Digital Home Thoughts: TV Studios Get Real About Online Piracy

“Sweeney said the network must treat piracy as a business model that competes the same way, through price, time to market and distribution. Piracy has wreaked havoc on the music industry. ‘Going forward, piracy will be our number one competitor and our business models have to reflect that reality,’ Sweeney said. ‘We have to create models that encourage and allow honest people to stay honest.’ ABC plans next month to offer some of its most popular shows for free on the Internet in a two-month trial. ‘We expect to learn a lot from this effort about the technology as well as the consumers who use it,’ she said. ‘And we will be sharing that information with our affiliates so we can work together to build the right online model.’”



Well, this is refreshing. Rather than stick their collective heads in the sand and treat piracy like a vicious disease, the studios look like they are copping on to the fact that this is basically their competition. And the way you beat the competition is by offering a better service. Offering a affordable, fast, and easy alternative to online piracy is all many people will need to go the legal route and get their content from legit sources. Sure, some people will still download a torrent of The West Wing 10 minutes after it is over, but for a lot of people, right now it is just too easy to pull down an episode of their favorite show and pop it on their iPod video for free. They would just as soon get it from the legit source if it were available quickly. I hope this catches on because there is a way for everyone to get what they want, it just requires this kind of progressive thinking from the studios. Now, if they could only talk some sense into the record industry…