Juicy thoughts from noted VC Roger McNamee

Roger McNamee isn't only a well-regarded Silicon Valley venture capitalist, rock guitarist, and author, but he now runs a private equity firm, Elevation Partners, that invests in media and entertainment properties. (Bono of U2 is a partner in Elevation, as is former Apple Computer CFO Fred Anderson.)

McNamee has been thinking a lot about how people want to experience television and movies - versus how TV and film execs want to deliver the stuff.

Here are some great bullet points from one of his blog entries titled "Video on the Internet":

"- Television and movie executives appear to view the internet as a `delivery window' to be controlled in a manner similar to theatrical release, pay-per-view, and DVD.  This belief has much in common with the one that caused music industry executives to ignore peer-to-peer file sharing until it was too late.

"- Consumers are enjoying video over the internet today - mostly small-format video (e.g., music, news, humor) and animation (e.g., JibJab) - and they are developing viewing habits that potentially threaten the hegemony that Hollywood has long enjoyed relative to video content.

"- I am convinced that the television and movie industries will exert far less control over the internet than they would like, and believe that their interests are best served by actively enabling their vision right now, rather than sitting back and waiting for a silver bullet of digital rights management."