It may be a little post-modern to blog about a blog, but you may be interested in Alex Gollner’s recent post over at Editing Organised.

He’s teased apart a little innocuous patent approval from Apple, and from there comes a dizzying view of a potential future of media funding opportunities.

To be honest, my first reaction to the announcement was ‘oh great, Apple are trying to patent something that already exists’ and thought little of it, other than perhaps buying shares in IP law firms. Then when I read Alex’s post, I noticed the ‘Access denied’ route. If you don’t want to watch the ad, you can’t watch the video. You pay for the video by watching the ad. Hence it’s just another form of DRM.

And that’s where it gets interesting. You can pay to not watch ads in your media. Hmmm. That could get very expensive very quickly. As in making the UK BBC License Fee seem quite reasonable. Tot up the BBC, a standard satellite or cable subscription, add your mobile, roaming charges, internet dues, a few online subscriptions, maybe even the occasional tip jar payment, and this is before one starts paying $2 per episode of whatever. I’d like a bit of free, quite frankly.

But that little rant misses the interesting tie-ins between companies with cash and content creators that are possible in this system.

It’s an interesting read.