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Y Combinator Wants To Kill Hollywood

Posted by Soulskill on from the bigger-they-are-the-harder-they-fall dept.

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.'"

12 of 424 comments (clear)

  1. Cue the lawsuits by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Dodd and the MPAA are not going to take this sort of thing sitting down. They will sue over every word that ever appeared in any movie or TV show. They will attack any technology that is used to distribute this entertainment. They will lobby for laws forbidding this sort of thing.

    So, how can we help fight them?

    --
    Palm trees and 8
    1. Re:Cue the lawsuits by Anrego · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This battle will probably fail.. but I think this is how the war is ultimately going to be won..

      Not by some massive project, but with little nibbles over a long period of time. Stuff like this shows that more and more people are getting fed up. They fail and someone else tries, then someone else, etc.. eventually you will see something persistent, and it will gradually get more and more share until it is a serious competitor, and hopefully, a replacement for the existing media establishment.

    2. Re:Cue the lawsuits by muuh-gnu · · Score: 5, Insightful

      > So, how can we help fight them?

      Change the election system in the US so you dont have to "fight" them any more, but can just vote them out of politics. Take the power politicians have to push abusive, bad laws. Bring in more direct democracy, so that lawmaking becomes more independent of the few bribeable, single points of failure (politicians). MPAA/RIAA are only able to influence laws because there are only so few politicians to bribe and because, after being bribed, nobody can stop them from introducing abusive laws.

      In my view, Paul Graham got it completely wrong. It is not Hollywood that has to be fought, it is the undemocratic political system that has to go. Hollywood just abuses the buggy system because it is so easy to abuse (think Windows 98). After YC "kills Hollywood", simply somebody else will come up to bribe politicians and purchase laws because it is so effective. The system allows for rich people to literally purchase laws.

      The cure is not to merely stop this one case of abuse, but to debug the system to prevent any further abuses. "Debug the system" in this case means introduce switzerland style direct democracy to make people able to bypass "professional" politicians and to directly veto abusive and unjust laws.

    3. Re:Cue the lawsuits by Nugoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Here's a start. As far as I know, donating to the EFF also helps people fight the lawsuits.

      --
      I explicitly release the above into the public domain.
    4. Re:Cue the lawsuits by SomePgmr · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yeah, it's been baby steps of progress. Netflix, Apple, Amazon, Hulu, Microsoft, Roku, Nintendo (etc) have all shown that inexpensive, easy-to-use, reliable, on-demand content delivery to customers televisions isn't just entirely workable, but popular.

      Various billing models for different kinds of media are being tried. Now Netflix, Hulu and Microsoft are getting into exclusive content production. That's a big leap forward.

      The trick is, and I think the Y Combinator folks understand this, is to not lose sight of the fact that the customers are increasingly capable and they want what they want. Giving them something else and saying, "Tough, that's the way it is and you'll like it." just isn't going to fly anymore.

    5. Re:Cue the lawsuits by suprcvic · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Change the election system in the US so you dont have to "fight" them any more, but can just vote them out of politics.

      In theory that's how it already works. The problem is that everybody is happy with their own representative, it's everybody else that's the problem. Not to mention, changing the system of electing officials requires the approval of said officials.

    6. Re:Cue the lawsuits by b4dc0d3r · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Because of people like you. A law isn't something you buy, and thinking so confuses the issue. A politician is something you invest in, something you cultivate. I have said you don't buy laws, you buy politicians. But that is an oversimplification.

      MAFIAA recently said to Obama not to count on Hollywood money next time. That should explain how it works. You pay money up front for someone to get elected, hopefully someone who shares your opinions. When votes come up, politicians look to see who funded them. NOT to see who to vote for, but to see whose support they need to win the next election.

      Every vote, every bill, every decision, is about not alienating the people whose support you count on for the next cycle. Politics is a long game, and individuals usually only thing about things per-issue. Because they don't understand how politics works.

      Until people start taking a look at candidates, how they voted, what they actually did, long term, this won't change. The people only want someone to say the right things, like Gingrich does, not do the right things. As long as he says what they want to hear, he can screw them again and again.

      Or the simple answer - Hollywood usually votes Democrat because Republicans have tried to censor profanity and nudity. So Democrats and California politicians do what Hollywood wants, for continued funding. The politician is bought, the laws don't have to be.

  2. Godspeed to them by finkployd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    At the end of the day, all things being equal if the government has to step in and decide who it will legislatively favor, I’m hoping it is the tech industry. America is and for a long time has been losing its place in the world. We cannot compete with third world manufacturing, we have deliberately sacrificed our spot as a scientific leader by diverting funds away from a physics supercollider (The Large Hadron Collider in Europe is where future breakthroughs will occur while we now watch on the sidelines), we have given up NASA and future space exploration will be spearheaded by China and India, and we are dumbing down our science, math, and literacy education while the rest of the world ups their game.

    We basically have two things left, we are leaders in information technology, and leaders in making Lady Gaga CDs and Chipmunk movie sequels. Which do you believe is doing to be the best industry to foster a friendly environment for to maintain the relevance of America in the world? The media industry exists on the whim of the US government and other governments going along with our endless copyright extensions. Should they decide to stop, there is no value in what they create. Media can be copied for free, there is no scarcity of resources in the distribution, the basic rules of economics don’t work here.

    I’m not suggesting that the whole concept of intellectual property is null and void. It has its failings and certainly the way copyright is being handled is despicable (I also feel software patents are insane and detrimental to the information technology industry). But I do know that if this is to be a showdown between two industries, I want the one to win that actually produces something of economic, societal, and tangible value. If Hollywood and the music industry are simply incompatible with technology, then I think we can do without the next Pirates of the Caribbean sequel, but I don’t think we can do without the next Google, Microsoft, or IBM. Do we want to be a country of technical leaders advancing civilization along, or do we want to be the court jesters, a diversion for the Chinese and other emerging technologies to get some cheap laughs from while they surpass us in all other areas?

    1. Re:Godspeed to them by finkployd · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Intellectual property laws came about as a way to balance public interest with private interest. Without some kind of copyright and patent protection, there is less incentive to create something intangible (like music, software, medicine, etc), especially it it involves significant up front costs and effort. However, to balance this against public interest, time limits were put into place and the concept of patents on non-physical items were not initially considered (that is what copyrights were for).

      The last couple decades have seen a total removal of the concept of public interest in IP law, it is now 100% about maximizing profits for distribution middlemen (note: not the actual creators themselves, look who is doing all of the lobbying). Copyright for all intents and purposes is perpetual and dictated by the age of a cartoon mouse, I don't think anyone believes it is not going to be extended the next time it is up for renewal. Patents on non-tangible items (software patents) and on items that were not created but discovered (genetic patents) have further abused the system.

      The idea of intellectual property is not inherently bad, but the current execution and the corruption around it now are more detrimental to society than helpful.

  3. "Kill" is hyperbole by Xenophon+Fenderson, · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you read the announcement, you'll quickly realize that Y Combinator thinks that the industry as a whole is stagnant, and that it sees opportunities for innovation in the realm of entertainment outside of the Hollywood system. Hollywood is dying on its own; Y Combinator wants to invest in the next generation of mass media.

    --
    I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage
  4. Follow The Money.... by rajeevrk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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...)

  5. Foster Creativity By Shortening Copyright Length by MarkvW · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.