Licensing Labyrinth To Get Movies Online?

from the excuses-excuses-excuses dept

Yet another example of why intellectual property lawyers are making life a lot more difficult, rather than encouraging creativity and innovation. News.com is running a "special report" about all the licensing difficulties in getting movies online. Since many older movies say nothing about the internet or digital distribution rights in all of their contracts, lawyers have to contact many different parties to make all sorts of modifications if the movies are ever going to get online. Some, however, think this is all an excuse by Hollywood for not putting more movies online. Of course, if that's true, this will be the first excuse they've used that doesn't involve some mention of how the internet is a haven for thieves and pirates. Maybe they're realizing that calling all of your customers thieves isn't the greatest marketing plan.