Radiohead’s “pay what you will” release of its newest album, In Rainbow, earlier this month sparked renewed speculation about the outcomes of the entertainment industry’s troubled interactions with a world moving away from purchasing CDs, DVDs, and tickets to a movie theater, and other bands are already following their lead.
In Coming Attractions?,
Phillip Meza gives us an in-depth look
at the difficulties Hollywood and the music industry have had in adapting to
the rapid rise and evolution of digital technologies. As the entertainment industry has fought to limit access to the
content it produces through encoding (DRM) and stronger copyright laws, its
customers have increasingly come to view its interests as at odd with their
own. Instead of acknowledging that the
consumer is calling
for new
kinds of access to
content, entertainment companies have reinforced the us vs. them
perception; after all, “suing your customers is a terrible idea.”
Meza provides the entertainment industry with a roadmap for rescuing itself from entrenchment in dying practices and the disdain of the consumer. A recent review from the Midwest Book Review says that you “will find Coming Attractions an outstanding, specific survey key to understanding long-standing issues, conflicts, and relationships between entertainment, high tech and media industries alike.”
You can listen to Meza discuss these issues here.
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