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Hollywood afraid of Microsoft
prostoalex writes "Associated Press claims that media industry has been quietly avoiding Microsoft and trying to keep the movie and music industries to their own. However, these days there's little chance of doing business without Microsoft and the movie studios are afraid of digital piracy more than they're afraid of Microsoft. The biggest fear? Microsoft will use its desktop PC monopoly to charge Hollywood outrageous fees and basically own the movie industry. Microsoft refutes the accusations, saying that it's only interested in selling more copies of Windows and applications for its platform, and providing movie content would promote the platform. Also noteworthy that among the four video-on-demand services that New York Times reviewed recently two that got the journalistic acclaim (StarzTicket and CinemaNow) are run by technology companies - Real Networks and Microsoft."
> The biggest fear? Microsoft will use its desktop PC monopoly to charge Hollywood outrageous fees and basically own the movie industry. Microsoft refutes the accusations, saying that it's only interested in selling more copies of Windows and applications for its platform, and providing movie content would promote the platform.
This is FUD. Microsoft can't own the movie industry because the movie industry doesn't even own the movie industry. The customers own the movie industry and if Hollywood continues putting out crap films, studio execs will only have themselves to blame for the fall of Hollywood. Obviously Microsoft doesn't want that to happen. They want to keep doing business with Hollywood and Microsoft is afraid of Open Source, so Billy's army of one will only have to start competing with Open Source in a way that is fair and honest (not "Best Practice", True Practice), or Microsoft too will only have themselves to blame when the palace of cards comes tumbling down.
I see some parallelism here between Hollywood and Microsoft. Both are too big for their own good and it's about time they realize it and start acting like they have something to lose if they don't change their tactics.
I just saw a Canadian movie today called Shot in the Face (2001). Yes the fans at IMDB give it an under-rated 5.6/10, but to me the film had a unique plot, interesting characters and it was fun -- it was just low budget, but it still brought a smile to my face. Obviously not A-list by any stretch of the imagination. My point is that large organizations take something unique out of films, and they also take something unique out of software and operating systems. Polish sometimes ruins things, and both these industries have ruined their products by either having too much polish in all the wrong places, or by have not enough polish in the places that matter.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
I love it when the monopolies... err I mean, monopoly and oligopoly fight.
With MPAA on one side and Microsoft on the other, I just don't know who to cheer for.
The suits who run the studios are so disconnected* from the techies in the render farms that such issues never enter their brains.** And to big-corp-think, of course, free software -- free anything -- is an abomination and unclean anyway. Understanding this, IMO, is key to understanding everything from the [MP|RI]AA's reaction to piracy, to Microsoft's reaction to Linux. In their perfect world, you pay for everything; more specifically, you pay them for everything. The idea that anyone might be able to get useful stuff for free wakes them up in screaming nightmares. This is not rational cost-benefit analysis. This is a clash of worldviews as fundamental as Galileo's with the Church.
--
* I'm not claiming any special insider knowledge of how Hollywood studios work. This is my guess based on my experience of how big corporations work in general.
** If they have brains. Or hearts. Or courage. All of which are highly debatable.
If you replaced the word 'afraid' with 'jealous.'
And the movie industry is the nicest bunch of people you'd ever want to meet. No vendetta's, no black listing, everyone operates above the board. Every movie star is the perfect role model for our children.
If they get mixed up with the likes of Bill Gates, I just don't know what this will do to our shining example of what Americans are really like?
Hollywood is generally the greediest of them all. After all, if they had their way:
So I guess they really have two outputs: Movies and FUD.
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7 / KB1JQO)
// IEEE 802.3: All 10base Are Belong To Us
Microsoft has shown time and time again that it's primary objective is making money in the long term. It'll do that through whatever opportunities present themselves. Now, the players in the movie industry aren't stupid. They've seen how MS has locked others into their proprietary formats and they don't want their revenue streams subverted similarly.
As for MS's "noble" intentions...pure bullshit. Where did MSNBC come from if MS wasn't interested in encroaching on Hollywood?
Well, the BBC has rightly identified this risk, and is politely telling MS, and the other "controlled" DRM pay-per-hour-encoding people where to shove their technology.
DIRAC, the BBC-technology project to bring a new, royalty and patent free open source codec into life, has got to be worth looking into.
Surely someone with an ounce of intelligence in Hollywood could put 2+2 together and make 4. ie, Hollywood has money. DIRAC looks good, and could do with industry support and resources...
As our American cousins would say, "you do the math".
With MPAA on one side and Microsoft on the other, I just don't know who to cheer.
Mutual annihilation (nuclear weapons optional)?
If the Media Cartels and Hollywood mutually destroyed one another, we'd not only see the renaissance in software we've seen in the free software world accelerate even faster, we'd see a renaissance in cultural expression as well.
Unfortunately the two are very likely to work out a sweetheart deal that destroys both and leaves us with nothing but a cultural wasteland in both arenas.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Henry Kissinger's comment on the Iran/Iraq war in the 80's: "Too bad they can't both lose."
Because in its long history, PGP has been hacked HOW many times?
:-)
That's because the problem PGP solves is... well... solvable. DRM is the art of giving information to someone without giving it to them. Not just impossible, plain stupid. Now I'm as much a FOSS fan as the next (/.) guy, but I don't think it can do the impossible.
"Hi... it looks like you're trying to pulverize me!"
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."