for their audience. I hope someday the DVDs or CDs we purchase will bear labels that declare them “consumer friendly.” How about this for a label?: “This CD/DVD has been formatted to play in any player you choose, has no built in protections, and defaults to good old, user friendly behaviors when placed in your player. Enjoy!” Show me a company that really makes an effort to show it cares about the consumer's enjoyment, and you will witness a company that rises above all others in mass media entertainment. There are very few left out there that grasp this concept and it shows. Horace said, “He who is greedy is always in want.” Such is the case for the entertainment industry, and until it wakes up, their want will only increase.

Posted by capecodcyclist at November 21, 2005 08:14 PM