Sony: iTunes for Movies

Competition is useful because it leads to progress. But what happens when you do not have ideas, but you still want to be the leader?
And since innovating is pretty difficult, the easiest way is to copy. Announcing a MP3 player and calling it the new iPod "killer" has become a well-known marketing technique. It might not be true, but it sounds good.

And if you launch a new download service, it is imperative to announce that it will dethrone iTunes, even though you're not selling mp3s.

The same goes for Sony, which at the Digital Hollywood conference, has announced through the voice of Michael Arrieta, Senior Vice President of Sony Pictures, that they are so delighted of what Jobs has done with iTunes, that they plan to launch a similar service for movies.

Therefore, Sony Pictures will transform 500 of its most successful movies into digital format and offer them for download most probable starting with next year. And everything will be promoted as an anti-Napster initiative.

To make Sony look like the crusading knight, the company believes that this initiative will diminish P2P piracy, Hollywood's worst nightmare.

In order to avoid the whole discussion related to the way in which the DRM system will be ensured, Arrieta has declared that the service will sell the movies. Movielink is already doing that.

It is self implied that the movies will be viewable on the new PSP console, of which Sony hopes to become for movies what the walkman had been to music before the appearance of the iPod.

What Sony seems to completely ignore is that Apple was never content supplier for the iTunes service, meaning there are no Steve Jobs or other employer albums and considering that Sony is also the producer, it is unlikely that other movie producing companies will adhere to the service of a direct competitor.

Anyway, Sony has to take care about using other people's ideas; otherwise, it might face again 90 million dollars fees.