[Gnash-dev] Time Warner inks Flash DRM deal with Adobe

[John Gilmore]

http://www.contentagenda.com/blog/1500000150/post/890041489.html
[A few links are in the original]

Time Warner goes all Flash - March 3, 2009

Another piece of what looks increasingly like a Grand Bargain Time  
Warner is seeking to strike with its various distribution partners  
fell into place this morning with the announcement that three Time  
Warner divisions--Turner Broadcasting, Warner Bros. and HBO--are  
partnering with Adobe Systems to develop new online and desktop video  
applications around Time Warner content. According to the  
announcement, the companies "will also collaborate to accelerate the  
development of digital rights management for the Web and desktop, and  
metadata and audience measurement solutions to improve the discovery  
and monetization of content." As part of the deal, Time Warner will  
utilize Adobe's Flash platform to create and distribute the content.

The announcement comes one day after an interview with Time Warner CEO  
Jeff Bewkes appeared in Ad Age in which he discussed Time Warner's  
plans to make more of its cable TV content available online, but only  
to those who already subscribe to a cable, satellite or telco pay-TV  
service. The rights-management and flexible business logic built into  
the Flash platform could be crucial to implementing such a business  
model.

More to the point, Time Warner's apparently ambitious goals for  
leveraging digital platforms helps explain its interest in placating  
pay-TV operators by limiting online access to its content to paid-up  
subscribers: Without first buying off cable operators, Time Warner  
would likely face fierce push-back on its efforts to raise carriage  
fees in response to making more of its content available online.

It's an interesting and audacious approach to the problem of trying to  
develop new, digital business models without unduly undercutting the  
current model on which financing production is dependent. But it's a  
bit like the three-way shootout in "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly,"  
where you really need to shoot both opponents at the same time using a  
single gun.

But if you have to choose, go for Lee Van Cleef first.