Slashdot Mirror
Tech Industry Versus Content Industry
gambit3 writes "Business 2.0's Cover Story this month asks whether Andy Grove is a Pirate. Interesting read on the mainstream media about the battle between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Read about in Business 2.0"
It would be awfully tempting for a low-paid movie theatre projectionist to accept a few bucks from some quick-thinking pirate, and sneak a high-quality digital video camera into the projection booth for some quick-n-dirty pirated videos of first-run movies!
How long before DMCA-types start mandating surveillance of projection booths in all theaters, and a national licensing/registration system for projectionsts? Laugh now if you will, but check back in 6 months...
The article mentions two things about copyright a lot of people seem unaware of. Firstly that the actual INTENT of copyright is to get more content into the public domain. It exists only as an incentive for creative works. Secondly it notes that copyright expirations have been extended retroactively faster than things can expire!
In my opinion, we should go back to 2-5 year copyrights depending on the material.
~Blake
"Piracy is the killer app."
This is interesting; the other two killer apps, pr0n and games, were NOT so terrified about piracy - or they didn't have so much power.
Come to think of, we're talking about the *entertainment* industry here. Stop reading for a second and think "entertainment"... ok, now how does this fit with all the big words/phrases like "intellectual property", "innovation", "loses of billions of dollars"...? If Disney goes bankrupt tomorrow, how will the life of the average American change? Will millions of people starve, or freeze to death? Extend to African, Asian etc.
I think all this has gone way out of proportions.
if you use a good enough junk-filter, slashdot.org will display a single, *blank*, page
My favorite part:
And it won't have to be pirate-proof. Copyright, after all, has always been a leaky vessel. Publishers have managed to tolerate the sharing, swapping, reselling, and lending of books. The software industry figures it loses $12 billion a year to piracy, but it hasn't called for anything like the sweeping controls Hollywood seeks. The recording industry, on the other hand, tried to develop an elaborate technological security regime; it proved unenforceable. "We lost two years," says Eric Alben, chief lobbyist for RealNetworks, which supplies streaming software to the recording industry. "And in the interim, pirated music proliferated." When the major record labels finally launched their own online services, MusicNet and Pressplay, they imposed so many restrictions that few customers have signed up.
I agree with the media industry in some areas: Yes, I believe in purchasing the CDs that I listen to (although I promptly rip them and then never use the CDs again). Yes, even the middle-man between the artist and the consumer deserves to make a buck or two. But just because some people are stealing doesn't mean they have the right to invade everyone's life. Every other industry seems to be able to come up with adequate (not perfect, but good enough) methods of reducing the impact of theft. But the recording industry goes crying to Congress when they start seeing a bit of piracy.
There are changes coming, and I really hope the recording industry figures out a good way to take advantage of it without screwing up everyone else.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
This part of the article I found rather interesting, as far as the possible potential of using the new wording in the 95 year copyright act. This could really cost Disney a lot of money if we could find the right people (descendants of the original authors) to sue them.
What am I talking about? Notice the words I bolded in the bottom section - "and applied retroactively". If this 95 year extension is applied retroactively, then aren't quite a few Disney movies now based on works that had fallen into the public domain, but now possibly (due to the retroactive wording) would be considered to now actually be under retroactive copyright at the time they were 'pirated' by Disney? Thus making Disney's claims to things like The Jungle Book, Pinocchio and others, completely void, as they were stolen from people who are now protected by this retroactive copyright? How far back does this retroactive thing go?
"Since 1960 the term of copyright -- originally 28 years -- has been extended 11 times, most recently from 75 to 95 years, and applied retroactively. It is ironic -- and deeply pertinent -- that when motion pictures themselves were fairly new, Hollywood dipped liberally into the public treasury it has since done so much to reduce. Many of Disney's classic children's movies were based on stories, like Pinocchio , on which any copyright claims had lapsed. Had the current law been in effect in 1939, David O. Selznick would have required permission from Emily Bronte's heirs to make his film of Wuthering Heights, a book written in 1847."
Not so long ago, I would have agreed with you. However, having been in the computer industry for over 20 years -- primarily computer games -- has taught me there's still a huge gap between what one guy can bash out in his garage, and "studio quality" stuff.
Put simply, creating a computer game these days is unbelievably expensive. The sheer amount of work required to build maps, draw textures, create FMV cutscenes, score and record music, and write the software occupies the full time of a couple dozen people for upwards of two years. Occasionally you get a Tetris out of nowhere, but that's sadly very rare.
By extension, creating a "studio-quality" movie will continue to require a lot of production staff and infrastructure. So Hollywood does not yet need to worry about the next Spielberg creating a blockbuster in his garage (and if one does, they can simply buy him/her out).
One thing the Internet might do is break the current logjam of banality and lack of imagination shown by most screenplays these days. But until every home has 3Mb/sec, effective distribution will remain in the hands of big players.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
I think you almost have it.
What is the "job" of the executives of these content companies? To keep the stock price up.
How do they keep their stock price up? Keep the company growing at a decent clip.
How can you keep the company growing if your business model is solely based on producing and distributing other people's content? Make sure that creators of content have no other options for production and distribution.
I don't think that Hollywood studios are afraid that garage directors will put them out of business. I do think they're afraid that the next Great American Director will be able to edit the next Great American film on his Powerbook, stream it himself on the Internet, and not have to use their distribution system to get known. There will be many other content creators that do use the studios. But their oligopoly will be broken, and their will be more competition. At least, you won't be able to see the next Great American Movie in theaters, and more people will associate the Internet with movies.
This won't put Hollyood out of business. But it will erode their control over the content distribution of the process, which will lead to reduced profits and no growth. Which, from the Executives' perspective, is just as bad.
Look, the content industry is doing some disasterous things to copyright, granted, but it really isn't something that should be front and center right now. In case you forget, we're fighting a war in Afghanistan because we believe that the coordinators of some Kamikaze attacks on us happened there.
It's precisely because of that fact that we should be paying attention to this kind of stuff... it's my opinion that our government is now *deep* into the "opportunism" phase of post September 11, where our government can get all sorts of crap laws they wanted to get passed anyway, all in the name of "fighting terrorists". From oil drilling in "ANWAR" to funding Columbian shadow governments to new provisions in attorney/client privileges, it's all shady fucking bullshit and I'm kinda ashamed to be an American right now.
~jeff
But as George Lucas proved, it only takes one serious money-making product, a good contract that gives you a major cut of the intake (note I didn't say "profits") so you've got your nest egg, and the desire to start your own production house, and suddenly you're out from under the existing big studio system (read: MPAA).
What happens when it becomes *easier* for small producers to make this transition?? The MPAA "loses" -- those revenue streams are now out of their control. Most folk here are probably too young to remember, but there were major screams from Hollywood when Lucas decided he didn't need them anymore. (Of course by now he's become one of them, but that's beside the point.)
There ARE small filmmakers out there who have the potential to accomplish this, but if they're technologically prevented from doing so (such as by draconian DRM requirements), they're locked into the MPAA Way, which of course is exactly the MPAA's desired result. "Either you play with our ball on our field by our rules, or you don't play at all."
It's an exact parallel with the music artists who are eschewing RIAA methods in favour of doing their own small distributions. As technology advances, this becomes more and more practical. Nowadays a garage band can afford to produce a master and press a few hundred CDs, and they'll make more money selling those CDs at live shows or over the net than they'd ever make in a lifetime of RIAA bondage. Twenty years ago, this would have been impossible, simply due to the high cost of the required professional production equipment.
It's no different in the film industry, it's just a matter of the scale involved (it takes more people, and more different types of expertise, to make an original film, as compared to making an original music CD).
BTW, the **AA and its minions should perhaps read http://www.baen.com/library/palaver6.htm, which has some hard figures regarding how free downloads significantly *enhanced* sales.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I love the way the article doesn't quite come right out and say that these laws won't do a damn thing...
"""
... A Beautiful Mind, Black Hawk Down, and The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring were just a few of the current commercial films available for free download.
Where do the pirates get recent mainstream releases? Some may have been ripped from DVDs... Others are made from master prints... [or] aiming a digital camcorder at a cinema screen
"""
Except that none of those films are out on DVD. So they all had to be ripped from a source external to the computer. (Like a camcorder.)
Of course, the ironic thing about Eisner being annoyed with digital copying is Neal Stephenson's "In The Beginning Was The Command Line" which states quite simply that if Disney understood exactly what an OS was used for, they'd instantly produce one that would obliterate Microsoft in the consumer market...
Right up there with "Capitalism's worst enemies are successful capitalists."
Dyolf Knip
Not that I agree with the ability of content holders to increase prices unchecked, but I still don't think it's inherrently wrong for them to seek to prevent theft of their content by technological means. To continue the vending machine analogy, if vending machine companies found it more cost effective to reinforce the glass and to strengthen the locks and hinges of the machine, to prevent people from stealing their six-dollar candy bars, would they be doing something wrong? Not at all! They are rightful to charge whatever they wish for their product and the market should adjust accordingly. In this manner, a vending machine relies on the honour system. The seller asks that you will kindly not break open his machine and steal the candy. Granted, part of the opportunity cost of stealing a candy bar is incurring the risk of punishment; if people are willing to face charges for doing so, they are also, economically speaking, within their rights. However, if the seller finds it economically feasible to protect his product from theft by reinforcing the vending machine, he may be wise to sell it at $6 per bar. After all, the seller's profit is maximized at the point where his willingness to produce at a certain price matches the market's willingness to purchase at a certain price. We can debate all day whether it is right for the company to sell at this price, but speaking from the standpoint of business ethics, so long as it is legal, a business must, ethically, seek the greatest possible benefit for its shareholders.
Virtue finds and chooses the mean.
Aristotle, Ethica Nichomachea