Hollywood vs. High Tech
from the the-ongoing-battle dept
Yet another recurring theme around these parts is explained in this article at Business 2.0 talking about the battle between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. Despite Silicon Valley's attempts to calm Hollywood's fears about piracy, the introduction of the CBDTPA bill (basically the "Disney makes the rules" bill) has turned it into an all out battle. Tech companies are saying that if the bill passes it will basically halt technology innovation in the US. The entertainment industry says that if they don't find a way to enforce anti-piracy tools they won't exist any more. I still side with the tech industry. History has pretty clearly shown that with new technologies come new opportunities. The entertainment industry is being lazy. They're not looking for new opportunities but to keep finding more ways to rip off consumers. Business is business - and the entertainment industry has no "right" to keep raking in cash when the rules of the industry change. They need to learn to change along with it, or get ready to go away as more innovative (and intelligent) companies embrace technology for the opportunity it represents.
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Piracy:
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Ineffective laws
Example 1: Shower heads. I had my bathroom remodeled a couple of weeks ago. First shower, wife is griping that there isn't enough water pressure. A little internet research reveals that in 1992 the feds made it illegal to manufacture a shower head that delivers more than 2.5 GPM. Fine, says I. Remove head, apply 1/4 drill to internal restrictor, replace head. Plenty of pressure now, resulting in shorter showers, more than likely using the same amount of water as the gov't mandated trickle. Took all of 10 minutes.
Example 2: Post 9-11, the FAA has imposed what are called Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFRs) around nuke plants, stadiums, the entire 26 miles of the Boston Marathon, etc. Pilots flying gov't approved routes are accidentally violating these restrictions (the method for determining where they are is very, very archaic and difficult) daily, and falling victim to the zero tolerance policy and having their licenses yanked. Anyone bent on deliberately violating a TFR for hostile intent is not likely to care about FAA enforcement action (presumably they will be dead) and will go ahead and do whatever they want. Some arbitrary regulation is not going to physically stop an airplane (Duh!).
In the case of piracy, it has been pointed out about a zillion times that this mandated technology cannot be any smarter or crack-proof than the encryption technologies that exists today. It will simply result in becoming yet another stupid tax on the consumer. Crackers and hackers will still crack and hack.
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Re: Ineffective laws
Then there is the subject of the low water use comodes that require several flushes to get rid of the "unwanted files". I don't think we are saving any water with those.
Okay, on topic comment. Hollywood is missing a great opportunity by not embracing new consumer technology. This could be a win-win situation for all of us. Instead they may find themselves losing market share.
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Surprised...
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