01.18
The glut of e-book readers that came out of the Consumer Electronics Show last weekend has brought back into the spotlight (well, as far as I’m concerned at least) the problems that are still happening with regards to digital distribution and accessibility of material across multiple platforms and countries.
In this day and age, there’s really no reason why digital products should be region restricted. The Internet doesn’t care where I am in the world. There certainly isn’t any cost difference if you send an MP3 to Australia instead of the United States. So, why don’t we have a free, global market place?
I did read some comments, claiming to come from someone inside the television industry (here), on why it’s so hard to put TV shows openly on the Internet for anyone to watch. While these comments relate specifically to television, there’s a few things that can be parsed out and applied to other media as well.
In short, the crux of their argument is based around the way everything you see in a production is licensed. Now, while it is hard to go back and change how songs, venues, performances, etc are licensed for existing programming, what I don’t understand is why the industry hasn’t moved forward and changed things for new programming. Surely, making it easier to get as many eyeballs watching your show would make everyone a winner.
The same applies to e-books. Although the Amazon Kindle is now available to purchase in Australia, there are books available in the store that you cannot purchase outside the United States. The reason for this, in my view, is abundantly clear – and goes back to my previous statements about licensing. Currently, there is no Australian Amazon book store. Every purchase is made through the American one (with the added benefit of our currently elevated exchange rate to boot). So, when you buy a book through this store, the royalties for the purchase are going back to the American publisher, rather than the Australian one (if there is one). You can imagine that this doesn’t sit well here as local publishers are (thinking that they’re) missing out on a sale. So, they arrange to block the sale of electronic copies of those books outside the market where they’re sold.
Now, instead of trying to force their old business models on a changing world (like what the music industry tried to do for years), how about they go away, create a local e-book store and start selling localised copies of these e-books here, thus making everyone happy.
Now, the same theory can also be applied to movies, music and television. Take iTunes for instance (easily the largest online movie/television/movie store in the world). They do exactly the same thing as Amazon. Different content is restricted for sale in different countries. Why? Because local broadcasters don’t want shows available for purchase before they’ve aired on television here.
Same applies to online services like Hulu (only available in the US), Spotify (music streaming, only available in Europe) and BBC iPlayer (live and on-demand TV – UK only).
The online media revolution has been a couple of years in the making. The shift from having many regional markets to a single, global market is almost complete. It’s time for content producers and distributors to realise that the old ways aren’t going to work any more. They need to change how things are made and sold – then everyone will win. Consumers will be able to watch, listen to or read anything they want while every producer and distributor gets their cut of the revenue.