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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'm a guy who doesn't see anything good having come from the Internet, period.'
I say we spam him with goatse until he repents.
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.
Given that Sony recently posted its first loss in 14 years, I think perhaps it is time for them to get with the new modes of media distribution instead of keeping its head in the sand and decrying them.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
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.
Someone should really update this for the internet. And immortalize this idiot's name as the dunce who asked the question...
Go somewhere random
They used to make quality products, not so much anymore. My latest experience is the last straw. Last year, I purchased a Sony navigation unit. I soon found that the maps were outdated, and missing major landmarks, and even an Interstate highway that had opened the year before. Support assured me that the next update would solve these problems. Well, after many months, an update has finally been released for the mere price of $99. So, in other words, Sony wants me to pay another $99 to fix what was broken from the time they built the unit. I consider it a lesson learned, and will not longer purchase Sony products.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
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.
You're only supposed to use the ??? when the next step isn't obvious. Since 'Buy off legislatures to support your failing business model' has been their tactic for years, it's not a very secret step.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
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.
That's right, the net has increased competition.. the customers feel "entitled" to companies catering to them by providing product to them in the form and price they want, and will find what they want through black marets should we refuse to provide it.
"the customers feel "entitled" to the product they want at the price they want, and now have a way to get it when we don't want to provide it, and we don't like that" - Sony Pictures.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Capitalism can't produce common goods. Internet would've never had existed if it weren't for the US government. It was created in an academic environment, by passionate people that cared about the advance of technolog (indirectly: of mankind). Internet advanced quickly, different protocols appeared, once replacing the other (Gopher, SMTP, HTTP, POP, IMAP, NNTP, etc.).
Then the companies came. Those set of protocols froze, some began to fade. Companies didn't care about "what's right". They didn't care about advance the network. The HTTP/1.0 -> 1.1 transition took years, and still hasn't finished (e.g. http pipelining). IMAP mail stalled, and got replaced by webmail. Multicast was never deployed at large. Newsgroups got replaced by phpbb.
These companies hate Internet. If they praise it, it's only when they realize they can't afford to ignore it (or destroy it).
Criminals... like hiding rootkits on CDs with no notice kind of criminals? I guess All-My-Corporations-Are-Criminals too.
' 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.
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.'
*A panting Michael Lynton enters his boardroom with Sony's Chairmembers* ... is that a Blu-Ray copy of Spiderman? ... it had it in its hand as it was leaving the store. ... ... ... you're all cu ... customers! How could I have been so blind? No wonder we are losing this war! SECURITY!
Michael Lynton: *gasping for breath* I'm sorry I'm late. But I was just down in the store and I had to confiscate this.
Chairman One: Is that
Michael Lynton: Yes, I had to confiscate it from a "customer"
Chairman One: The customer stole it? We have the finest security in place
Michael Lynton: No, far worse than that. The customer held up the product and said to me, 'Hey, Mr. Lynton, it's bullshit I have to pay $30 for this after paying $15 to see it in the theater.' At which point I realized that it intended to give this away through the internet to all of his friends.
*pauses for seriousness*
Michael Lynton: Then I tackled him and I just saved us one trillion dollars in lost profits.
Chairman Two: Mr. Lynton, we might have a problem if that person paid for this copy of Spiderman.
Michael Lynton: No, you don't understand, he had a shirt indicating he used the internet. If that isn't a red flag, I don't know what is. All of them are criminals just looking at us with their beady little eyes trying to figure out how to steal from us.
Chairman Three: Sir, are you feeling alright?
Michael Lynton: I'm feeling great, I just saved us money. You know, I saw someone on the street the other day and they were fat and pasty white and I knew then that they used the internet. So I drove them down with my car.
Chairman Four: That was you on Channel Nine News last night
Michael Lynton: Oh please, grow up, this is business and business means war. Now, I think that if we act quickly we can hit the customer with viruses in the rootkit no one's found on our Blu-Ray media. The time is upon us to put an end to the customer once and for all, people. Think of your children! Wait a second, why do you all look confuse? Oh my god, you're all them
My work here is dung.
No. Sony isn't just a "media company". It's one of the big technology companies. And it's relevant that one of the biggest technology companies hate Internet.
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."
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.
No wonder he hates the internet, he was the former president of AOL International.
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.
So they weren't left to suffer the consequences of their poor business decisions, they were propped up with public money instead.
It's short for "I emphasize the finality of the preceding sentence by drawing attention to the period", and it's a complete sentence. The long form is too much effort to read and type so normal people use the abbreviation.
Period isn't a sentence? Curses.
It happens that the Net thinks Sony Pictures wasn't worth it too.
So the feeling is mutual.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
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
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.
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
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.
Previously, Lynton had worked extensively on internet related matters. He was President, AOL International, and CEO, AOL Europe starting in 2000, where he was responsible for AOL Europe as well as for AOL operations in Asia and Latin America.
Can't decide if this is hilarious or depressing :)
You can't take the sky from me...
Hulu is an excellent example of a proper solution
Wrong. Go on a holiday to Canada or France and try to use Hulu - Then let me know how "excellent" you think this "proper" solution is...
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
Dude, I'd have to kick my own ass, if I spent my time trying to watch TV over the internet.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
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.
Really?
Yes, I believe a period is considered a sentence (at least by half the women I know).
I speak England very best
I am sorry are you advocating a system where corporate entities have access to police powers and can reliable count on jailing their customers when they violate copyright or some other TOS?
I would rather live in a world without movies, tv, and recorded music. Live music and visual arts predate the idea of LAW itself are intrinsic to humanity we could give up those three specific forms and lose little as culture, at least in comparison to the total lack of freedom you seem to advocate.
The big problem here is an economic one at the root. Our society over produces and over consumes this type of art. There are finite good s and labor that go into these productions. Those have a cost and must be recouped. The producers have a price point that is to high, as evidenced by the vast black market distribution of these materials. The consumers are using to much because the price many of them pay is often little or nothing. The correct answer is to charge a little less and produce much less. People won't want to consume as much if they actually have to pay, they will be "satisfied", few will illegally distribute or go looking for and deal with illegal distribution because their simply won't be enough material out there to make the efforts of doing all that worth while.
Computer geeks aside you think joe public would bother learning about torrents and if there were only five movies or so a year he cared to see anyway? You think the geeks would take the trouble to make it easy to do something we would be doing much more infrequently. I don't think so.
Society is dumping to many resources into this particular kind of art. Because reproduction is so cheap and easy the economics around it are being tossed out of whack. The market is doing what it always does and correcting. The black market exists because there are artificial legal barriers to reproduction even if there were non the "free" reproduction would just happen sooner. Studios like MGM are on the verge of bankruptcy and will likely fail. Its a good thing thing actually. Eventually equilibrium will be reached and when it is there will be less waste.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
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.
Fixed that for you.