BitTorrent Caused Disney’s Itunes Move
Anne Sweeney, the president of the Disney-ABC television group was “inspired” after seeing a pirated copy of the hit-show “desperate housewives”.
Today Sweeney talked about Disney’s future as a content provider at the Progress & Freedom Foundation’s Aspen Summit. She was releasing populistic statements such as:
Disney doesn’t see itself as just a broadcaster or a cable channel, but as a provider of content and will do all it can to make that content available to its viewers in whatever form they prefer
However, it seems like Disney is only taking action once they start losing money. At least, that’s what I make up from the following passage in Sweeney’s talk.
Coming “face to face” with the high-quality, commercial-free pirated version (of desperate housewives) told Disney that it was not just competing with other broadcasters, but with digital pirates and as such was an experience that prompted us to do the iTunes deal with Apple.
So it looks like it were the Pirates that motivated Disney to progress. Anyway, it’s a step forward. I’m wondering how many pirated movies it takes before the first Disney blockbuster movie premieres online.
