It's amusing to watch various media companies horsetrading the rights to stream a particular show or movie on a given month, worrying about getting one week ahead or one month behind or whatever.

Meanwhile, millions of consumers look at the confusing availability of media and unpredictable technical quality of streaming, shrug their shoulders, and just download high-quality versions of whatever they want to watch at their leisure, thanks to torrents.

iTunes succeeds with a pay model in a world of piracy because it delivers predictable quality, widespread availability, and downloadable content instead of streaming.

That's how they beat the subscription music services, how they beat piracy, and what the movie studios need to learn from.