Random Flux

Maybe it’s time to treat digital media formats in the same way as radio spectrum bandwidth: We don’t have any problem with regulating the radio spectrum because it’s clearly a limited resource that everybody needs to use. Leaving it completely open would obviously make the spectrum useless.

The same applies to digital formats, it’s just not as immediately obvious. For example, a situation in which four or five different high-definition DVD formats coexist would effectively be as chaotic and useless as an unregulated radio spectrum.

The usability of the resource “DVD format” becomes seriously degraded by the existence of multiple proprietary versions. You could also argue the same for other formats, both for digital media and for documents.

Wouldn’t it make sense to have digital formats regulated in the same way as the radio spectrum? In the case of formats this would mean that a) No company would be allowed to “own” a format, it would be in the public domain just as the radio spectrum is in the public domain and b) There would have to be general agreement on the formats that can be used.

Ultimately, everybody would win: The formats would be clearly defined so all devices would have to play them. Users would no longer get an expensive format runaround and they could actually make purchases with confidence. And the manufacturers could focus on producing and marketing products instead of fighting with each other, and they would sell more products because the users would be able to buy with confidence, see above.

Would this result in “inferior” formats? Hardly — at least, the situation could hardly be worse than it is today, could it?