Roadshow happy to strike more ISP content deals

Roadshow - one of the plaintiffs in the copyright case against iiNet - was more than happy to strike content deals with ISPs as long as they were negotiated “within a copyright framework”.

The entertainment giant said today that it would expect “regulations” that stemmed from the outcome of that case to deal with potential issues of piracy on the national broadband network.

However, it could not comment at length due to the potential for appeal.

Greg Sneddon, a sales director of Roadshow’s television and digital division, believed service providers could be “a fantastic distribution point for content.”

“We’re more than happy to do those deals when they’re within an appropriate copyright framework,” Sneddon said.

“We have absolutely no limitations on working with [ISPs for content distribution].”

The company had struck a content deal with iiNet even as the copyright case progressed.

When asked whether he would expect action from the NBN Co to counter piracy on its network before Roadshow would look at it as a potential distribution engine, Sneddon responded that he thought “thats going to come out of the court [judgement] and how it will be regulated.”

The film industry had already made it clear that it will step up pressure on the Federal Government to deal with piracy on internet networks.

Sneddon used his appearance at the Broadband and Beyond 2010 forum in Sydney to add his weight to standards work across the world aimed at simplifying how content is encoded and the digital rights management that was attached to it.

He believed consumers wanted out of the “walled garden” approach to digital content that isolated purchases to the individual platforms they were bought from.

He also believed the internet represented a major opportunity for content providers.

“There’s no doubt our world is being turned upside down. The [new] world is pretty much unknown but is absolutely limitless,” Sneddon said.

“Aside from the piracy issue, every media organisation is going to see absolute opportunity in the internet.

“The thing that’s going for us is that content consumption globally is increasing by 3-5-8 percent year-in year-out.”

He believed potential online models included subscription but also posed more radical ideas where content could go through different “lifecycles” - for example, from paid to advertising-supported and potentially to free.