Paramount is out with a new online service that lets customers purchase clips from films. As this New York Times article notes, it's initially aimed at advertisers and marketers who want to use the clips in campaigns. Consumers will be let in on the action later.

I have a couple thoughts on this:

1. Kudos to Paramount for giving this a shot. It certainly can't hurt, and we need all the experimentation we can get.

2. I think this is a fantastic opportunity to test good-better-best quality levels. I've long thought there's a way to service different segments of the audience through resolution, features and convenience.

For example, writers, bloggers and others who simply want to reference a clip could grab a lower-resolution version for free (as many already do through YouTube). This boosts awareness and creates branding opportunities for the content provider.

One sidenote: The Times piece suggests folks on the low end -- consumers, mostly -- may have to pay a low per-clip fee. That's the wrong move. These aren't ringtones. Ringtones are a public expression of personality linked to an always-on, always-available device. Embeddable movie clips require placement within media forms, be it a website or a DVD. The all-important personality element is muted. I'm not going to shell out cash if that so-bad-it's-good movie clip only broadcasts my ironic sense of humor to a limited audience. I need exposure, dammit!

But I digress ...

Moving up the scale, companies that want to aggregate clips or make them available as part of another content product could pay a reasonable amount (likely a flat rate for a certain number of clips) and gain access to DVD-quality content. I can see utility here for the education world. A one-stop shop for clips could take a lot of the pain out of the copyright quagmire law-abiding teachers currently face.

On the high end, marketers and advertisers who need full-resolution (1080p, if available) and the absence of co-branding would pay a premium.

What won't work is an "everyone must pay" declaration. I'm assuming that since this got written up in the Times, and given that a consumer option is part of the longer-term gameplan, Paramount wants this to be more than a back-channel marketers' tool. Otherwise, why publicize it? This is clearly a public-facing product. As such, it needs to properly service the unique needs of all audience segments.

Looks like Netflix and the movie studios are about to make piracy more enticing. Good move, guys. From TechCrunch:

Here's what this will do: It may drive sales of DVDs a bit short term. But soon, online movie piracy will pick up to new heights. If the movie studios have nightmares about piracy now, their reality will be truly terrifying with this plan in place ...

... with this new 30-day window in place, the masses would be driven online to search for more illegal content -- and more importantly, it would begin to fuel a piracy ecosystem for Hollywood content. There would be more people downloading, but also more people sharing. That's the key.

Take a look through any torrent site (looking is legal) and you'll see that most of the activity occurs around new releases. And that's happening under the current system where new releases are available for purchase or rental. Remove rental from the equation (you know, the lower priced, easier, less restrictive option) and suddenly pirates go from fringe-dwelling copyright violators to service providers. I'm guessing that's not what the studios are shooting for.

In an attempt to tie up the Orwell debacle, Amazon is offering affected customers replacement copies of "1984" or "Animal Farm" and the reinstatement of any personal annotations. From the New York Times:

Amazon said in an e-mail message to those customers that if they chose to have their digital copies restored, they would be able to see any digital annotations they had made. [Emphasis added.]

It's been more than a month since Amazon extracted the questionable Kindle editions, yet assumed-dead user notes now spring phoenix-like from the Orwellian ashes. Why the delay? Amazon, it would appear, claims jurisdiction over the saving, disassociation, and, if it's feeling magnanimous or motivated, full reinstatement of user notes according to its own schedule.

Playing devil's advocate, it may be that Amazon felt the controversy surrounding the Orwell deletions warranted back up of the notes, and perhaps the restoration delay was tied to a rights issue. But even with these (potential) explanations, a "surprise note resurrection" reeks of creepiness. If Amazon didn't delete annotations associated with illegal books -- an unfortunate but reasonable bit of collateral damage -- then what does it delete? Are the mistakes and alterations in my shopping cart history burned into a permanent record? Can a deleted S3 file miraculously reanimate? I can't help but raise an eyebrow toward all of Amazon's services, which is a shame since I admire the company's non-Kindle offerings.

A federal jury in Minnesota ruled that Jammie Thomas-Rasset, the downloading-consumer poster child, must pay $80,000 per song for the 24 music files stored on her computer. That's $1.92 million, total.

After the judgement, Thomas-Rasset had an appropriate response:

As for Thomas-Rasset, she appeared shaken by the verdict but didn't blame the jury. "They did their job," she said, "I'm not going to hold it against them." She added, though, that the recording industry would never collect the money. "Good luck trying to get it from me ... it's like squeezing blood from a turnip."

I understand the music industry (and all content industries) are in turmoil. I understand Thomas-Rasset and other downloaders have, technically, run afoul of copyright law. But I will never understand why any industry would think it suitable to sue and extort its customer base. This is madness.

The bright spot amidst all this nonsense is that the film, book and media industries have avoided the lawsuit route. My hope is that all content companies -- including the record labels -- will eventually emerge from their knee-jerk defensive positions and realize there's a choice here: you can hope for a Pyrrhic victory over your digital nemesis, or you can reorient your businesses toward the new relationship between digital content creators, providers and consumers. People still want great content and they're still willing to pay for it -- now figure out how to give it to them. And for the love of God, don't sue your customers.

Hand-Picked Related Links

• Piracy is Progressive Taxation, and Other Thoughts on the Evolution of Online Distribution (Tim O'Reilly)
• Putting Ebook Piracy into Perspective (TOC)
• Capitol v. Thomas (EFF)
• RIAA v. The People (EFF)
• Impact of P2P and Free Distribution on Book Sales (TOC Report)

According to the New York Times, the Associated Press is once again rattling its saber over use of its content by Web sites. A similar soap opera played out last summer:

newspaper revenue tanks > AP shakes fist at pesky Interweb > bloggers get pissed > nothing happens

But read deeper into the Times piece and you'll see this latest flare up is different because the AP actually has a point: sites with SEO mojo that grab AP content and pass it off in their own wrappers do undermine the AP's core mission of providing fast, trustworthy information. The AP relies on reputation to justify its existence, so it wants credit where credit is due. I can't argue with that.

This reasonable complaint is, unfortunately, buried beneath the AP's history of misguided lawsuits, wacky licensing, and its penchant for tough-guy posturing. What the organization needs is an even-tempered communicator (the anti-Beale). Someone who can quell Internet angst by drawing a straight line between the AP's original content and the ever-expanding legion of aggregators, bloggers and Tweeters. The organization needs to note -- consistently and with great fervor -- that it's not hunting bloggers; that its beef isn't with excerpting; and that it encourages fair use of its content. Only then will the AP's real message get through.

Hand-Picked Related Links

• Some questions related to Google News and the Associated Press (Official Google Blog)
• AP launches campaign against Internet "misappropriation" (Ars Technica)
• Some Suggestions For The AP, Care Of The Music Industry (paidContent.org)
• Some Papers in Financial Trouble Are Leaving the A.P. to Cut Costs (New York Times)