Is Film and TV's "Napster moment" upon us?

In an article from the New York Times today, called "Digital Pirates Winning Battles with Studios," new media journalists Brian Stelter and Brad Stone (both writers that cover the three screens) ponder whether or not the film and television business is approaching its "Napster moment" referring to the infamous music sharing site that opened the flood gates to digital music piracy.  The rise and fall of Napster (due to its inability to monetize its popularity with legal downloads) has mirrored what many have called the death of the music industry -  a nosedive in CD sales that the rise in digital music sales (the legal kind) has not successfully offset.

While digital media has certainly had a significant impact on film and television (hence the creation of this course), the impact has not been felt in the area of piracy on the scale it has in the music biz.  Two major hurdles that have prevented that growth have recently been cleared.  The first is technological.  Compression technologies, broadband penetration and link farms have created a web where relatively unsophisticated users (not just P2P/Bit Torrent downloaders) can stream (not just download) high quality content rather easily.  The second hurdle was cultural.  Only recently have viewing habits evolved to the point where people regularly watch long form content on their computers.

The music business has ultimately had very little success in curbing these unwanted trends, so it will be interesting to see if the film/tv business carves its own path or follows  the lead of the music biz.  (i.e. suing teenagers and college kids)