In September of 2008, calling it “StealDVD,” the big Hollywood (no pun intended) studios filed suit against RealDVD.

And this past Tuesday — as PC World wrote – RealDVD was dealt a “devastating blow” when U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn Hall Patel “granted a preliminary injunction against sale of RealDVD, pending a trial over copyright infringement.”

It’s too soon to know what will happen, but it appears the movie industry has the upper hand. But is it a victory they cannot afford to win?

As I noted months ago, the irony is that by opposing RealDVD, the movie industry seems to be operating against its own long-term self-interest. As consumers desire more freedoms and options, the most successful companies are embracing the societal changes. Meanwhile, the movie industry has adopted a very un-progressive posture and is hunkering down and simply suing the innovators.

Whereas the music industry seems to have learned that swimming against the modern-day consumer’s demand is a fool’s errand, the movie industry is doubling down. As PC World noted, “It’s perfectly legal to rip music from a CD and upload it onto an iPod for personal use; why can’t a person do the same with their own copies of movies?”

iPod owners own the right to make a certain number of personal copies of their music. Systems are in place to prevent mass piracy. RealDVD would essentially do the same thing. Again, PC World hit the nail on the head, writing that RealDVD allowed “only a single digital copy to be placed on your hard drive. After paying extra licensing fees, you could transfer the digital copy onto as many as five other hard drives. Disc-based burning was never an option.”

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Hollywood has long presented itself as “cool” and “cutting edge,” yet when it comes to guiding their own industry, they seem mired in a 20th century mindset. The irony here is that instead of allowing a legitimate and innovative company flourish, the movie industry will likely find that more and more piracy sites will emerge and that fewer and fewer people will be buying what they are selling.

Having played football myself, I can tell you Vick is incredibly talented. As a person of compassion, I can tell you he is still in need of continued rehabilitation – which makes for much speculation about which team(s) would be interested in having him in the huddle.

One “team” who seemed interested in having him in the huddle was PETA, a group so aggressive in their marketing methods that they put both Madison Avenue – and Hollywood – to shame.

As you may recall, they apparently proposed a bizarre idea a while back — Vick would appear in public service ads for the group. The ads would ostensibly serve to discourage the cruel practice of dog fighting, but they would also have been a major marketing coup for PETA, helping raise their profile — and, no doubt, lead to more members and national attention (and donations).

But the ads would also have served to rehabilitate Vick’s image with the public, and make him seem contrite — an interesting thing for a group who presumably cares about animal rights to do. To draw an odd analogy, this would sort of be like asking Nancy Pelosi to do a message on the dangers of Botox.

It is unclear whether or not any money would have changed hands in the PETA TV deal, but the arrangement would have potentially been mutually beneficial — had it gone through, that is.

PETA now claims the ads were never in the works, but based on the number of substantiated media reports to the contrary, a more likely scenario is that they came under pressure — and backed out of the deal — when even more disturbing reports surfaced regarding Vick’s personal involvement with dog fighting. There are even reports they subjected Vick to a brain scan to see if he had enough empathy toward animals. Apparently, he didn’t.

Regardless, the Vick deal serves to highlight PETA’s savvy marketing skills (what else would you expect from a group which uses scantily-clad models to “sell” their agenda), as well as their willingness to enter into cozy partnerships with a motley crew of strange bedfellows — ranging from animal-abusing quarterbacks to credit card companies — when it serves their purposes.

While PETA has increasingly become adept at generating mainstream media attention, according to http://www.petakillsanimals.com/, PETA found homes for less than one out of every three hundred animals in 2008, and they killed 95 percent of the dogs and cats in their care last year. Clearly, they are being successful at something, though, and recently; the plot has thickened as they have been accused taking legal kickbacks along the way.

For example, PETA has targeted IAMS pet food (which is based in my home state of Ohio — a state struggling with job losses) through their “IamsCruelty” campaign. PETA accuses IAMS of practicing inhumane animal studies, even though they have been an industry leader in research procedures and animal welfare advocacy. Interestingly, PETA has entered into a partnership with a “holistic” clearinghouse, which sells pet food. While it is logical they would recommend an alternative to IAMS, it is also of note that PETA, itself, gets 8 percent of the proceeds generated when people purchase this food instead IAMS.

And then there’s the case of MasterCard. PETA targeted them with a “NastyCard” as punishment for their sponsoring the Ringling Brother’s circus. Meanwhile, PETA entered into a deal with VISA to offer a PETA Platinum Credit Card. PETA gets 1 percent of purchases made with the branded card as royalties.

The Michael Vick story is an interesting one, inasmuch as there are no heroes. Vick’s actions were despicable, but he has, at least, paid his dues. The media focus seems to be on his football future, not on preventing animal cruelty. Sadly, though, PETA — the organization who should be worried about protecting animals from abuse — appears to have merged from a radical “animal rights” organization — into a highly-profitable multi-million dollar fundraising and “anything goes” publicity marketing machine.

Obama’s book is a classic of American literature. Those who think he did not write it, that perhaps, as some Internet zanies have alleged, that the radical Bill Ayers wrote it, are doing both Obama and themselves a disservice. Bill Ayers’ thoughts have all the leaden quality of most deadening Marxist screeds. Ayers’ writing you can’t pick up; Obama’s you can’t put down.

Father and Son 

It’s deeply offensive to many to charge that Obama did not write his own book. It’s the same charge, incidentally, that was made against the first great black American writer: Frederick Douglass. Frederick’s powerful stage presence soon proved doubters wrong.

Obama’s book is witty, spirited, engaging. It draws you in. It commands not just your attention, but your respect and even your affection. One caution I should provide. Obama’s talented mimicry of the accents of his African relatives and a militant Chicago street hustler includes an occasional use of the F-word. He never uses this kind of language speaking in his own voice, but only when quoting others, I should point out.

Not only do I recommend this book to all Americans, and, especially, to all my conservative friends, but I respectfully recommend that President Obama re-read his own book.

That’s because it’s hard to believe that the worldly, winsome, wise man who wrote this book is pursuing policies that run completely counter to all the life experiences he relates so well.

Take Lolo, for example. Lolo was young Barack’s Indonesian stepfather. Lolo takes Barack and his mom home to Indonesia right after the bloody 1965 military coup. That coup may have claimed as many as half a million lives. Barack’s American mother was literally clueless about the dangers, the lethal violence, that haunted Indonesia-until she showed up in the country with her little boy.

Lolo tries to teach Barack that you need to be strong if you’re to be respected. Lolo keeps his head down. He avoids provoking a murderous response from the dictators of his country. We can all learn from Lolo.

We don’t want to live in the violent and lawless world that is Lolo’s post-coup Indonesia. But that world-like Thomas Hobbes’ “war of all against all”-is much closer to the global reality than is President Obama’s vague and hazy UN-inspired multilateralism.

A strong America is our best defense. President Obama speaks to dictators like the Iranian mullahs with exaggerated “respect.” He tries to sweet-talk tigers into drinking warm milk, just like Tabby cats. Obama makes you want to yell: LISTEN TO LOLO!

The most moving and powerful part of the Obama narrative, of course, is his relationship with his mostly-absent dad. The senior Barack Obama was a brilliant Kenyan foreign student. He graduated from Harvard. After the unfortunate breakup of his marriage to Barack Obama’s Kansas-born mom, the senior Obama went home to Africa. There, he began a swift rise to power, influence, money, and respect as an official of the post-independence Kenya government.

He visits young Barack back in the U.S. for ten wonderful days in 1971. Barack Obama’s re-telling of this visit is a heart-rending tale. When his dad speaks to the students in his Hawaiian prep school, young Barack is at first embarrassed, but soon joins in the acclaim for the amazing performance his dad puts on.

Returning to Kenya, however, the senior Obama is soon to be disappointed, bitterly so. As a Luo tribesman, he sees the massive favoritism and corruption of Jomo Kenyatta’s socialist government. Dr. Obama might have kept quiet, kept his head down, like Lolo, and survived, even thrived. He might have been content to hold his position as “window dressing,” a token Luo in a Kikiyu-dominated regime.

But Obama’s dad had a passion for justice. He spoke out, and paid the price. He was soon ousted from his government job. Not only did he lose his job, he lost his home, his government car, his friends. Even family members-that great haven in a heartless world-were afraid to be seen with him. Our hearts bleed when we read of the brilliant Dr. Obama’s descent into despair and alcoholism.

What a shattering thing it is for young Barack Obama to learn of his father’s fate. He had only ten days with his dad, but he lionized him from afar. With Kenyatta’s passing comes an easing of the edicts against Dr. Obama. Slowly, he is able to get back on the ladder of success. He is only on the third or fourth rung, however, when he is tragically killed in an auto accident.

What lessons do we draw from this sad, sad story? Has President Obama seriously considered the Kenyatta government in Kenya, a regime that arguably ruined his brilliant father’s life?

When you look at President Obama’s plan for government-run health care, when you see his moves to control banking and finance, to run major auto companies, to control all U.S. industry and energy through his Cap and Trade (and Tax) bill, what is this except the very kind of regime that Kenyatta represented?

Harambee! The word means “let’s all pull together.” It’s a Swahili word, or possibly Bantu, but it was taken up as the slogan of President Kenyatta’s movement. Many of us remember Jomo Kenyatta, the charismatic independence leader who brandished a fly whisk almost as a scepter of authority.

President Obama, the community organizer, also wants us all to pull together. He swatted that fly in the White House (“I killed that sucker!”) just as Jomo Kenyatta swatted those pesky critics–dissident politicians and journalists.

If you doubt Obama’s swatting prowess, just watch one of his carefully staged “Town Hall-style” meetings. Note the operative word: style. They look like Town Hall meetings. They sound like Town Hall meetings. But they are orchestrated shows with a cast of hundreds all recruited, prepped, and manipulated for the benefit of the prime time lap puppies.

Can we resist all this? Yes, we can. We can reject the path that Barack Obama has laid out before us. It is a path not of independence, but of ever greater dependence, a path that leads to loss–loss of liberty, loss of self-respect, loss of self-reliance.

Disraeli said it well in the nineteenth century: Bismarck made Germany great by making the Germans small. But America already is great. And we don’t want to be made small.

We can treat President Obama and his father’s legacy with respect. We can pray for him and his beautiful family, even as we firmly tell him: “Mr. President-it is for the sake of your family and ours that we must say no.

As has been widely reported, the Hollywood studios have been hit particularly hard.  DVD sales are down 6% over the past year, and Disney and Sony have already cut hundreds of jobs in 2009. 

To be sure, some of this is a natural result of Hollywood’s insistence on churning out tedious, recycled narratives with the hopes that increased vulgarity and special effects will cover for their lack of creativity.  But aside from the obvious criticisms that I, as a conservative, might lodge against the movie industry — Hollywood is also plagued by a refusal to embrace the emerging demands of the marketplace. 

One emerging demand is the need for wholesome entertainment.  Quality films like “The Incredibles” and even the now-classic “Forrest Gump” consistently out-perform R-rated films, yet Hollywood continues to ignore consumer demands and produce more and more “Rotten Tomato” films. 

Unlike some of the collapsing industries in this country, new opportunities are being created for Hollywood all the time.  To capitalize on these opportunities, the movie industry must adjust to changing consumer demands.  Yet, they seem to never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity to satisfy consumers. 

In this regard, Hollywood is also missing the boat by resisting emerging consumer demands regarding technology and intellectual property rights. 

A prime example is a new software program called RealDVD, which allows consumers to take any DVD they own and save one copy to their computer or laptop hard-drive (imagine that, owning the DVD’s you own!). 

With a hard-drive library of DVDs, consumers wouldn’t have to worry about damaging or losing their original disks, nor do business travelers have to pack an extra bag of discs for long flights or vacation.  And the inevitable children’s DVD your kids watch over and over that gets scratched or misplaced?  A thing of the past: RealDVD gives consumers the freedom and flexibility to watch the movies they’ve already purchased anywhere, anytime – without hassle. (Of course, this is really nothing new.  Consumers are already allowed to make personal copies of cassette tapes, CD’s, and VHS tapes — just not DVD’s.) 

The Hollywood studios, however, see it differently.  Rather than working to better monetize and reinvigorate the struggling DVD sector, six studios filed a lawsuit to stop the public sale of RealDVD (the case is set to begin today).  These studios don’t think embracing RealDVD is in their interest, but they’re wrong. 

This technology benefits Hollywood studios in significant ways.  Primarily, RealDVD provides a tool to help the studios better deliver content to consumers and fight piracy – as it renders a copied DVD file non-transferable to other computers or users.  The majority of consumers who want this technology also don’t want to break the law, and the technology available provides them with the only legal way to save their own property to their computers and laptops.  Isn’t that outcome in-line with the major studios anti-piracy efforts? 

Secondarily, this technology helps Hollywood studios maintain the DVD revenue stream.  How?  In order to use the software, consumers must have the original DVD to copy. This new technology wouldn’t replace traditional DVDs – it optimizes them to fit with consumer preferences that aren’t legally being met today.  Additionally, this new technology would offer new ideas to consumers for other DVDs they may be interested in, based on the director, actor, or genre of the film they’re watching.  This kind of targeted marketing could lead to more DVD purchases and more revenue for studios.  For example, how many new songs have you purchased on iTunes because they were suggested for you?  My point exactly. 

Hollywood studios could – and should – embrace technologies that could bring new life to the home DVD market.  At the moment, we are just scraping the surface of how consumers can interact with the DVDs they’ve already purchased and what new consumer purchasing opportunities are available to the industry if there was a partnership.  Everyone wins if we can collaborate and innovate, but Hollywood’s lawsuit must be resolved before that can happen. 

Hollywood studios should examine the changes in consumer trends that taught the music industry a painful lesson earlier this decade.  Had the music industry embraced and developed new revenue streams while maintaining anti-piracy safeguards earlier in their fight, their business model might look a little better these days. 

In this economy, with changing consumer habits, inherent time constraints and financial pressures, the movie studios don’t have the luxury of delaying the inevitable. 

Hollywood should try to actually produce more quality films that people will want to pay $10 to go see.  They also ought to pay attention to the fact that consumer’s demand freedom and flexibility to do what they want – when they want – with the entertainment content they’ve already purchased.