Boxing Boxes
About a year ago I had a heated debate with the head of one of the most technically advanced company in the online adult market. I was intellectually interested in this market since the adult industry has always been a test bed for new technologies. We were of course talking about how Peer-to-Peer was the most efficient way to distribute video content and how he could start selling some of his productions for 10$ per file instead of 60$ per DVD.
However, our views diverged very quickly on 2 issues: DRM and device. His goal in life was to ship a set-top box that would connect to a Peer-to-Peer network full of movies loaded with heavy DRM (”to stop the hacker kids from stealing my content”).
I fully disagreed (and still do) with his views. First, his hacker kids can’t afford his $60 movies so he is not losing revenue if they hack it and no DRM is unhackable anyway. So instead of giving freedom to his genuine consumers (who actually might have no ideas on how to get hold of the movies for free), he was prepared to put heavy restrictions on them to protect revenue he would have not booked anyway.
What really got me going was his set-top box vision. He wanted to own the box and that every single consumer of his files would buy the box (yes buy!) and subscribe to various channels where they could buy movies from various producers: “The Ultimate Adult Entertainment Box”. At a time when Personal Computers are turning into media centric devices, why on earth would someone want to add another box in their living room and learn new propriatery software?
We never managed to agree on the above issues and we agreed to stay in touch. He did however give me a couple of sample productions to help me research more about the issues his industry is faced with. I have to say if I were him, I would not spend time and money on DRMising this content. I had seen it all before.
This was one year ago. He still has not launched his DRMed box but more recently I heard of at least two major media companies basing their video distribution strategy on a set top box.
Time to start a new business: Rack-a-Box; the shelves for set-top boxes company.
Build your own rack of boxes for your living-room. Comes in brushed aluminium or wood imitation for your cosy interior. Fully extensible and adjustable. Works for TiVo, VCR, DVD Players, Cable, Video-On-Demand, Games Consoles, Satellite, Adult Boxes and many more! Wanna watch the last blockbuster but don’t have the box from the right company? Just call us. We’ll bring you the shelves extension and the box together. Free basket for remote controls included for any new customer until stock lasts. Only $9.99 per empty shelf.
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Right on,
I bet even ole steve jobs skipped the train as a kid. Not everyone wants to break the law.
Comment by Henster — 3/21/2006 @ 9:11 pm
That is funny! the set top box collection, buy one get ten free.
Windows media software sucks. Work on improving that with a touch of home automation and you’ll make some serious coin. eg: multi room multi source distribution that does not require an engineer to configure.
Comment by Guy Gagne — 3/26/2006 @ 6:20 am
Very beautiful and interesting blog! I enjoy reading you blog… keep it up guys!
Respect you!
Comment by Alex — 4/11/2006 @ 10:10 pm