Lias:

 

MikeB4:

 

That would be ideal however I cannot see all the rights owners agreeing to that. They make more I would imagine from exclusive deals and the contestability of the whole thing.

 

 

Sadly many companies, especially large and/or US based ones, range from either merely putting profits before people to outright fighting tooth and nail to maximise profits. It's why you need politicians who can and will legislate to achieve balance. NZ is very luck in that respect, we have the CGA, DVD region circumvention is legal, Telecom was forced to split, Chorus & the other LFC's are regulated, etc. It's not that much of a stretch to see a future where our politicians are willing to legislate to regulate the media content market and ensure a fair deal for kiwis ahead of the rights of content holders, particularly large foreign/multinational ones that have repeatedly prove themselves to be pure corporate evil (For example any company that belongs to or supports the RIAA, MPAA, RIANZ, FACT, etc)

 

Your suggestion is a REALLY good topic. But it always gets derailed by anti Sky, anti this anti that.

Here is my view. 

There are 3 tiers. Owners of the content, lets say SANZAR for rugby as one example. Or who owns a really cool TV series, or a great movie franchise, doesn't really matter. Lets add in Liberty for Formula 1. The next tier is the providers that buy it. TV services like Sky, HBO, BBC, Netflix, TVNZ, many others. Some national. some global. The third tier are the consumers.We may subscribe to a pay service like Sky, HBO, Netflix, etc, or FTA, where we pay via advertising, or Govt funding. Sky, HBO etc wont get any payback. But they could expect to hold subscribers, gain subscribers, be known.

Now, if the owners sold it to everyone. Sky, TVNZ, Mediaworks, HBO, Netflix and so on. The TV series now is valueless. Advertising is worthless as its everywhere. Pay subscribers are worthless as its everywhere. However, the cost to buy the rights are cheap as many bought it. But who will buy it? Maybe no one, as while its cheaper as everyone bought it, maybe few bought it. Lets say Sky, Netflix and TVNZ. Its not now that cheap, its one third of what Sky would have paid above, but its still valueless. Thats the problem.

How this could easily be solved is that the owners deal direct with consumers. We subscribe to SANZAR pay service, Liberty F1 for the F1 races. And so on.

But then FTA, Sky, HBO, Netflix and so on are out of business. As there is no content to buy. Plus we all now have 23 subscriptions to manage. Maybe some are $25 a month, some are $9 a month, some are 50c a month, but we have a very fragmented system. This applies to all content.

I don't agree or disagree with you, but as the saying goes, its complicated.