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Y Combinator Wants To Kill Hollywood
An anonymous reader writes "Y Combinator, a firm that invests in startups, has put out a call to kill Hollywood. In a post on their site, the firm said attempts at legislation similar to SOPA wouldn't stop until there is no industry left to protect. They now want to incubate ideas for new types of entertainment, so we can evolve the movie and television industries. Quoting: 'There will be several answers, ranging from new ways to produce and distribute shows, through new media (e.g. games) that look a lot like shows but are more interactive, to things (e.g. social sites and apps) that have little in common with movies and TV except competing with them for finite audience attention. Some of the best ideas may initially look like they're serving the movie and TV industries. Microsoft seemed like a technology supplier to IBM before eating their lunch, and Google did the same thing to Yahoo.'"
Video games really just shift the problem. The ESA (which until very recently supported SOPA, against many of its largest members' public whims) could very well be the MAFIAA of the future.
The problem isn't Hollywood, the problem isn't even industry groups... The problem is publishers. Music labels, in particular, need to die a quick death.
Kill the book publishers. Kill the music labels. Kill the movie studios. Kill the video game publishers. The latter two, I realize, might not quite be feasible yet, as the economics are such that it's really not possible for an unknown group to fund themselves for a large movie or game project, but in the case of books and music? They serve no purpose whatsoever anymore, and are just parasites sucking money out of those they represent, putting impediments in front of those they sell to, and slowing down the pace of technology and innovation.
Why dont the top 100 odd tech firms just get their boards together and buy out the entertainment industry, Fire all the old chaff, then figure out what do do with whats left. Even if they end up writing off the entire investment, the savings in reduced interference from a dying industry(Lawsuits, Trusted Computing, SOPA/PIPA etc.) will justify the few hundred billion. Plus, the innovation it will unleash when all those rent-seeking collaboration-killing laws become irrelevant will bring soo much new life into the dying(yes DYING!!) economies of the developed world.
Sadly, i dont have any hope that such a scenario will ever come to pass, especially when most tech firms behaving more like a pot of lobsters...
(sigh...)
Seriously. Apple has 76B sitting in the bank, Microsoft has 55B. Time Warner has a market cap of 37B, hell even the media giant that is Disney/Pixar has a market cap of only 70B. A lot of the music companies are a fair bit smaller.
The distribution channels (Apple, Google, etc) are bending over backwards on deals with companies that they could acquire in a hostile takeover tomorrow if they wanted to. It's crazy.
Slashdot needs a "-1, Wrong" moderation option.
The Urban Hippie
There is all this raging against "the music industry" and the "film industry." Meanwhile the people doing all the raging are soaking or craving up the products of those industries like mad. Isn't that hypocritical?
I have no problem with the music and film industries vigorously protecting their rights. But I am extremely pissed off that those rights extend for so damn long.
I don't care too much about the parasites who want their movies and music for free. I care a lot about the creative people who want to be able to draw from music and movies from the thirties, forties, and fifties. They should be free to copy and mash and improve on those earlier works. That would make our artistic world a much richer place.
Its really not about protecting the music/movie/etc industries. That is just the excuse to get it passed with ( some ) citizen support. Its really about the restriction of freedoms and a increase in government control over our lives. The entire 'anti piracy' angle is just a 'shiny smokescreen' if you like.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Killing the music labels is quite feasible. They don't do much. They don't manufacture records - that's outsourced, and anybody can have a CD manufactured. They don't run the download systems - Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon do that. They don't run recording studios - those are mostly independent, and anybody can book studio time. Their relationships with record stores (what record stores?) hardly matter any more.
The music labels have two remaining functions, one of which is attackable under antitrust law. They pay payola to radio stations for airplay and make deals with concert venues. Both have been the subject of antitrust investigations. They also do promotion. That's their real function.
The one remaining function of record labels is venture capital. They "sign" bands and put in startup capital. Others can do that. YCombinator could do that. Venture capital firms might fund a company to do that. Myspace briefly did that. That's where the labels are vulnerable.
"Own your own stuff" - Joan Jett, to new musicians.
Who exactly are you trying to kill? All of these entities are deeply enmeshed with, if not outright owned and operated by "old media."
In the end it's going to be approximately the same people doing the same sort of business under the same names, they're just going to get their money from ads instead of from sales, subscribers and tickets. Progress?
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.
It is less of a problem than one may think. The main issue is that online gatekeepers have USA on the brain.
There is a world of content creators out there. We have been used by Hollywood studios to make A Grade content for decades, and then we are tossed onto the scrapheap when contracts are completed.
New Zealand, Australia, India, South Africa, England, Ireland, South Korea, The Philippines... all viable content sources. In many cases, Americans have no idea that the mini series, animation, TV shows are staffed, set in, voiced by, acted by and starred by New Zealanders or Australians who are pretty good at faking American accents. When I have listed some in the past, Americans can not believe that some Stephen King mini series was not shot in Maine and instead shot in a small town just outside Auckland New Zealand.
Production is cheaper outside USA, but not cheap enough. Thats where creative disruptive people like myself come in. As a storyboard artist and director, I am always finding cheaper ways to give the same effect. I have halved the cost of production on some of the projects I have been associated with.
I have been in preproduction for my own online TV show for 2.5 years. We are ready to shoot the pilot in two months. We have already created half a dozen disruptive technologies that should reduce the cost of production 50%. As a bonus, it should speed up the production to a weekly turnaround on a cast and crew of ten.
If we source writing talent from outside USA, the writers will come cheaper than American Hollywood writers, and as a bonus, they come up with the original ideas. After decades of having their ideas stolen by Hollywood Writers, Directors and Producers, it will be a refreshing change for them to get paid... and refreshing for us to get the new stories straight from the creators, instead of filtered through the Hollywood Homogenising machine.