This evening at CES 2007, Disney's CEO Bob Iger delivered a keynote jam-packed with multimedia glitz. But here's the line that got the spontaneous audience applause:
"The best way to combat piracy is to bring content to market on a well-timed, well-priced basis."
In fact, he didn't say a single word about DRM or other content restrictions. What a nice change from CES 2004, where Hewlett-Packard's Carly Fiorina went out of her way to kowtow to the entertainment industry's "piracy" fears. This year, most of Mr. Iger's keynote was about celebrating a certain pirate (Jack Sparrow), rather than demonizing fans.
Let's hope we'll be seeing more of that in 2007.