Hollywood Wrestles with DRM-Free Future

Steve Jobs never does anything small, does he? While the music and tech worlds have been buzzing ever since Steve Jobs penned his open letter calling for the music industry to get the DRM monkey off their back, the shockwave has renewed debate within another group that closely monitors the music biz: Hollywood movie makers.

The movie industry has been keeping an eye on developments in the music industry for a long time, and not just because of their corporate coziness. Rightly or wrongly, the music industry has felt threatened by the specter of piracy since the advent of the audio cassette, and have been actively trying to defend itself against the digital era since the introduction of digital audio tape. When the RIAA butted heads against Napster, forward-looking movie execs no doubt realized that with broadband and increasing computer power on the horizon, it was only a matter of time before they had to grapple with the same issues.

And grapple they have, though clumsily for the most part. But while they're still fumbling around in the dark when it comes to downloadable movies, Jobs's letter has them scurrying to try to deal with the situation before it becomes a major problem.

The situation is neatly laid out in today's ">Wall Street Journal, and if there's one thing it makes clear it's that executives are rarely as clueless as they're often made out to be. But it does reveal how single-minded some can be. For example, the article briefly mentions the thorny problem of consumers moving DRM-protected content when upgrading a computer. Some studios feel that there has to be a way to let us move our content from one computer to another; amazingly (but -- sigh -- not surprisingly) some feel that an upgrade "represents a sales opportunity for the same content that was on the older device."

This is the disconnect that is at the heart of the DRM debate. The entertainment industry wants us to respect the idea that intellectual property has value, and therefore should be paid for. But at the same time too many in the industry refuse to respect the idea that when we've paid for something, we own it.

To my mind, the most elegant DRM solution ever is DVD copy protection. If I buy a DVD, I can play it on any DVD player, without having to worry about license keys or any other such absurdity; however, the copy protection is just enough of a pain that it deters 99% of the buying public from knocking off duplicates for their friends. That's just one of the reasons that DVDs took hold of the marketplace so quickly. Hollywood needs to find that same kind of balance for downloadable movies -- and fast.