Whispering Rogue

There seems to be something very wrong with our digital consumer systems when they both encourage us to buy content for our brand new digital devices yet copyright restrict them to certain regions.

 I thought we'd gotten past this with DVD and it's region locking saga. Sony was the only real advocate of these region locking systems and by doing so lost out on a lot of sales of their players as they were the only ones enforcing these "industry agreed upon" rules. Sony was one of the only manufacturers of DVD players to also have ownership of the copyright for most of the content that would be viewed on the players. It was a system designed to stop piracy. It failed.

 The end result of this saga was that the consumer demanded from the manufacturer that their DVD player be region free so that it could play discs not from with in their region. The consumer wanted to buy from either online or other sources content that the retailers / publishers couldn't or wouldn't provide for their regions.

The next generation of disk players has arrived with Bluray and low and behold they are a world wide region player. (notably from every brand on the market sony included). Though the format is losing out to digital download with more consumers jumping on the ease of use vs quality band wagon.

 We come to the crux of my rage, eBooks & iTunes.

Apple is probably the best at delivery of digital content right now (through iTunes) and that's a scary thing. They're in a similar place to that of Sony at the beginning of the DVD age. They are the biggest seller of devices that playback digital entertainment. The iPod, iPad and iPhone are the most sold electronic consumer items the world has ever seen. Their ease of use as well as the integration of these products with their software interface iTunes and the library of content that iTunes store holds is why consumers have bought into it. However it is with in the library of content that we find our problem. There are different iTune stores for different regions and so again we have publishers and big entertainment studios limiting the consumer from accessing content that they may desire.

 This is also happening within the eBook publishing market. Major players such as Amazon and Google are limiting download of content that consumers wish to buy due to copyright region restriction.

 Now it may just be me but I thought this was supposed to be the information age?! If there is a demand for content and people wanting to purchase said content than sure the digital distribution system should not be hindered by these road blocks being put in place by both Governments failing to stay with the times and also the publisher inadequate management to make it available to all at the same time. The technology is here and has been for some years now. In Australia we have free trade with the USA and yet the region lock is still in effect and this confuses and enrages me to no end. If the publishers want to the general public becoming involved within piracy the the simple answer is to make content more readily available to all consumers for a reasonable price and they will make the billions of dollars that they are seeking. Again the consumer is more often than not a share holder of these major companies. Surely the shareholders of such companies should be up in arms over the lost billions that poor management by these companies and their lack of understanding the consumer has brought. Everyone is loosing at the moment.

 There is a solution but perhaps it more than anything shows  how the previous age is still so reluctant to embrace the new and the now.