Emerging Media: Remonetizing Content: How Many Times?

The main benefit I can get from the internet—and which I’m not challenging—is instant gratification, and, in following, time savings from not having to do my own ripping and converting. I suspect that for the majority of consumers who don’t know how to "rip," it will be the only way they can get the content on their computers and portable players.

But if they had convinced me that I could by a mid-res version for my iPod—for less—and then months later given me an even better (and different) experience on DVDs or Blu-ray/HD DVD, I would have bought both versions because of my loyalty to the artist in question.

There are two possible extremes: One copy, recorded on DVR, paid for by mere subscription, played everywhere through some DVR-to-go technology. The other extreme is paying for the content over and over and over in each new incarnation.

You can use technology to stop consumers from moving their "one copy" around. Or you can make each incarnation of the content slightly better—to make the consumer voluntarily purchase it again. But one way or another, inventive and aggressive remonetization of content is the key to shrinking windows without obliterating them entirely.