Media control

I am absolutely fed up with being turned over by the media companies. The three way struggle: the studio makes a film, they licence it for distribution to specific channels using the draconian copyright laws, and I get to see it only if I subscribe to the chosen channel, Sky, Virgin, BBC, iTunes, etc.

I am being systematically fleeced. The distributors are misusing copyright, which is supposed to encourage artists to be creative, make money and let them control the distribution of their works, not make the media labels rich. And it gets worse, you know you can buy this movie on iTunes, but you can't rent it. You can buy it only in USA, but not in UK. You can see it at Odean cinemas but not at others. You can get it from Netflix or LoveFilm or Hulu, but not in UK.

And the delivery chains think they are doing a good job of providing us with a service.

Rubbish.

Shake up needed

This market needs a huge shake up to induce competition in the delivery chain, not based on exclusive content but on cost and convenience for the user. Unfortunately this is not going to happen by commercial forces, in fact the current forces are just making things worse, just ask Spotify about opening their services in the USA...

It needs political attention and political will to do something about entrenched forces and the overdue need to revise copyright laws. We need to look hard at the exploitation of control of the delivery chain, to the huge disadvantage of the consumer, not by artists but by the media delivery companies. Its not the artists who are making any money, its the medial labels, the middle men who control the delivery chain in a selfish and self-seeking way.

We need to have a public interface at the level of the creators, and let consumers chose how their work will be delivered to their ears and eyeballs. If I want to view a film on TV, at a time of my choosing, I should be able to do it - and pay for it to the creators - at the time I chose and wherever I chose. If I want to view a movie I purchased, in anyway, DVD, download... I should be able to watch this on any hardware I own with no restrictions. I should be able to loan it and resell it.

As an addendum...

The BBC has no mandate to provide an exclusive delivery chain, but they are doing this with iPlayer and YouView participation. They are there and paid for to make programs and provide open access to all past and future programs. They should provide an open interface for any software, commercial or open source, to deliver their programs to the consumer. They have to get used to the fact that they are an open, public broadcaster, paid for by a licence fee, and the material they output is public, past, present and future. There should be nothing illegal about sharing public broadcast material.

Sky, Virgin, BT Vision etc are basically delivery chain exploiters, they make few, if any, programs. I cannot for the life of me see why people pay for a TV licence (£140/year) and then pay another huge subscription to Sky (£500/year), just to get so many channels that have little value and which they have no time to watch. And as for gimmicks like 3D TV, Video Recording... Internet on TV, oh my.

I am led away screaming.