Have you been following the war on Netflix and Redbox/Blockbuster? The film companies and HBO believe if they make war on these distributors DVD sales will rise and happy days will be here again. This is like the record labels believing they can make CD sales rise if they make war on Best Buy and Wal-Mart and put a shiv into the independents while they’re at it.

Huh?

The future is inevitable. Reading is moving to electronic devices and physical media is dead in the music business, despite all the hosannas about vinyl. Sure, vinyl is fun and warm, and who doesn’t love those giant covers, but saying vinyl is making a comeback is like touting the sales of typewriter ribbons, it’s a drop in the bucket, it’s irrelevant nostalgia, a footnote by the side of the road on the way to what comes next.

And who taught us about the future?

THE PUBLIC!

The public embraced digital photography as well as MP3s. The public has no investment in infrastructure, it just latches on to what’s cool and efficient and goes there.

I’d call the incumbents Canute-like, but Canute was the one who knew the sea wouldn’t be held back by his command, it was his “flattering courtiers” who claimed he possessed that power. So are the incumbents deluded, and denuded, by the tailors who present new clothes, empty promises of a rosy return of the past. Almost tragic.

`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’