Media Distribution & Disruptive Technologies

I had a very interesting week, last week. I went to North Shore Studios here in Vancouver to see a software for marketing and distribution of digital media (e.g. motion pictures) that has been under the radar for five years. While there, the founder, Doug Hardwick, introduced me to another distribution technology that has recently come out – Popcorn Time.

It’s story is in this link and continues to evolve – Check out – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popcorn_Time This is an extremely robust and disruptive technology (www.time4popcorn.eu) that allows users to view first run TV shows like “House of Cards” , “Ray Donovan” , recent movies, etc. at a moment’s notice. The site is like Pirate Bay on steroids. After being asked to cease and desist, the creators of Popcorn Time repositioned the site as a free share ware model. This definitely puts the Netflix business model in jeopardy.

It also begs the question, is Internet piracy killing Hollywood?  Some don’t think so – check out: http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/piracy-is-not-killing-hollywood/ The key takeaway for me in this article is that ” …  users are happy to pay for content they deem to be fairly priced and worthwhile”.

If you believe that most of us are ethical and covet integrity then there is a place on the Internet for downloading media and thus paying producers a fair amount for their creativity.  And we do need to pay them if we want to continue being exposed to new productions.

And that’s where Doug Hardwick’s software comes in – check out www.mediam.ca