Cable Companies Help Erode Copyrighted Content Value (at least to the content owner)

The Second Circuit recently gave an opinion passing the value of content into the hands of the cable companies and away from the people who own it.

You know the drill...you sign up for cable and Entourage is on at 10pm. You want to watch it before work at 5am while you're on the treadmill. You're sick of all those devices below the plasma screen, so you opt for the 'remove DVR' service, which allows you to store a show digitally and REMOTELY (i.e., not in your house and not on your equipment) for later viewing.

Funny thing, those copyright owners...they thought the cable companies should get a license to permit that activity. But, the court said "nope."

This is a horribly decided case. With the increase in ways technology can deliver content, the ability to protect copyrights seems to have diminished...at least as to the copyright owner. But there have never been more ways to exploit a copyright, or to locate so many "value points" for copyright exploitation. In other words, we can get it out there like never before, but we can't find a way to make people pay for it...who gets punched in this scenario? The copyright owner.

I'd love to see the day when copyright protection co-exists at the same advanced stage as copyright exploitation- which should also co-exist at the same advanced stage as the ability to monetize it. As for right now, exploitation and delivery is light years ahead of protection and monetization.