Stardate 20020226.1129

(On Screen via long range sensors): Jack Valenti, the ossified President of the MPAA, writes a column in the Washington Post. He agrees with Lawrence Lessig that consumer broadband will never be a success until movies are available on the web.

The first claim is true: The great omission in digital downloads is the lack of legitimate movie availability. Text is mainly what the Net offers. A recent survey revealed that 68 percent of all home computer users say they're satisfied with their normal 56K computer modem. It can download pretty much all that's on the Net, as not much (legal) material is out there that's chock full of graphics and in a consumer-friendly format to create the need for a cable modem or a digital subscriber line (DSL).

That will probably come as a surprise to Danni Ashe, who has been very successful selling a site which is "chock full of graphics" (hoo boy!). She and thousands of other similar sites, in fact; graphics-oriented web sites are the big success story of the web. Of course, most of them feature less-than-fully-clothed female forms in various "interesting" poses.

But pr0n is not the only legitimate reason for a home user to have broadband; I've had my cable modem for five years now and could never go back. (If I ever move, I won't be moving somewhere unless I can be sure I can get broadband at the new location.)

The rest is a typical polemic about how important digital rights management is to the beleaguered movie industry, which is in such deep financial trouble. (Sniff; get's you right here, don't it? I just feel so sorry for the movie companies...) But the fundamental issue itself is wrong: broadband isn't vital, and in any case it's success doesn't depend on the availability of movies. Bandwidth (and memory, and storage space) always finds a use.