I think format wars will soon be replaced by the “preference war” — subscriptions vs. purchases. I’m not sure if 2010 will the year this starts to really coalesce, but it will *absolutely* come to a head in the next three years.

Here’s what this will do: It may drive sales of DVDs a bit short term. But soon, online movie piracy will pick up to new heights. If the movie studios have nightmares about piracy now, their reality will be truly terrifying with this plan in place. There are two major factors that stop movie piracy from being as bad as music piracy was a few years ago: Broadband speeds and convenience. Let’s speak to the latter one first: With services like Netflix, Redbox, iTunes, and the like all offering fairly easy ways to get movies you want, when you want them, it’s less of a headache for most people to use them rather than digging around online to get them for free. But with this new 30-day window in place, the masses would be driven online to search for more illegal content — and more importantly, it would begin to fuel a piracy ecosystem for Hollywood content. There would be more people downloading, but also more people sharing. That’s the key.

DVD players and discs are on a natural downward trajectory, but instead of innovating with digital-only delivery and subscription/advertising models, entrenched companies are resorting to lawsuits to “save” their on-the-wane products. Does this ever work?