Freyburg

In addition to coddling a dead language and being pretty damned bitter about their lost colonial empire and handy defeat at the hands of the Nazis, France can now add “hatred of the future” to their long list of missteps. French president Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tax Google and other new media giants in order to help struggling print and other media companies. Well, pleut moi un rivoire, Nicolai, if those businesses are failing there’s likely a very good reason for their downward spiral, such as lack of a 21st century business model.

In their continuing quest to commit suicide, as noted by Techcrunch, Hollywood is taking measures to restrict access to their latest DVD releases from DVD kiosks that allow people to order a DVD online and then pick it up from a high-tech vending machine nearby. Not surprisingly, Blockbuster is in support of the move, since it props up their failing business.

But as Techcrunch says (and I heartily agree), all this move does is encourage piracy. If people can’t rent movies in a way that’s proven to be convenient to them, they aren’t going to leg it halfway across town to the nearest Blockbuster. What they will do is take five minutes to learn how to download torrents…and then the studios have likely lost a customer forever.