Massive Media is a technology company that aims to help manage and protect digital rights for such material as movies, TV programs and advertising that will be distributed over the Web. Film libraries, for example, are among Hollywood’s most valuable intellectual property. Massive Media wants to devise new and more lucrative digital uses for those libraries. This management-and-distribution business model makes Massive Media different from, say, a company trying to lure viewers into watching short, jerky films on tiny computer screens; the business model isn’t so much about inventing high tech as using old skills in a new medium.
Discovering fresh ways to make money off the millions of miles of film locked away in vaults is always of interest to the studios. In a more digital world, the opportunities to “repurpose” footage would run the gamut from distributing movies more cheaply to theaters and other media to giving old feature films renewed life online and selling advertising and merchandise against them. But just try convincing studios, which protect their libraries with a passion, that they should turn over their vital possessions to outsiders.
This is where Massive Media believes it can fit in. Its big idea is to make it safe and profitable for studios to digitize their old and new films for different uses. The company wants to turn idle reels of film into bits and bytes and, once those are on the Net, to track every time somebody touches the digital content. The Hollywood experience at the top ranks of Massive Media is supposed to put studio fears at ease–and make the company more appealing than its competitors. Biondi, Massive Media’s chairman, has a resume of chief-executive titles from stints at HBO, Viacom, Universal and Coca-Cola Television. He was eventually ousted from most of those jobs, and after his most recent departure–from Universal, where he was CEO–Biondi has settled into a niche as a venture capitalist and unofficial ambassador between the dot-com world and the studios.
Pairing with Biondi as CEO is a Hollywood name with a more colorful profile. Howard Weitzman gained prominence in the 1980s as a Los Angeles trial attorney, often standing beside big-name clients. His successful defense of automaker John De Lorean against cocaine, conspiracy and fraud charges made him the lawyer of choice for celebrities who needed serious help. Weitzman was among the first people O. J. Simpson called after the 1994 murders of the football star’s ex-wife Nicole Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman.
Weitzman made the jump to studio executive after helping MGM/UA repel a hostile takeover bid by Kirk Kerkorian. In 1995 Weitzman joined MCA as executive vice president of corporate operations under president Ron Meyer. That’s where he hooked up with Biondi.
The team of Massive Media founders also includes COO Greg Meidel, who was president of Universal Television Group, and president of media Michael Kassan, who ran the powerful media-buying firm Western Initiative Media. Massive Media’s primary financial backer is WaterView Partners, the Los Angeles venture-capital firm run in part by Biondi.
Yet even in Hollywood, where connections are everything and deals seldom happen without lunch, Massive Media’s insiders have yet to get any of their old pals to sign up. It seems that who you know may not be everything. Studio fear of online piracy is one major obstacle. Antagonized by the anti-copyright ethic that Napster has engendered, studios have opted for an Internet policy characterized by lawsuits first, discussions later. The entire notion of “digital-rights management,” as the new genre of services is called, is still in its infancy with no clear standard technology or strategy. Reps for several studios confirmed there were no coordinated efforts on their lots to get a digital-distribution strategy in place.
Yet there is already competition to sell services to studios and others interested in purveying content online. InterTrust, a Santa Clara, Calif., company that owns the encryption software at the core of the digital-rights services, is making headway with prospective clients, particularly the record labels. Last month BMG Entertainment said it would use InterTrust to secure its digital music downloads. InterTrust also signed a deal with Bluematter, the digital download site from Universal Music Group.
This could pose a threat to Massive Media’s plans, since the company’s package uses InterTrust technology to assure potential clients that their films and other intellectual property won’t be stolen once it’s available online. To offer more value, Massive Media says it will do more than license the software and will be an all-purpose digital-rights manager. “We’ve been on the other side of the desk,” says Meidel, who notes the company’s modest goals of getting six clients by next summer. “We understand the pressure to create new revenue streams.”
The plan has its skeptics. “If you asked me if I thought Massive Media Group could go in and dictate digital-rights management to the studios, I would say no,” says Doug McIntyre, CEO of broadband-network company On2.com. “I think the studios will [dictate the approach]. They have the money.” McIntyre’s firm supplies the broadband infrastructure on which multimedia files travel. On2.com recently picked InterTrust to be its digital-rights management software provider.
Other companies are now getting some of the digital-rights management action, small time as it may be. New York-based LockStream, run by former Warner Bros. executives, has signed several clients, includ- ing New Line Films (to distribute screenplays), kids company Harvey Entertainment and Artemis Records. IBM has its own digital-rights management offering for studios; its Electronic Media Management System has been tested with BMG, Warner Music, EMI, Polygram and Universal.
The question for Massive Media is whether talking the Hollywood talk will be enough of an advantage. Relationships still count for something, but ultimately it is trying to sell technology, and Massive Media’s ex-moguls are no techno-geeks. For example, Meidel admits he was “shocked” to find “X-Men” was available (though with Chinese subtitles) over the Net the weekend the film opened. (“The Matrix” and “American Pie” can also be found online.) Massive Media says its technology would help stop such piracy. These guys may know the lay of the land. “We have high-profile people with Rolodexes that can get us in to see the right people,” says Meidel. But the rest of their pitch may need some work.
