CDs are dying, but the music industry is growing. Newspapers are dying, but journalism is thriving. DVD sales are dropping, but movie attendance is rising. Yet for all this, article after article says the music, news, and movie industry is dead or dying.

These industries are only dying if you classify them in ultra-specific and limiting businesses. CDs drop, but the music industry is selling more concert tickets and merchandise. The U.K. music industry’s own study (pdf) shows the music business overall has increased even though sales of record music has plummeted.  Even as newspapers suffer, hundreds of new journalism organizations are popping up producing original news, commentary, and fact-checking, all for a fraction of the cost, manpower, and time it takes traditional newspapers. And does everyone forget television news continues to grow in audience and revenue (well, at least cable news). And movies, well, attendance is up even in a down economy.

Technology and societal changes often causes radical shifts in how businesses do business. The death of selling plastic discs and packets of paper is, yes, dying, and for the time, these were the most effective ways to make money. With better computers and distribution channels, it is incredibly cheaper to make and distribute movies, music, and news articles.  This means more money to do other things. Or better, cheaper costs to consumers leading to a larger market – and then more fans to sell more stuff to.

The movie and music industries particularly have enjoyed monopoly pricing on their products, and without competition, fans paid the high prices. But competition from technology, even when used illegally, is forcing prices down. Originally, plastic discs were a scarce good the content industry could control, but the digital files on the discs are infinite goods now available free online no matter what.

Let’s remember, selling plastic discs (or records) for music is really only about 60-70 years old. Movies only entered home collections in the 1980s (and followed a significant legal battle where the movie industry claimed home video would destroy them). These industries made tons of money before and they can make even more money now by evolving their business models – recognizing they are in the music or movie or news industry, not just in the sell-discs-and-paper industry.

Doomsayers are already writing the obituaries of Blu-Ray as expensive players and discs prevent widespread adoption of the new high-def format.  But through BD-Live and the massive size of the discs, Blu-Ray can offer unique experiences that make the discs worth paying for.

Hurting Blu-Ray are the proliferation of upscaling DVD players and high-definition download services, all of which are cheaper and good-enough alternatives.  Further, online piracy with free movies of DVD quality are always compelling.  So how does Blu-Ray carve a market niche?  The movie file itself is an infinite good, able to reproduced an infinite amount of times with negligible costs.  Blu-Ray quality movies, taking up 25-50 GBs of memory, are more taxing than a 1 GB movie even on my 1 terabyte hard drive.

Registered purchases of the Hellboy II Blu-Ray disc had the chance to join a live chat with director Guillermo Del Toro. Though I didn’t participate, the exiting potential to talk to directors and movie staff is a valuable scarce good (access to these celebrities).  Future discs might take this even farther with live commentary and discussions of the movie (it’s the magic of picture-in-picture).

The Dark Knight Blu-Ray included further technological innovations, changing the aspect ratio on the fly to better reflect the IMAX format the movie was filmed in. At this point, no pirated movie format can offer this feature, and while it’s limited in its appeal, it’s a start of turning Blu-Ray in a unique experience above just “it looks really good.”

These are the kind of features that can convince some to buy plastic discs (rather than, say, sue them into doing it).  These features reward fans for their loyalty and for spending their money.  Blu-Ray’s interactive potential is still in its infancy – most early discs don’t have any online functionality – and some companies might be waiting for more people to buy players before investing.  But that’s short-sighted thinking.  DVDs still look pretty good even on high-def TVs.  It’s unlikely Blu-Ray will ever be a complete replacement for DVR, sharing the limelight with download services.  Only by embracing the format for its strengths and exploiting those can you convince the market to embrace the format themselves.  Unique, scarce features are the way to convince people to give you their money.

Movie companies seem to think if they make it, we will come. Unfortunately, they’re making too many movies with too few ways to see them.  The Wall Street Journal writes how movie companies are flooding theaters with more new releases than audiences can handle. Almost every weekend this summer from April through July features a major blockbuster, leaving many with disappointing and embarrassing box office returns.

The Wall Street Journal ignores, however, the potential movie companies are squandering.  There are more avenues to release content and make money than ever before, but movie companies are focused on obsolete business models built around weekend box offices and distance DVD releases.  Not every movie has to be released in movie theaters. There’s online downloads, streaming services, direct-to-DVD, etc. giving any movie maker a huge audience to market to.

Digital distribution allows for more content to reach more people. You’re not taking up limited number of theaters or shelf space in a DVD store, so more content can be offered.  Unfortunately, Hollywood remains focused on a box office mentality, meaning it would rather lose money a $60 million George Clooney film rather than use technology to make more money.

My dad can’t understand why someone wants to buy a movie, let alone watch it a second time with someone talking through the whole thing. DVDs gave us both exciting features, and more, in feature packed packages meant for repeat viewing and collectibility. DVDs supplanted VHS as the choice for home viewers, offering special features from commentaries by the cast and crew to making of features, interactive games, and for a bonus, ads for other movies. These exciting plastic discs still dominate movie viewers who haven’t discovered BitTorrent yet.