Where is my content? For decades content became available on many mediums. The phonograph, record, the reel-to-reel, 8-track, cassette, mini disc, DAT, mp3, radio, TV, etc. The list is long and seemingly without end. Some mediums have come at the blessing of the recording industries (vinyl) and some with them fighting tooth and nail (hello mp3). But inevitably digital content took over and now there is a relatively new breed of content becoming more desired; Streaming.

Now some audio and video purists cry foul at the thought of “renting” content. The thought of not owning content drives a good amount of people a bit insane. But then again content owners have taken a nearly identical position as these purists by continuously offering old content on new mediums. Just how many times can you buy the White Album? From the industry’s perspective a whole damn lot. I personally have owned Thriller on vinyl, cassette, Mini Disc, CD, and mp3. That right there is probably $75+ I have spent on one album. For some this is the only way to live with content and the industry has been pretty content with that.

Some people have taken the playback of content to the next step and converting it to play in digital hubs. Things like Apple TV/iTunes, XBMC, Plex, Boxee, and others have allowed content owners the ability to play on many different devices (TV, PC, Mac, iPod, iPad, iPhone, Droid, etc). This is great but the content owners have been very much against this. So much so that content owners have used tatcics and laws like the DMCA to thwart people making legitimate copies of content they have purchased. Hell it is still not legal to playback DVDs or BlyRay’s on Linux because of copyright and DMCA claims. While not wildly prosecuted, it is a legal conundrum for people that want to legally playback content.

The tides are slowly changing. Built upon the successes of Netflix, Hulu, Spotify, and others, people who would have never considered non-ownership of content are starting to blur those lines. Apple has invested heavily in cloud services and while not technically a streaming service it does offer people to put music up in the cloud and give the ability to pull down from multiple sources. This would have been unheard of just a year or two ago, but the again the tides indeed are changing.

The next step seems to be one of two paradigm changes. Either offering a person a lifetime license to playback content as they see fit, giving them multiple “bites at the apple” from different content providers, but given the ability of playback and interchangeability and re-encoding as the user sees fit. The other is for streaming of a seamless unlimited library of content for a monthly fee. Both could work in tandem, but this would thwart a bit of legal activity while gaining new revenue sources.

The pitfall is there has to be content. And I mean content like no one has offered at this point. Amazon, Netflix, iTunes, Spotify; while all have impressive catalogs, they still only offer small sliver of the pie of the content that has been available. No we need a massive, a truly massive catalog of content. I envision being able to pay a tier of service for levels of content. $10/mo? Give me access to ALL music. $25/mo? Give me access to ALL music AND movies. Simple.

While I have been an advocate of ownership for decades, I see the value of streamed content on both ends of the spectrum. For the consumer, an endless library of content, for the content owner a massive new revenue stream. The question becomes when does this happen.

So for the members of the RIAA and MPAA, while it has taken you ages to start to embrace digital content, please think outside the box and give consumers something that will be irresistible. Either streaming content from endless catalogs and/or the ability to have a license to truly own the content they purchase. Either scenario is a win for all.