Hollywood’s home movie sales and rentals business is shrinking. Spencer Wang says he has a solution: Make it easier for people to watch movies at home, without paying a penny.
Wang, a longtime Wall Street analyst, has just launched Wavelength, a service that lets people share movies they own with their friends, over the Web, for free.
This is one of those ideas that tech folks love, because it takes a behavior that’s no big deal in the physical world — Want to borrow my “Star Wars” DVD? Come on over! — and extends it into the digital world.*
So far Wang, the former lead media and Internet analyst for Credit Suisse, hasn’t been able to get Hollywood to sign on to his boot-strapped company. But for now, he seems to be able to work without their blessing, since he’s playing by rules Hollywood created.