Surely it’s obvious that if someone can’t rip a Blu-Ray disc then they probably wouldn’t mind going to The Pirate Bay to pick up a copy for their hard drive that way since the only people who would bother ripping movies are not too bothered about the law.

I can understand that it was important in winning over the studios but now that they have them and HD-DVD is out of the way, why can’t they agree not to put this copy protection on there so that people canback up their movies to Hard Drive.

The way that the music industry is going is surely a wake up call for movie moguls that consumers want to be able to do this and that it would be benificial to people if they started making the headway now.

Another possible threat to the Blu-Ray camp is that downloads are gaining an ever-increasing market share thanks to XBOX 360 and Apple TV with PS3 rumoured to be moving that way too, the faster they react the longer they will be able to hold them off although downloads will ultimately be King.

If anything significant at all, the news that Verizon Wireless had won the US government-run auction for the 700MHz band of the spectrum may have actually been an ideal outcome for Google.

It gives investors the confidence that Google is sticking to it’s guns, the internet.  Not swanning off and dabbling in other markets as others have tried and failed to do.

Yet Google has still been able to profit from the newly available airwaves by ensuring the bids for the “C block” of the available spectrum escalated to $4.6 billion. By reaching that price it has triggered a provision that requires the new wireless network to accommodate all mobile devices, including equipment using Google’s anticipated Android platform, allowing them even more scope to distribute advertising onto the mobile internet.

Verizon bid a total of $4.74 billion to win the majority of C block”, which Google hopes will make it easier for consumers to access its search engine and other products on smart phones and other mobile devices.

Google congratulated Verizon, describing the outcome as a consumer victory. “Consumers soon should begin enjoying new, Internet-like freedom to get the most out of their mobile phones and other wireless devices,” wrote Google lawyers Whitt and Faber.

“Google has plenty of other things on its plate right now,” said analyst Marianne Wolk of the Susquehanna Financial Group. “This (wireless network) would have been a ‘nice-to-have,” but it’s certainly not a must have.”

Whilst you could be forgiven for thinking that the mobile advertising market is pretty minute at the moment there are growing signs that it will grow to disproportionate sizes.  The success of the revolutionary iPhone has already outgrown most analysts expectations and with Microsoft’s takeover of Google-rival Yahoo looming, we can expect more of this news to come.

It is expected that as with the majority of other services customers will in essence be renting the music for as long as they keep the subscription up, making this seem a raw deal to many and will undoubtedly fail to persuade many from downloading music illegally.

Furthermore, the songs are almost certainly going to be protected by DRM restricting the freedom of customers to transfer the songs to their chosen devices.

What I would prefer, and I’m sure many would agree, is to pay a larger fee at the start and then to have all the access we want to songs, without our music being tied into contracts we can’t afford to keep. You see the fundamental difference between music and movies is that people want feel as though they own their music. Whereas you would watch a movie once, maybe twice, a song can be played repeatedly and if users don’t have that freedom they feel cheated.

I hope Apple can realise this and push through a deal with the labels because it would encourage many more people to use iTunes on a regular basis, if you feel like you’re getting music for free of course you are!

One problem they may have (a problem they are having with Apple TV,) is that music companies might hold back their best content from the scheme. Apple are struggling to get 1000 movies on Apple TV and with most labels seeking other means of distribution such as Amazon, this may be a tricky deal for them to push through. Good Luck Apple!