CNET today ran an editorial by a guy trying to drum up business for his little company, although the author never owned up to his angle in the piece. Here the opening from Les Ottolenghi, CEO of Intent MediaWorks:

Once media-hungry consumers get a taste of free music, video and games through file sharing, there's no turning back. File sharing offers consumers the complete package: rich media delivered directly to their computers, phones and e-mail addresses at no charge. Why would anyone want to return to a linear distribution system that requires more effort, more money and more limitations?

And there's this:

Entertainment companies looking for a way to monetize their content need to stop chasing the consumer dollar. That ship has sailed. As consumers become more comfortable morally and technologically about file sharing, they will be less and less willing to part with their cash for content.

Yet he also makes this dubious claim, based on his other assertions:

The good news for the industry is that a huge fan base with a potential for extraordinary profit has emerged.

My first question was this: What the heck is this guy smoking and could it possibly be legal? My second question was this: Is he on to something?

I'll likely never know the answer to my first question, but having spent some time reviewing his piece and examining his company, which I've long been familiar with, I believe I have an answer to my second question -- maybe.

Ottolenghi's company licenses content (that's a good thing), wraps it in DRM and attempts to monetize it through advertising. Essentially, the migration of the content is tracked, and it's assumed that when someone downloads it they're exposed to the advertising. Can this model work? I'm never one to say no to a legal business model. Ottolenghi should be applauded for developing it and the artists and labels who have experimented with it should also be applauded. My issue is not with Ottolenghi's company, or even with the fact that he used CNET to advertise his services. My concern is that he chose to market his service by arguing that any other business model is doomed to fail, and even deserves to fail.

His take on Apple's iTunes? "File-sharers thought it was cute, for about a minute." The problem with this and other business models, Ottolenghi argues, is that they require payment for content, and as you saw in the quotes above, he feels that because songs can be stolen online, it is no longer reasonable to charge for them.

Let's think about that for a minute. Television has been free for more than 60 years, supported by advertising, as Ottolenghi is suggesting. Yet for about 40 years, people have been willing to pay for it, not just cable channels but over-the-air channels; there are millions of subscribers to basic cable, which usually just includes the local broadcast stations and a home shopping channel or two. Cable customers pay for TV but also see ads. Many millions also pay for premium stations such as HBO; the cost per channel is much higher, but there is no advertising. All of these business models exist simultaneously. Consumers can have varying amounts of TV content at varying price points.

Is this wrong? Should we all be allowed to pirate HBO, and should Ottolenghi place ads in front of each new episode of Rome? That is essentially what Ottolenghi is proposing with recorded music.

Here's a game you can play at home. Every time somebody makes a blanket statement about the music industry and copyright, ask yourself: Does this make sense for movies? TV? Books? Video games? Photography? Illustrations? Some of the above are not as prevalent in the digital space because of a lack of convenient consumption devices (books) or file size (movies) or DRM robustness (video games). Some are extraordinarily prevalent online and are subject to rampant piracy but draw less attention due to a smaller market size and consumer appeal (photography and illustrations). But all are the result of creators, and all are protected by copyright.

We need to allow the market to find ways to connect consumers with the works of our nation's creators, and because this is a market transaction, there needs to be compensation for those creators. We need to let consumers -- not market competitors such as Ottolenghi -- decide which models are appealing and which are not.