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Sony Pictures CEO Thinks the Net Wasn't Worth It
rossturk writes "Michael Lynton, CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, said, 'I'm a guy who doesn't see anything good having come from the Internet, period.' Why? Because people 'feel entitled' to have what they want when they want it, and if they can't get it for free, 'they'll steal it.' It's become customary to expect a somewhat limited perspective on things from old-world entertainment companies, but his inability to acknowledge that the Internet has changed everything makes me think he's a very confused man. Is this when we all give up hope that companies like Sony Pictures can adapt? Will we look back on this as one of the defining moments when the industrialized entertainment industry lost touch for good?"
'I'm a guy who doesn't see anything good having come from the Internet, period.'
Well then I trust you personally don't use it at all.
It's become customary to expect a somewhat limited perspective on things from old-world entertainment companies.
Relax, he's just one voice of a thousand at Sony.
Is this when we all give up hope that companies like Sony Pictures can adapt?
Frankly, I've got enough problems of my own to be concerned with their problems. It is and has been for quite sometime an adapt-or-die scenario for these guys. If they haven't figured it out, you won't see me shaking my fist up at the sky screaming "WHY!? Why couldn't you take me instead of Sony Pictures!?"
This guy should talk to his own people more often--Sony's CEO and chairman Howard Stringer said in a recent interview:
Customers will refuse to accept it unless the technology is open. Youth in particular really dislikes closed technologies, closed systems and the like. I think the failure of AOL LLC of the US is good evidence of this. When the Internet was just beginning to spread, AOL boosted its subscriber base by providing special services only to its customers. After a while, though, customers began rebelling, complaining that they weren't children. Because AOL wanted to keep them locked up in a narrow portion of the immense Internet cosmos, open technology was created. Sony hasn't taken open technology very seriously in the past. Its CONNECT music download service was a failure. It was based on OpenMG, a proprietary digital rights management (DRM) technology. At the time, we thought we would make more money that way than with open technology, because we could manage the customers and their downloads. This approach, however, created a problem: customers couldn't download music from any Websites except those that contracted with Sony. If we had gone with open technology from the start, I think we probably would have beaten Apple Inc of the US.
Instead of that kind of level headed talk we get to hear from Mr. All-My-Customers-Are-Criminals.
Ride that ship to the bottom of the sea, Michael Lynton.
My work here is dung.
This, presumably, from a free market wonk who thinks the law of supply and demand are best for everyone. Go ahead and meet the demands of your consumers, damn it!
I know how he feels about entitlements, really.
Some people have unbelievable ideas about what they're entitled to. When I find an artist who actually believes he's deserves to be paid until death + 70 years, then I get that same feeling, like nothing worthwhile ever came out of that artist. At least nothing without a rancid aftertaste.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
I find it quite ironic that this was said by a CEO in Sony, a company that came to its riches and fortunes by facilitating copying. Sonitape was the sneakernet of the 50s.
Criminalize Customer: Their really does seem to have been a massive switch to this. The customer should really be the boss the only one a company should have to please. But it appears more and more like the big companies view customers as the enemy to be accused, lied to, and forced to pay them.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
As we all know, nothing may ever legally be distributed for free on the Internet, or in fact, anywhere. If it's not distributed by a record label, film company, or major software company, it is inherently pirated and of no value to any person and should be destroyed immediately for all our own good. Only by buying good, wholesome entertainment and software products will we be preserving the jobs which every industry worker deserves by divine right of kings. Or something.
And tomorrow the stock exchange will be the human race
Obviously the idea that nothing good has come from the internet is total nonsense. But I have a hard time disagreeing with this:
because that's exactly the attitude I hear. Maybe that's just the way things are going to be from now on, but it does bother me that so many people consider not getting a product to be an unacceptable response to terms they don't like. I guess *I* must be getting old...
Visit the
It's really about entertainment in digital form. Record companies and movie studios have made tremendous profits from the transition from analog to digital.
In particular, music companies were able to sell CDs that cost less to manufacture than vinyl disks and charge significantly more for them. They were also able to release CDs of older music that otherwise would not be repurchased.
In recent years they've suffered from the other consequences of digital media (e.g. the ease of copying). Yet on balance, digitization has been a net positive for their bottom line.
Criminals... like hiding rootkits on CDs with no notice kind of criminals? I guess All-My-Corporations-Are-Criminals too.
"I work in an industry where the way we make money is to rigidly and tightly control the flow of information. You didn't get to see the movie unless you paid for it. You didn't get to listen to the music unless you paid for it. Sure, people could dub VHS tapes or buy a bootleg or record things on cassettes, and we fought these things, but they were the exceptions. Now, thanks to the Internet and the free flow of information we don't make as much money as we used to because now it's easy to share information. Rather than adapt or maybe realize that our earnings are going to go down, I'm just going to wish the Internet didn't happen so I can go back to the glory days. Or maybe I'll send off for that time machine I see advertised in that magazine."
Schnapple
' Why? Because people 'feel entitled' to have what they want when they want it, and if they can't get it for free, 'they'll steal it.'
I do think there's an entitlement problem. I just think it's the other way around. You have these old dinosaurs of the industry who've been the gate keepers of media production for so long, they don't know how to react to a little competition. Think about it; some guys are probably out there running a torrent site at a loss, while using ad revenue to stay afloat. Meanwhile, these guys are sitting on the actual copies to the media don't even bother because 1) it will compete with their existing revenue model and 2) it's probably harder to justify 20-30$ to resell movie when your marginal costs are ~0$. Thing is, these guys will either have to take control of the distribution and make a profit of it, or someone else will.
Instead of that kind of level headed talk we get to hear from Mr. All-My-Customers-Are-Criminals.
Ride that ship to the bottom of the sea, Michael Lynton.
Media distribution is essentially an oligopoly/cartel and 'shrinkage' used to be small and manageable.
It used to be that theft = theft. Now theft = infringement.
He's really just unhappy that the old distribution model is fucked because:
1. the internet lowers the threshold for infringement and
2. their distribution model (even with all the internet stuff they do) only partially meets consumer demands
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
"I'm a guy who doesn't see anything good having come from the Internet, period." Huh? Well you have failed your shareholders miserable Mr. SONY CEO. Most of the economy is based on businesses doing business using The Internet. I think it's time for the Mr. Sony to sack Mr. CEO for total failure and having such a profound view of what good business really is. No wonder the recording industry is left behind in the net economy. *sigh*.
In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep.
"Oooh, I don't understand how this newfangled Internets works, so let's just say it's eeeeeevil!"
When will they stop these dinosaurs from running the industry?
HAND.
Everybody else like big banks & car companies?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
It's like the five stages of grief:
1. Denial -- New formats! They will protect everything!
2. Anger -- RIAA! Arrest all the students!
3. Bargaining -- Hulu? Please?
4. Depression -- You are here.
5. Acceptance.
Me thinks he's at stage 4, right now.
BUT just because his entire business is evaporating out from under him because everyone wants his products yet does not want to pay for them doesn't necessarily make him "out of touch."
It's challenging. And at the end of the day someone has to foot the bill. Or, the products need to go away. Unlike an album, movies cost millions and millions to make. As such, the costs just don't lend themselves to being covered with "internet" strategies like micro-payments and such. It's a crazy state of affairs.
And don't get me wrong: I hate all of this RIAA shit too. It's kinda like the stages of grieving.
Actually, I think he's saying that it's the companies that are saying "theft = infringement." Even if he isn't, I'm saying it now. You'll notice pretty much none of the *AA cases are focusing on "they stole" but "they're breaking copyright, thus infringing on our property." (or at least that's how they're presented in the media, which is as good as presenting the case that way, in the public's mind) Piracy's still theft. It's not "copyright infringement." Copyright was supposed to be about preventing others from using your work to their financial gain, thus reducing your profit. That's why derivative and fair use are in there as acceptable. Most pirates aren't out there selling the copies, they're acting more like a library, making the materials available for others to take. If you wanna liken it to criminal activity, it'd be someone shoplifting a DVD and then passing it around to all their friends to have a look. Most pirates are just simply missing the personal gain factor that would make it a true copyright infringement case.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
He's mostly right, except for the bit about free.
Honestly, I'd pay somewhere between $1.00 and $2.50 for a movie, if it were HQ-5.1 and instant play, like youtube.
Because it's more convenient to download a movie, and play it on my media player than aquire and load a DVD, so I choose that medium.
The movie producers leave me little option than to download illegally.
Yes, I've seen the stores, their selection sucks.
Here is a technology that absolutely redistributed wealth away from the lazy. Persons that can innovate today love it. People who are living off innovations two and three generations old will hate it. The hard working want to let it progress to revitalize the world. The entitled want to regulate it and make it benefit only those selected by the elite.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Here's a short list of things he doesn't think are important:
Yeah, I guess he's right. The internet is useless.
-- Will program for bandwidth
He's Right that:
I do feel entitled to download everything I've already paid for. I will not pay for the e-version of a book I own or that is out of print. I will not pay again for a record/tape/CD I already own. And I will not pay full hardcover price for an ebook, full price for a CD with only one or two desired songs, nor hesitate to view/obtain a movie for free to avoid escalating cinema costs.
He's Wrong about the Internet:
The Internet galvanized the public, academia, and industry into pushing the bounds of technology. It has precipitated a technological growth from which the entertainment industry has benefited handsomely. Production quality has increased while its costs have decreased. Dissemination of entertainment has, thanks to the internet (and peripheral technologies), been able to greatly expand markets, enhance product marketing, tune the delivery of content, and all for a lower cost. And I still buy DVD's and CD's and go to cinemas when I think they are worth the price.
He Doesn't get that:
The audience aren't inherently criminals, they simply want a fair price for a product. And until the entertainment industry accepts that, then the audience will seek fairness by any means possible.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
He can go fuck himself.
I mean, really. Does the fact the internet broke their shitty business model really make it worthless?
What an asshole to even say such I thing. I'd rather be without anything Sony ever made than be without the internet.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
So they weren't left to suffer the consequences of their poor business decisions, they were propped up with public money instead.
Criminalize Customer: Their really does seem to have been a massive switch to this. The customer should really be the boss the only one a company should have to please. But it appears more and more like the big companies view customers as the enemy to be accused, lied to, and forced to pay them.
You sound really naive. You think things used to be different? The same thing happened with the tape recorder, with the VCR, with the printing press. Capitalist companies have always been a small group of conspirators who view the population as sheep to be fleeced for their own benefit. That is the entirety of their motive. If they had a different motive, they would have chosen a different organizational structure. If they claim to have a different motive, but they didn't choose a structure that is more suited to a different motive, then they are lying.
The Internet is doing something quite useful. It's slowly and painfully eroding our cultural of naivety, and that's a good thing. Unless you've got your hand in the cookie jar.
Would you like a free rootkit with that CD? No? Tough shit.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
After all the crap they've pulled with root kits, proprietary media, etc. this just adds one more reason not to support them. I haven't bought anything from Sony in many years and won't in the future.
Seriously, if you had a device that could duplicate any device you used it on, without affecting the original in any way, would people be trying to say, "You wouldn't duplicate a car, would you?" It would sound completely absurd. And this time is going to be here sooner than many people realize, I think. With 3D printers being at the point laser printers were when I was a kid, before long we could easily have one in nearly every house. Just think about what that will do to the manufacturing industry? Sure, they don't do everything actual manufacturing does right now (durability for example) but they likely will eventually. People are already working on making them able to embed circuitry into the designs.
I think this could make the copyright disputes we are having right now look downright enjoyable, because this will affect a whole lot more people than copyright.
People aren't "stealing" their stuff for the sake of stealing it. They're doing it because they want more control and use out of their media than Sony and others provide. Hulu is an excellent example of a proper solution. People used to download tv shows much more frequently before it's advent. It allows the rights holder to still make money through commercials, but at the same time gives the user control over when they watch the media, how they watch it, as well as pause, rewind, and fast forward, with a great UI which far surpasses YouTube in my opinion. The quality is pretty much as good as the tvrips (in 480p mode at least) and it even allows for discussion and ratings, making it a very social site as well. It simply provides for a much better user experience than the alternative, and the content usually goes up within a day or so of the air date.
"But there's DVR!" you say. DVR doesn't help you when you're stuck in JFK because your flight was delayed for 3 hours, and all you have is your notebook. DVR doesn't help you when you want to watch a show that's no longer in syndication, and hasn't been released on DVD (of which there are many), etc etc. Add to this that they're working on an iphone app and will likely have an Android app in the works as well and Hulu is a perfect example of how to properly take advantage of the internet's abilities. Is it perfect? Not yet. I personally would still like to see the ability to download the episodes so you can view them offline, but what it is now is certainly a great start.
So with all of this, why would people bother downloading rips? Hulu is more ubiquitous, requires no hard drive space, no messing with codec converters, no dealing with potentially virus laden downloads, etc etc etc. Do people still download? Yes, but mostly because you can get a tvrip quicker than Hulu will put it up (often within 30 minutes rather than a few hours), and Hulu doesn't have everything yet, doesn't retain everything yet, and isn't available outside of the US due to legal reasons. The important thing, though, is that it's moving in the right direction.
Sony Pictures, however, is so stuck in its "1. Release in theaters, 2. Release on DVD several months later, 3. Release on TV several years later" that they think nothing else will work, while Paramount, 20th Century Fox, MGM, Universal, and others have already begun adding some of their titles to Hulu. Is it an exhaustive collection? No, not yet at least, but again, it's a start.
I wish you luck Sony, given your recently posted losses this year, you're gonna fucking need it if you keep acting this way.
to call humanity's second greatest invention since Mathematics(*) itself useless. We're talking about a technology that allows Joe Average in the US to send a message to Juan Promedio in Spain in less time it took you to read this paragraph for a total cost of less than a cent. Think about that for a minute, and realize all the possibilities this opens up for humanity as a whole.
It may have some problems, yes, but anyone who says that nothing good has ever come out of it is either a complete idiot, someone with an agenda or as is probably the case here, both.
(*)If you're wondering what's on first place, you're reading this post on one.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
Copyright was never about preventing anybody from using another person's work for their own profit. There are in fact plenty of provisions for doing just that in Copyright law.
Copyright is about preventing people from copying another person's work and distributing it for their own gain. It's a specific method of profiting from a work that is restricted. It's no accident that it happens to be the most direct and (usually) most profitable method of using a work, and it makes a lot of sense.
It's built into the name, for one thing, but also it is very well established that copyright law grants the creator a (theoretically) limited monopoly on the distribution of their work. That's it. Once it has been legally distributed, copyright grants no control over the copy which was distributed. The person who recieved the copy can cross out parts, re-write parts, even make dozens of copies for themselves and then poop on them if they want. It's up to them as far as copyright law is concerned.*
What they can't do is distribute their copies of the work without either having the copyright holder's express permission or making sufficient changes in the content to warrant an exception under the copyright code.
Not one bit of that has to do with any kind of Piracy**, and the only way it should be called such is if the original copy was, in fact, stolen. If it was purchased legally, then you are dealing with copyright infringement, which is a crime (note that it is become more well established that recieving the illegal copy is not a crime, only the distribution of the copy is a crime). It is not, however, theft. The property was more than likely legally purchased originally, and then copied and distributed illegaly. Copyright infringement, not theft.
You're off on your criminal analogy as well. There is nothing illegal about sharing a DVD with all your buddies. It's illegal to shoplift the initial DVD, but that isn't normally how things spread. Usually the DVD rips you find are from legally purchased copies, they are simply illegally distributed**. That's not theft, and it's a far cry from piracy.
A real, honest to goodness analogy of what happens in the digital world with DVD rips and their distribution, would be sheet music. Often times sheet music is purchased legally, and then copied (via a copy machine) and distributed dozens of times. This happens a lot in school music programs, and most music teachers who do this don't realize that when they give little Johnny a photo-copy of Little Drummer Boy to take home and practice, they are committing a crime.
It's -still- not theft. You don't go to jail for stealing the photocopied music, because you didn't steal anything. You copied it. You get sued for copyright infringement and have to pay shittons of money. And probably lose your job. But guess what? Such cases, where the works are illegaly distributed but not for direct profit, are hard to track down and usually aren't worth it. Sound at all familiar?
We don't call clueless music teachers thieves or pirates, why the hell should we call DVD rippers thieves or pirates? They do break one more law than infringing music teachers, but it's still not theft in any way, shape, or form, and it sure as hell isn't any kind of piracy.
I'm starting to get really sick of people calling copyright infringement, which has nothing to do with theft or piracy, theft and piracy. It's like calling a money launderer an arsonist. It doesn't make sense (unless that specific money launderer is in fact an arsonist as well, but that's different). The whole idea of it is buying into big media corporation bull shit to make their case sound more legitimate and scary. It's legit enough already, they just don't like how limited their rights are, and want more rights to control the content they distribute.
Damn this rant went long.
*There are other laws, like the DMCA, which DO dictate the use of a copy after it has been distributed, but that is not copyright,
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
He doesn't see anything good having come from the Internet, because it hasn't lined his pockets with extra millions. Worldwide communication, everything a publisher, that's all nonsense. All that matters to him is that he hasn't seen an entry in his account that says "+ X Millions, Internet".
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Their problem is, they think the Internet is about something they call'content'. They really do not get it. What the Internet did was to abolish the relevance of the concept of content. Ask yourself, is Twitter 'content'? Or ask Sony, more like.
Something similar is happening with open source software. As in the famous cases of school teachers confiscating copies of Linux. Its hard during revolutions.
This got modded insightful? Look, I've got no beef with asserting that many corporations treat their customers like idiots, but "Capitalist" is a theoretical orientation, not an organizational structure. And if the word your looking for is "corporation", then you've confused correlation with causation: A corporation is just a model of funding your business. Large companies require more complex funding operations so they tend to be corporations. Generally, only very large companies can get away with screwing their customers. There is nothing about screwing people that is inherent to corporations, unless you're a Marxist.
THANK YOU!
One of my pet peeves is the extreme excess of media produced today. TV is perhaps the perfect example of what I mean. We have cable from Comcast. For X dollars per month, we could get the basic package (60 channels or so). For X+10 dollars per month, we get the next package up (hundreds of channels). We have the X+10 dollar package because of two channels we did want (yeah, out of hundreds of channels, there are only about 4 that are worth watching). But what possible use is there for buying 400 channels? I mean, really. I cannot watch 400 channels, and most of them I don't want to watch. This is a heavy excess of material that isn't necessary to enjoy the TV that is worthwhile.
We don't need massive quantities of TV. We need TV that is engaging enough to give us our fill very quickly and leave time for something else (and time seems to be the one thing our society can't find enough of any more). I enjoy The Universe (a history channel documentary series about astronomy) because it is both interesting and generally well made. I enjoyed the Lord of the Rings series of movies, for a similar reason (extremely well made, and a captivating plot. Although the books are still better). I wish things of this caliber were frequently shown. But instead, when I turn on the TV (which is often an exercise in futility), I see very few shows that are worth my time. I stopped turning to channels other than discovery, history, science, and national geographic. I often turn on the TV, look at even *those* channels, see nothing interesting and turn the TV off.
Perhaps my demands are too high, but it seems to me that interesting fiction is getting ever harder to come by. It's as though the imaginations of the producers are disappearing, although I'm pretty sure the ratings system is just as responsible for this (and the sheep-like consumerism model of our present society certainly doesn't help).
Summary: TV is dumbing down. Buying 400 channels is useless since you can't watch them all. We need more interesting shows/movies.
'Common Good' as the OP is using it is a good that isn't owned by an individual or company. Usually those are things that the government is involved in the creation of because it's either not going to be profitable, or making it profitable would make it far more difficult to use.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Fixed that for you.