Digital Media Distribution vs. Traditional Media

A little while ago, Netflix decided that it was going to sacrifice a relatively small number of customers to maintain licensing relationships with content distribution companies (https://goo.gl/UkYPbb).

Late last month, PayPal mysteriously decided that they were going to stop processing payments for ‘unblocking’ services that made it easy for folks to ignore geographically based licensing restrictions (https://goo.gl/x58dQA).

Heck, a few months earlier, HBO released “HBO Live”, a service that allows consumers to subscribe to HBO without additional cable or sattelite service. However, Bell Canada prevented the service from being available for sale in Canada (https://goo.gl/DFPtkF).

These restrictions are a business model created by content distribution companies to sell their content multiple times to media distribution companies and to consumers.

In other words, large media distribution companies are strong arming other large companies in order to maintain their outdated business models. Fun, right?

Beyond corporate bullying, this is influencing two historical events:

First, piracy. People are paying for content. They don’t have to, but they are. If it’s easier to pay reasonable prices for content, people will, and they are. Netflix and Hulu are making so much money right now that they’re CREATING great content (House of Cards, Orange Is the New Black, etc). The small number of customers that Netflix will loose as a result of making geographical restrictions harder to circumvent won’t be noticed. But, these people who are leaving will turn back to using Torrents and other forms of piracy because it’s easier.

Second, fragmentation of the Internet. I get it, no one likes soap-boxes, but hear me out here for a second. Tim Berners Lee (the guy who created the Internet) has noted that he hopes “the Internet will be open, will work internationally, and will work as well as possible” (http://goo.gl/1CsvJ5). He says this with good reason; information flows faster and more reliably when transmitted over open, unrestricted channels.

People want to consume media digitally, using the Internet. They’re not going to let money get in the way of this. So, the Internet will fragment in to a series of different spaces with different uses. We’re seeing this already with the advent of the Dark Web and other sub-networks, but mass-media brings every individual consumer in to the fold and when these cracks are tested, we’ll all fall through the ice together.

I’m a nerd. A professional nerd. I’m skilled in ‘the Internet’. It took me less than 20 minutes to bring up a docker container, configure dnsmasq, set up ipv6 relaying, and crate my own tiny ‘shard’ of the Internet so that my family could avoid media geo restrictions to be oblivious to the deeper issues going on.

But think about this for a minute. It’s something that history WILL look back on as a defining moment. Don’t steal content. Don’t ignore the law. But think about what is right and just.

My soap box will be in storage.