For almost an entire decade, innovators in digital media distribution were chilled by the aggressive tactics of the entertainment industry to protect their analog interests. For many years, we essentially saw a lockdown on Internet distribution of media. Practical licenses for legitimate Internet distribution were forbidden, while lawsuit after lawsuit was wielded as a blunt tool and a stern warning against those creators (aka innovators) who had their sights set on staking a claim in the wild west of online digital media.
I hope Travis is correct. He's wrong about broadband penetration (it's not quite 50% of internet users, and it's woeful compared to total population in the US). But he makes a great point about $100M in content purchasing = $1B in technology purchasing. That's a *very* interesting data point. |