It's hard out here for a Pirate...

Last week, the Canadian Federal Gov't proposed Bill C-61, a comprehensive restrictive bill that would limit how a Canadian citizen could attain, use and share almost any form of digital media.  In layman terms, it pretty much makes it illegal to share songs that you bought from iTunes, rip music, download almost anything and even upload a video onto YouTube.  If you want more information of what exactly the Bill covers, I've included a link below.  Aside from the fact that its pretty obvious that our Federal Conservative government is taking its cues on this bill from individuals such as David Wilkins (US Ambassador to Canada) who has been extremely vocal in his support for more stringent laws on digital media in Canada as well as other American politicians like the Governator, I think the bigger picture here is that the government is totally missing the boat on this issue.  Digital Media in the last 5 to 10 years has changed the way we communicate, watch movies & TV, and listen to music and even how we get our news.  The Canadian and well as the American Gov't have gone out of their way to make it impossible to share all this data freely and has pushed the file sharing community underground. 

Ever since Napster broke out onto the scene many, many years ago, the internet has been the main conduit for many consumers to get their music, movies, TV shows all for free of charge.  Now while I may or may not partake in such activity, it’s very obvious why torrents and newsgroups are so popular and take up such a huge % of the net bandwidth.  The home PC combined with high speed internet accounts combined with 19 to 32" LCD screens at very reasonable prices have created an environment whereby the consumer can get his fav HD TV show downloaded on his pc within an hour without commercials and be able to watch it at his own time.  What I don’t understand is why the Cable companies, the Federal Gov’t, the advertisers, the Music studios haven’t seen this as the perfect storm to take file sharing to the next level.  5, maybe even 10 years ago, you had a very small % of the population that understood how to search and find what they were looking for online and get it in a timely manner.  With the advent of Torrents and sites like mininova, piratebay, my mom can hop online and find her favorite Desperate Housewives episode in less time than it takes me to write this blog.  So with a savvy consumer base, and the technology available to support that consumer base, why haven't these governments seized the opportunity to change and amend laws to make it not only easier for the consumer but more importantly, more profitable.  I get that advertisers lose all of their investment if you aren't watching Lost on Thursday night on ABC but really, doesn’t the PVR already negate advertisers?

To me, there are some really simple solutions that the Cable companies and Music Studios could implement that would bring in millions into their coffers and satisfy the thirst of the net pirates.  For TV shows, simply release the episodes an hour after it airs as .wmv files or .mkv files to download either directly of the studios site or through your PVR.  Don’t force me to watch the show on my PVR or on the website itself.  Give me the ability to download the file (with commercials built in) so I can watch it on any medium I choose whether it be my Iphone, PSP or my sexy HD TV.  Once the TV show is aired, it’s not like you are losing any more money on it.  As for music, don’t force me to go iTunes to use their proprietary software in order to buy one song.  I know there are similar services to iTunes but they don’t have nearly the selection that iTunes has.  The artists really need to get more involved in this process similar to what Radiohead has been doing lately.  Let the artist control how their art gets shared to the world.  Give the artists more input on how their music should be shared instead of forcing the consumer and the artist to follow archaic laws that don’t apply in the Digital age.  Movies are a bit tougher to open since it would take away from direct profits in the theatre but I heard last year that Stephen Soderbergh (director of the Oceans 11 series) was going to release a movie straight to DVD as well as Download as well as theatre to see if it would increase total sales.  The options available for a Movie Studio might be limited in comparison to Cable companies but I think they can still release movies over the web for Download and charge consumers a price without making the consumer feel like he got ripped off.  If I could DL Iron Man a month after it’s been in the theatres for $10 bucks and it expires a month after I download it, then I’d defin take advantage of that.

With more and more people having home entertainment centers with big ass HD projectors, give them the opportunity to watch new movies at home while still charging them a fair price.  I know I'm not the first to come up with any of these ideas but it amazes me that Gov’t officials and cable companies and studios are looking at new ways to stifle the use of technology instead of using it to entice more consumers to buy their products.  People are not going to stop downloading simply because it’s just too convenient, quick and yes, free.  Instead of punishing and limiting the options of the consumer, they should be looking at ways to take advantage of a brand new marketplace, one where you get everything with just one little click.

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