I said:<br><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br>> My predictions for 2008 are:<br>><br>> 1.That
by July ALL media companies will have abandoned DRM on music CD's and<br>> files. One or two may hold out. Their artists will leave them in favor of<br>> direct digital sales. P2P downloads of their materials will continue to
<br>> erode their market presence until they collapse. The end of `08 will see a<br>> completely DRM free internet marketplace for music. Multiple sites will have<br>> developed with robust song lists and interactive features to provide a
<br>> better experience. Apple will continue to dominate by allowing individual<br>> artists to participate in it's system without a record label and at an<br>> affordable percentage cut.<br>><br>> 2. The RIAA will grow increasingly quiet through `08. By years end the
<br>> entity will be almost silent. It may disband in the 48 months following.<br>> This will not be a legal maneuver, but rather a PR one by the media giants.<br>><br>> 3. Set top digital media players for video content will begin to accept more
<br>> than just DVD's/BlueRay/HD-DVD. By years end most major manufacturers will<br>> support the playing of media files via network/wireless connections to home<br>> PC's or connected external media such as USB thumb-drives. They may even
<br>> support direct connections to movie download & play services such as<br>> NetFlix's. These capabilities may begin to appear in MiniVans and SUV's by<br>> December.<br>><br>> 4. By November the MPAA members will begin to feel the same pressures the
<br>> RIAA components felt. Consumers will desire more transparency in the format<br>> of their media. The inability to move media between devices without<br>> repurchase or complex licensing software structures will frustrate and anger
<br>> them. Many more will resort to P2P systems than do today. Bittorrent will<br>> shift to a decentralized and obfuscated structure that no longer requires<br>> the posting of .torrent files on sharing sites and is extremely difficult to
<br>> filter.<br>><br>><br>> I try not to look too far down the road and predict more than I should. I<br>> feel Ray Kurzweil is guilty of that on many occasions. I also firmly believe<br>> in my father's axiom "Men plan, God laughs". However, my general feeling
<br>> right now is that 2009 will see the collapse of DRM schemata in the video<br>> media ecosystems. It shoudl roughly repeat the loop the RIAA has.<br>><br>> My best guess right now is that cable companies will see their market
<br>> cannibalized from within beginning in 2010, as media companies offer more<br>> and more content on-demand through internet delivery services. The very<br>> internet connection many cable companies provide alongside their content
<br>> offerings will begin to deliver media when and how consumers want. I don't<br>> think 5C and CCI will be discontinued by the cable companies, instead they<br>> will simply go away as users move to "on demand" delivery systems that fit
<br>> their lifestyle better.<br>> In the end, systems like MythTV may become more like browsers with built in<br>> media players than tuner/recording systems.<br>><br>> But then again, I could be wrong. It's happened before :)
<br></blockquote><div><br>Steven Adeff Said:<br> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><br>pretty much 100% agree with you on this.
<br><br>To add to the MPAA comments... Warner's decision to drop HD-DVD mid<br>contract with Toshiba shows that at least the movie studios are still<br>very much interested in DRM. BluRay is notoriously DRM heavy compared
<br>to HD-DVD. It's the reason BluRay players need constant firmware<br>updates, etc. Since this is the only real difference between the two<br>formats, and BluRay is more expensive, it's the only reason a studio<br>
would have to choose BluRay over HD-DVD.<br><br>Whether the success the music industry has with non-DRM'd music<br>affects them by November as you predict seems a little soon, but they<br>will eventually go that way, especially when broadband improvements
<br>make transferring HD movies as easy as what we have now allows for<br>transferring music.<br><br>It's also interesting to note the number of non-Pop music labels<br>beginning to distribute lossless compressed digital music, some even
<br>allowing for higher fidelity versions (ie SACD/DVD-A eqiuvalent<br>quality). I'm still fearful of the crashed hard drive issue and being<br>able to re-download (which is one reason I have a RAID5 array, but not<br>
everyone has that, and its not foolproof), which is why I'm a eMusic<br>subscriber for my digital music.</blockquote><div><br>I'm not really sure that any DRM that is dependant on the physical media in some way is ever going to fly. The cracked codes seem to hit the net within 24/48 hours of unveiling. The BluRay codes were published by a cracker months ago. I'm sure Sony has compensated, but I am only giving an example. Code cracking is really just the interim step we'll see to real media freedom anyway.
<br></div></div><br>Just as we are currently witnessing the slow death of physical media distribution for music I think other media formats will soon follow. You can already download 1080p H.264 encoded copies of many movies on P2P networks. Once the network enables these formats to move as fast as music does then DVD's will die out. Once that happens, the same factors that are crushing the RIAA will come into play for the MPAA etc.
<br><br>BTW, I would have originally agreed with you that my predictions are too fast-paced. But if you go back and check the archives you'll see how many times last year I had to post to say a prediction of mine came too, way earlier than I expected. We seem to be on some sort of accelerating curve.
<br><br>It seems that the talent pool and computing power available for breaking media restriction methods doubles or triples each year. The speed of networking required for the distribution of these unlocked media files is also progressing at a rate that doubles every year, sometimes more. Populist pressure for unrestricted media distribution also grows each year - seemingly in a direct proportionate 110-120% response to the level of media exposure of legal enforcement (lawsuits etc) carried out by the restriction proponents.
<br><br>By contrast, new encryption methods and implementation of same progresses at a linear pace. it only get's marginally more effective each year, maybe 10%. Populist support for restriction of formats dwindles each year as well.
<br><br><br>So what you get is a rough effectiveness contrast of:<br><br>(Talent & talent pool doubled) + (Computational power doubled) + (Network speed doubled) + (Restriction enforcement response) = Media Freedom Movement power
<br><br>vs<br><br>(Restriction methodology development) + (Equipment manufacturer/media distributor implementation) + (legal enforcement effectiveness) = Restriction Proponant power.<br><br>NOTE: Bear in mind that EMI and LEE can actually have a NEGATIVE effect.
<br><br>So:<br><br>(Tx2)+(Cx2)+(Nx2)+(RER) vs (RMDx1.1)+(EMI)+(LEE)<br><br>Now the above "formula" is a 10,000 foot view, and there are lots of smaller factors involved, but I think it captures the essence of the contrast. I don't think it takes a genius to see how quickly the left hand side of that equation accelerates in contrast to the right. I think there is a "sea change" coming and we are just on the very beginning of what will become a very steep curve.
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