The age of the dinosaurs

It's been another good week for us, the average payment actually went up to £5.10 in the week. Word is slowly starting to spread too I think - obviously this is how it should be!

I knew I spoke to soon with regard to how few people have reported problems. There was (ahem) a problem with our shop email address! We've still only had a handful of people with difficulties mind, and I know most of these are now resolved. Sorry to anyone who hasn't been able to get through, all our email addresses are working fine now, so please do try again.

There was an interesting article in The Sunday Times about online film delivery, and how it will eventually replace DVD. "Eventually" is the word, however - mainly because the film industry is obsessed with copyright issues. This means that if people download a movie, it will only work on the device they have downloaded to - which in my view is a total disaster, and the reason why peer-to-peer free downloads will continue to clean up and the movie industry lose money hand over fist.

If I was a punter and wanted to watch Sam Jackson's Secret Video Diary, I'd download it to my PC, then put it on a tiny SD card so I could watch it on my little portable player on the train (sadly the way I have to watch most movies these days, because of time!) This would be impossible if I used copyright protection. In that case, I'd either not bother downloading it at all, or get it illegally - just because I physically couldn't do it any other way.

I think the movie industry needs to join the real world. Illegal files will always be with us - none of the technical efforts made by Hollywood to stop piracy have worked. All domestic copy protection does is stop it working for consumers. The solution is to make the product simple to use and and not rip people off. Is that so much to ask?