Content companies come to terms with digital age
LAS VEGAS -- In the past, movie studios, television networks, and record labels fought new technologies like the cassette tape, the VCR, the digital video recorder, and MP3 players. But as new technologies allow people to bring their entertainment anywhere and enjoy it anytime, some content providers are beginning to partner with the gadget makers.
Signs of the shift were evident at the traditionally gadget-focused Consumer Electronics Show last week. Walt Disney Corp. president and chief executive Robert Iger said in a keynote speech that the company was taking a "technology-friendly approach." CBS president and chief executive Leslie Moonves announced a new feature called "Clip and Sling" that would allow Slingbox users to clip video from their favorite CBS shows and send it to their friends.
"Forward-thinking, forward-looking CEOs are seeking to embrace technology and find unique ways to profit from it rather than the old view as we saw from the VCR; that the best way is to sue and block it from happening," said Jason Oxman , vice president of communications for the Consumer Electronics Association.
While content companies have been initially reluctant to embrace new technologies, some -- like VHS and DVD movies -- have become big business.
But technology that shifts content in either time or place may be vulnerable to a lawsuit, according to Don Goldberg , a spokesman for the Digital Freedom Campaign, a new grass-roots organization that has the support of the electronics association and others.
Last spring, for instance, the record industry sued XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc., because its Inno device can record content, allegedly infringing on copyrights. Last fall, major movie studios, including Paramount Pictures Corp., 20th Century Fox Film Corp., and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., sued a small Somerville company called Load 'N Go Video Inc. that ripped customers' DVDs onto their personal video players.
At the show last week, a number of companies offered products that they said were legal, but which industry watchers said could potentially end up in court.
A company called BroadClip unveiled a software program that will become available for free today . Users will log in and type search terms, like an artist's name. When an Internet radio station plays a song by the artist, the program will make an MP3 file on the user's computer.
They have "a big bulls - eye on [their] back," said Goldberg, "The knee-jerk reaction is to sue people out of existence."
Another technology at the show, called iRecord, allows people to have a simple way to record movies, music, and audio onto iPod, Sony PlayStation Portable, and USB devices. The product literature warns, "It is illegal to record from DVDs or other copyrighted media that you do not own."
Other companies have tried inventive solutions.
Avvenu Inc. introduced a Web-based service that allows people to remotely access their iTunes music by streaming the songs from home computers over the Internet, "allowing immediate playback while protecting the rights of copyright holders," said Lisa Marie Gonzales, a company spokeswoman.
The problem facing the content industry may be that new technology and distribution systems are changing the way media companies interact with customers, said Dan Chu , a senior consultant at Altman Vilandrie & Company, a Boston consulting firm.
"What the content providers love is that you will pay for the same piece of content over and over again," Chu said. People will pay to watch a movie in the theater, then pay to rent it, maybe they'll pay to own it, and eventually they may pay for it again indirectly by watching it on television. "The digital element undermines that," Chu said, "because the customer's expectation is they can use something over and over again and port it around their house."
Companies with considerable scale, like YouTube.com, may have the power to change the situation. CBS, for example, launched its own YouTube channel last fall.
The Digital Freedom Campaign aims to spur such change by giving voice to consumers, artists, and innovative entrepreneurs in the policy debate in Washington.
"The cutting-edge devices this year allow consumers to make anytime, anywhere use of content," Oxman said. "We don't want innovation to be stifled by fear of lawsuits and fear of draconian measures taken by some in the content industry."
Carolyn Y. Johnson can be reached at cjohnson@globe.com. 
