Copyrighted material

[You Are Gay]

Following on from Tomkat's thread about the closure of oink;

"What future do you see for entertainment media?"

Personally i see a bleak future for copyrighted material. In the future i see bandwith will continue to get cheaper and cheaper. This means that obtaining "information" (e.g. films / music / whatever) will become easier and easier*.

As such the entertainment industry will be forced to rely on "the experience factor".

Films will need to make their money at the cinema (where the experience of going will need to be emphasised).

TV shows will continue to remain interactive. Shows like Big Brother make some money from advertising but i believe they make the majority of their profits from the phone in (voting people off). Even after the recent phone-in competition scandal i see that format being used more and more in the coming years to fund "Entertainment TV". I believe ITV rely rather heavily on it for last years profits (even with an £8 million rebate to participants).

Premier Quality TV Shows have a bleak future in my opinion. Currently they rely on advertising but TV advertising will become obsolete in the not so distant future (15 years or so). That leaves subscription fees but really who's gonna pay to subscribe when a website will stream it to you moments after broadcast for "free". Personally i'd see these possibly going more interactive with multiple possible story arcs planned and people given the opportunity to vote (via phone / text in) to determine the outcome. Possibly money could also be made at managed "events". The shows serve to engage people about the characters. Trade events then offer the opportunity for the fans to meet the stars (and have their photo taken with them / autograph for a rather princely sum). Possibly a resurgence in plays (/musicals) will occur.

Music makers will make their money from performing not from song sales. Songs will just serve as an advertising function. A band who doesn't tour doesn't get paid.

Stories will eventually leave print media. This is a hard one for me to admit to as i want to become an author and be successful and be able to just laze around after publishing a few hit novels (:rolleyes:) but truly i see this as the way things will go. Novels haven't really existed for all that long (a few hundred years). In the past bards would go round telling stories "performing" for people. I see the interactive quality returning. I think that the stories people get involved with in the future will be game story lines. The most successful authors will be those who write for game companies. Games with an online , interactive, aspect to it (i.e. because normal games can be pirated but if you have people paying a subscription to play with other people then that's where the money will be made).

News will have embedded advertising in it (much like online sites such as The Onion do now). I appreciate that this is much as it is now but i feel that newspapers have already gone through their big lurch in having to deal with the new online world.

So in conclusion i see the future as a much more interactive place. I appreciate that i've not backed up my opinions with data. It's just the way i see things going.

So what about you?










*even if copright law still exists it will be easier to subsume as the (cost) barriers to setting up a share site will be lower meaning more people can do it