Message to the Movie Industry: Don’t Make Me Steal!

We are here at Lift11 in Geneva, just a short walk away from CERN where the Web originated more than 20 years ago. That is not far away and quite a long time. Nevertheless, huge parts of the content industry still doesn’t get the Web. Have a look at the movies – it’s still hard to get your favourite movie on your favourite device when you just want to watch it. At least legally. So yesterday 20 people sat down at Lift11 and promised to never illegally download a movie if there was a legal alternative following certain…

We are here at Lift11 in Geneva, just a short walk away from CERN where the Web originated more than 20 years ago. That is not far away and quite a long time. Nevertheless, huge parts of the content industry still doesn’t get the Web. Have a look at the movies – it’s still hard to get your favourite movie on your favourite device when you just want to watch it. At least legally.

So yesterday 20 people sat down at Lift11 and promised to never illegally download a movie if there was a legal alternative following certain criteria they definied on this page. These criteria relate to pricing, languages, convenience, choice and release dates as well as rights. And they sound more or less reasonable. That it is still hard for the movie industry to match them is a sad story.

As I write this, 19241946 people already signed the Digital Media Consumption Manifesto, as these Lifters call it. So if you want to send a message to the movie industry, go ahead and leave your signature. You can sign either with Twitter or Facebook. Exciting times we live in.