I can hear it now:

Exec #1: “Members of the Word Media Cartel, we are against the ropes. We’ve tried imposing draconian penalties for even trivial piracy. We performed a perfect end-run around the fair use doctrine with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. We’ve sued into bankruptcy anyone who might have a business model more survivable than our own. We’ve even sued down-and-out college students for $97.8 trillion dollars each, as an example to others who would stand in our way. And yet the peer-to-peer networks continue to thrive.”

Exec #2: “If only our industry had a way to convince people that piracy was wrong. You know, change how people think about copying music and movies.”

Exec #1: “Yes, yes, but there’s no point in wishing for… hey wait, say that again!”

And so it came to pass: the Motion Picture Association of America launched an unprecedented media blitz to convince the American public that by using Gnutella you hurt not just Disney stock-holders, but also Jerry, the man who fetches coffee for George Lucas every morning at 5am.

The sheer power of this blitz is daunting. The kickoff this Thursday will have thirty-five network and cable outlets all showing the same 30-second spot in the first prime-time break (a “roadblock” in ad-biz terms). Then every major theater in the country will play daily trailers on all screens in more than 5,000 theaters. Whew. And all that time is donated, which would be incredibly impressive if the spots weren’t essentially being donated to themselves.

And now the $97.8 trillion-dollar question: is the American people so pliable that their morality can be changed by a media blitz? (Could that be the manic laughter of of thousands of ad executives I hear in the distance?)

References:

• College students sued
• Background on the DMCA

The Associated Press has an overview piece on how the makers of digital video recorders are capitulating to (excuse me, “voluntarily cooperating with”) Hollywood and other members of the Content Cartel. Not too surprising given the shots fired through the bow of Sonicblue (makers of ReplayTV), forcing them into bankruptcy after paying millions in legal fees. In line with the rest of the industry, ReplayTV’s new owners say they will be good little boys and remove the ability to auto-skip commercials or send recorded programs over the Internet to other Replay users.

In the short run this means consumers get fewer features, but in the long run it’s just more sand thrown against the tide. DVRs are just commodity hardware, some standard drivers and a little bit of interface software. If UltimateTV, TiVo or ReplayTV doesn’t provide the features people want then a whole host of small manufacturers, kit makers and do-it-yourself modification kits are all more than willing to fill the gap.