I’ve written about the movie industry in the past. Like the TV industry, these guys are living in the 1990s, when it became immensely profitable to sell slightly different types of physical media every few years. It was like a bath of money they could roll around in, safe in the knowledge warm, new money would continue to flow. As long as some exciting ‘extras’ could be found to get idiots to rebuy the same material time and time again, obviously.

Now we have digital. Digital is great. Digital enables you to cut through the crap and get to the content. You get a movie. What you don’t get: a non-skippable ten-second studio logo; a non-skippable card saying that the opinions of the people banging on in the commentary don’t necessarily overlap with those of the studio’s idiot legal department; possible skippable adverts, to try and get you to buy barely relevant films the studio has also released; and tedious animated menus that take ages to run. If you’re really lucky, you’ll also get an anti-piracy warning, telling you in the most patronising manner possible that you shouldn’t copy the movie you’ve just paid good money for, you almost-thief, you.

With digital, you don’t get any of this, and, essentially, there are just two forms of digital:

• Stuff you pay for.
• Stuff you don’t pay for.

That’s it. There is nothing else. So it showcases the idiocy in the industry that Mike Lang, CEO at Miramax, is now suggesting Apple is a bigger threat to the movie industry than piracy. (Sources: Music Ally and Rapid TV News.) That would be the same Apple that’s managed to convince people to buy music rather than download it and, through iTunes Match, has even managed to monetise dodgy downloads. But, no, Apple isn’t smart: it’s a threat.

Apple is the strongest company in the music industry, and because there was not enough competition, and still to this day is not enough competition, as an industry it can’t then influence, packaging, merchandising… all the things that are vital

Packaging: vital? Really? Newsflash: very few people care about packaging. What people want is content, at an affordable price, and when they want it, preferably in several formats. Instead, you guys are withholding your content from certain services and cutting deals with others. You’re removing rentals after a few months, to force people to buy movies (whereupon many people just think “sod it” and download them from torrent sites instead). YOU are the guys creating the lock-in, not Apple. YOU are the ones screwing up competition, not Apple.

We want multiple players to be successful… It’s really important as an industry that we try to allow multiple players in markets around the world… Our goal as an industry should be to have as many as possible, and may the best service win.

The point isn’t that one service will ‘win’, but that by being more open with your content, every service will ‘win’, and so, too, will the consumers.

Still, Lang does at least acknowledge the industry’s biggest blunders:

Piracy really is not the bigger issue for our company or for our library. It’s been lack of exploitation, just not getting it out there.

Quite. But to then suggest Apple’s the main culprit in terms of restricting competition is absurd—it’s the studios. And the same goes for TV shows. Make your content available and affordable in a timely manner and for as long as people want it and they will buy it. That’s all you need to do, bar realising that the disc era of media consumption was a blip that you’re never, ever going to see again.

Update: Stuart Dredge provides a liveblog on the event, suggesting Lang does understand the arguments. A particularly good quote:

When consumers tell you what they want, figure out a way to give it to them, because they will figure out a way to get it.

But worrying about Apple in this industry is a hiding to nothing. Let Apple sell and rent your content and everyone else too. Don’t yoink movies because you can make more money from a shiny disc no-one wants.