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Copyright law is a dinosaur; or maybe, calling it a BetaMax would be more appropriate. Like the ill-fated video tape format, intellectual property law had its place in history, but it simply doesn’t work with current technology anymore. Recent battles over implementation of copyright laws in France and Canada illustrate the need to rethink issues of content ownership.
By the 1980s, we were supposed to travel by jet-pack while robot housekeepers cooked our meals. At least that’s the high-tech view of the future that science fiction writers presented in the 1950s. Today, the future isn’t such a distant vision: it’s happening in our lifetimes.
The Lemelson-MIT Program, which celebrates innovation and inventors, recently polled high school students on their view of the future. Virtually all of them predicted dramatic technological advancements during their lifetimes and most felt comfortable dealing with those rapid changes.
The pull of the big screen seems to be diminishing according to this AOL Entertainment story. There is nothing quite like seeing a good movie on a big screen with a honkin’ huge sound system that rattles your chair. However, many entertainment venues have their time, and perhaps the Silver Screen has reached its apogee.
The AOL story said movie attendance declined 6 percent in 2005 which is the biggest dip in twenty years. This same story also cites an Associated Press-AOL poll from last summer that reveals 73 percent of adults would prefer watching a movie at home on DVD or pay-per-view. This would certainly point to a substantial reason for the decline.
Someone the other day said to me, “I realize the Web is a fast growing communications medium, but isn’t most of that growth among younger demographics?” Well, there is an easy answer for that: “No.”
The latest evidence comes from a Burst Media survey (see story in eMarketer). The survey shows a rapid shift among people age 55+ from time spent with traditional media to time spent online. Among the survey respondents in this age group, 60.7 percent said they used the Internet more this year compared to last year.
Also, according to statistics from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 71 percent of Americans, ages 50-64, now use the Internet.