Can movie and TV industry survive the digital era and not face the same fate as its music industry counterpart? Given the advancement of broadband technology, digital video compression and increased bandwidth distribution, users can easily download full feature movies and shows on their computer. This is a turning point for the major movie and production studios. Will they choose to alienate themselves from consumers by introducing restrictive technologies and suing consumers downloading illegal content? Or will the movie industry not follow the costly path that the music industry took when they retaliated against Peer-to-Peer filing sharing networks and the non-restrictive MP3 format.

Hollywood must look at the music industry's past mistakes and take the appropriate measures about positioning itself better in this digital era of "quick-fix" consumer satisfaction. This means listening to the consumer, embracing technology and finding innovative ways to be profitable.

The music industry can be a great learning tool for Hollywood studios to use in order to not repeat costly mistakes. The industry must accept the fact the the new generation of users want things fast and immediately. So the chances are, if they missed a show on TV or a film they will resort to getting what they want using P2P file sharing software. Why wait? The dilemma of movie and TV studios is that Pandora's box has been opened by introducing a non-restrictive standard in music in the form of an MP3.

How does the music industry respond? They introduce a restrictive format in the form of DRM (Digital Rights Management). Consumers always win and the did. Instead of using technology to facilitate sales and uniformity across all platforms, they introduced DRM-based files which lacked compatibility and transferability standards. Why would someone pay money for a file that would only work on one specific player or computer? That makes no sense. Consumers experienced the benefits of the compressed MP3 non-restrictive music file and since then there has been no turning back. The music industry claimed that CDs and their DRM files were of better quality but in most cases consumers did not care or could not notice the difference in audio quality.

For decades the industry would shove music down the ears of consumers and push their monopolistic agenda. Times have changed. They decided to sue the hands that feed them and also fight technology instead of embracing it. Music sales have not yet recovered. DRM did not stop illegal downloading and the music industry bowed down to Apple's iTunes which became the 2nd largest music retailer in a couple of years and gave them a monopoly on legal downloads. The power has shifted from the major music labels to the consumer and a company that really does not care about music just as long as they sell computers, iPods, iPhones and accessories. For Apple music is used as a loss leader for selling their higher earning products. This reminds me of the printing industry. Printer companies like HP, Lexmark, Canon and Epson offer consumers free printers or sell them at an unprofitable price. The catch is the printer companies make all their profits selling consumers ink and cartridges at a premium price.

The Movie and TV studios are experiencing the same dilemma that the music industry had when it was possible to download free music files conveniently but illegally from your computer. Also Apple has once again positioned itself to take advantage of the situation by offering movie rentals and TV content in the form of DRM protected downloads on iTunes. This is certainly deja-vu once again. Ring a bell anyone? Amazon has joined the digital renting and selling business as well. Netflix has expanded its operations to offer digital downloads to complement their DVD rental business and TV carriers have decided to introduce on-demand ordering of content. And then there is Youtube. I am not sure there is any video destination that offers a bigger catalog of content than the Google company. Have they been sued by a major player in the broadcasting arena? The answer is yes. Viacom has and so have others. Do companies ever learn? History teaches us many lessons, some of which should not be repeated.

In regards to music, Real Rhapsody introduced a subscription all-you-can consume solution for music for a monthly price. However, the issue with Rhapsody is once again compatibility and restrictions on players. To succeed in the digital era, the Movie and TV industry needs to offer an all-you-can consume option with no format restrictions distributed in the most convenient manner and with the flexibility to easily transfer content from one device to another. Unfortunately, Hollywood is following the music industry's CD path in regards to DVDs. By protecting DVD's they try to choke innovation at the expense of digital content and distribution. Don't they know that consumers are so technologically savvy today that they would finally get frustrated and go get the content they want for free immediately?

The lessons from the music industry are transparent: digital distribution have too many advantages of physical distribution to be ignored. By not embracing the digital era and by sticking to an obsolete, short-term physical solution, the movie and TV studios will not be able to profit. The solution is to fight illegally downloading directly. It is all about fair pricing, convenient distribution and availability as well as transferability of files from one device to another without format issues or compatibility problems. Also old catalogs can be exploited since the costs of digital storage and distribution is minimal as opposed to having physical inventory and warehousing.

The opportunities are vast and the digital era has opened the doors to the world. How can 900 million computer users be wrong? There are 10 million people logged in at any moment using P2P file sharing networks. How can they be wrong? Why isn't their need fulfilled? Let us hope when the mobile revolution comes in the near future with a population of 3+ billion users, the entertainment industry is ready to capitalize on that opportunity as well. The present needs to be addressed though. Digital is the present and the future.