Given how paranoid the studios have been about letting HD content online, I’ve got to imagine that there are more then a few media execs, a little upset right now. Blu-Ray and HD-DVD was supposed to feature the best copy protection that Hollywood has to offer, but like all DRM, it melted against the collaborative intelligence of the web.
I hate the fact that the studios use piracy as a red herring for why we can’t control our content. They pretend that piracy is why we can’t use TiVo HD to go or why they won’t license more films online, but the truth is that they just really want to sell more fat margin DVDs. Their content is already available online because their own copy protections have failed. Instead of hiding behind shallow excuses, they should embrace the digital revolution and offer consumers a way to pay for the content that they can already get for free. The studio fat cats can complain about how much piracy is hurting their business all they want, but it’s hard for me to be very sympathetic when they won’t offer the content online, even for a fee.