Lately Doc has been the voice of Doom and Gloom. While I think the issue of pipes are important and is a necessary fight, his experiences and worries at the CES about Viiv, Intel and Microsoft is much ado about nothing.

Let the music and computer companies try to create walled gardens of new DRM and HD content, they are over estimating their customer base. While HD is obviously better technical quality the overall programming is still dog food and frankly as blogs, podcasting, video podcasting, and other self generated content comes about it will find niches that will take over the marketplace. In addition, I am sure it will only be a matter of time until such video bloggers have regular access to HD level equipment.

The audience already demands choice and control to a greater degree and regardless of the efforts these companies put forth the genie will not get back into the bottle. Not with folks out there like Mark Cuban's HD Programming effort, Instapundit's brother's band making more off staying indy than signing a record deal, or prgrams like tikibartv showing that yes Virginia a video from the web can be more compelling and enjoyable than your average 22 minute sitcom. Or as Kevin Marks put it so beautifully, "Live TV is dead, and we're noticing the smell.

They are running scared and trying everything under the sun from podcasting boring shows as Pacific Coast Hellway noticed (thanks Podfather) and jumping on iTunes because they are scared and these new control regemes are only the latests in a stream of attempts to hold on to the edge of the cliff they are falling off of. Think Sony DRM rootkit.

We have tools and networks to tell better stories. It's not to say there isn't a ton of crap out there. But the market will reward good programming with sponsors and the bad shows like livejournals of a teenage girl will have the audience of a handful. The more important point is the tools will open up our voices and that will find an audience. The more I read blogs and listen to podcasts the greater optimist I have been becoming. We are on the cusp of this becoming mainstream and not just some bloggers dream. Let them DRM all the dog food they like in time they will be their only audience. There are battles to fight and yes we must fight to keep the pipes are free, but this DRM boils down to choice and if we don't like their world let's make our own.

ps - Just about to post this and I notice that Doc see's the light I meant this article to highlight.

pps- meant to post this a bit ago (like last weekend)