A theory of high-tech format progression

Following is a letter sent to the Editor of the Financial Times:

Sir,

Mr. John Foley writes about consumers not migrating their media if the new format is too similar to the one they already have (¨A theory of high-tech format progression¨ Financial Times, January 10, 2006). That sounds about right. What Mr. Foley does not address is why consumers should need to hand out more readies for media they have already paid for.

Over the years, When media companies marketed their songs or movies they did not emphasize the vinyl, the tape, the disc and now the bits and bytes. I remember them selling the music and the stars.

If I can buy a CD, copy it onto my computer and download it to my MP3, why shouldn´t I be able to download free of charge from the web, songs that I have already paid for that are in other formats? The songs have been paid for, they are mine and I want to hear them on my MP3. Why shouldn´t I be able to do so without suffering the indignity of being called a thief.

My extensive cassette collection has been lying idle for too long. I should be able to hear what I have paid for in the format I want. How many times do the media companies expect me to pay them for the same products?

Onésimo Alvarez-Moro

See letter:
From Mr John Foley.

Sir, I have a theory about consumers updating media into newer formats (Lex, "Disc jockeying", January 8). And that is, they will not update collections if the upgraded system is similar to the present one. They will update vinyl record collections into shiny new compact discs but not CDs into very similar looking SACDs. Similarly they will update VHS tapes to DVD, but will they go from DVD to HD-DVD?

See full Letter (paid subscription required).