Why Hollywood's Idea Of 'Innovation' Is SOPA
from the regulatory-capture dept
A ton of folks have been sending over Steve Blank's absolutely awesome detailed analysis of why Hollywood can't innovate... and the result is SOPA. It touches on many points we've raised separately, but puts it all together in such a fantastic and comprehensive package. Seriously: just go read it.It kicks off by noting a key point that we've raised in the past, but which often gets underplayed: the vast majority of movie industry revenue these days comes from pay-per-view TV, cable, satellite, video rentals, DVD sales and online subscriptions/digital downloads. In fact, this is the part of Hollywood's business that it insists is most under threat from infringement. But, here's the thing: if the MPAA had had its way over the last century, none of those things would have existed. It fought tooth and nail against every innovation that resulted in those new and lucrative markets. Blank puts together a great historical list:
- 1920’s – the record business complained about radio. The argument was because radio is free, you can’t compete with free. No one was ever going to buy music again.
- 1940’s – movie studios had to divest their distribution channel – they owned over 50% of the movie theaters in the U.S. “It’s all over,” complained the studios. In fact, the number of screens went from 17,000 in 1948 to 38,000 today.
- 1950’s – broadcast television was free; the threat was cable television. Studios argued that their free TV content couldn’t compete with paid.
- 1970’s – Video Cassette Recorders (VCRs) were going to be the end of the movie business. The movie business and its lobbying arm, MPAA, fought it with “end of the world” hyperbole. The reality? After the VCR was introduced, studio revenues took off like a rocket. With a new channel of distribution, home movie rentals surpassed movie theater tickets.
- 1998 – the MPAA got congress to pass the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), making it illegal for you to make a digital copy of a DVD that you actually purchased.
- 2000 – Digital Video Recorders (DVR) like TiVo allowing consumers to skip commercials was going to be the end of the TV business. DVRs reignite interest in TV.
- 2006 - broadcasters sued Cablevision (and lost) to prevent the launch of a cloud-based DVR to its customers.
- Today it’s the Internet that’s going to put the studios out of business. Sound familiar?
But the end result is SOPA/PIPA rather than technology or business innovation:
I actually think Blank underplays this a bit. The MPAA doesn't just have a "copyright lawyer" with more clout than a technology person... it's that the entire MPAA is designed around anti-piracy, with a whole series of execs and staff whose sole job is "content protection" -- not business model or technology innovation.The SOPA bill (and DNS blocking) is what happens when someone with the title of anti-piracy or copyright lawyer has greater clout than your head of new technology. SOPA gives corporations unprecedented power to censor almost any site on the Internet. It’s as if someone shoplifts in your store, SOPA allows the government to shut down your store.
History has shown that time and market forces provide equilibrium in balancing interests, whether the new technology is a video recorder, a personal computer, an MP3 player or now the Net. It’s prudent for courts and congress to exercise caution before restructuring liability theories for the purpose of addressing specific market abuses, despite their apparent present magnitude.
What the music and movie industry should be doing in Washington is promoting legislation to adapt copyright law to new technology — and then leading the transition to the new platforms.
Either way, I highly recommend checking out the full article.
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Filed Under: copyright, crying wolf, history, hollywood, innovation, pipa, protect ip, regulatory capture, sopa
Companies: mpaa
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http://news.yahoo.com/warner-bros-impose-56-day-delay-dvd-rentals-205314128.html
Once again the paying customer gets punished while those who don't pay notice no difference.
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They have become enamored with their own ideas, telling consumers how its supposed to be done. If they were a restaurant they would send out steaks done to what their system told them was perfect, and refuse to consider what the customer wanted. They would refuse to listen to the customer complaints, because they know best not the people paying them. They restaurant would be failing, so they would lobby for a bill forcing people to have to eat at their restaurant. Then the absurd idea of home cooking is killing the restaurant industry would come true.
They have money and power, and this has blinded them to the simple fact that the consumer is who they are supposed to be working for. Back in the dark days consumers had no choices, as they controlled every aspect of the process. Nowdays the process has vaulted forward making the consumer king, offering options and choices...
If you choose to try to delay the content to meet some plan made in the 1950's of this the ONLY way it can be done, your hurting your own business.
It would be nice if they could look at the history of their chicken little story telling and just skip to the embrace the change and make more money portion without all of the hand wringing.
Instead we have SOPA, other horrible proposals, and the 6 strikes program waiting in the wings to piss customers off more. They are more invested in driving consumers away to maintain the illusion of control, they can not see the biggest driving force to hurting their business is... themselves.
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sadly the more you tell it to them and show them the truth the more they fight against it, it's a no-win situation
one day they will understand, by then it will be too late
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- He is concerned about the effect SOPA would have on regular people.
- There is quite a bit of factual information in the article, showing all of the "death blows" to the content industry to be boogeymen in their own minds as they fear progress and loss of control.
- There is a demonstrable history of once they embrace the new, they make even more money than before.
Rather than suffer with the further slide towards a police state run for the benefit of corporate profits, people are speaking out against bad legislation. It saddens me that with all of this available to you, from multiple sources you insist on clinging to your irrational fear and hate.
2/10 - You got me to bother with you, but changed nothing.
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Spread your half-baked ill informed opinions around to other topics, boy.
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Its like they want people to go back to piracy, instead of subscribing to Netflix or whatever.
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When dialup speeds can beat the distribution channel, there are a few issues that need addressing...
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Admittedly that was MOSTLY due to the way netflix handled it. I did not mind the price hike so much as the rude "we don't give a fuck about our loyal customers" attitude they took.
End result though is that I used to pay netflix and was happy watching shows there. Now I'm just as happy watching whatever I want for free. It is not "instant", but so what? I will not pay someone to treat me like trash. Until they show their customers some respect they can live without my money.
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Why is it I came up with this idea in about 30seconds and the MPAA hasn't been able to figure it out yet?
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If you'd like to know why, just ask Mitch Glazier.
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Bottom line...
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It really makes you stop and think. Where would we be today if these companies did not kill off anything that they did not want to compete with? What kind of technology has been suppressed and hidden from the main stream because those in power did not like it?
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However, Machin Shin was probably referring to the modern systems based on polarized glasses and/or the shutter glasses he mentioned. The technology has certainly been around for much longer than a decade, but he was probably thinking of modern systems such as RealD rather than the basic concepts themselves.
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Response to: anonymous on Jan 7th, 2012 @ 1:47am
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This is why they fight. They didn't want the increased profits related to home video sales, for example, as it couldn't guarantee and immediate return. They just wanted to ride the existing industry until they'd made their fortunes. Unfortunately for them, 3rd parties just won't stop innovating new technologies that threaten to damage the status quo they need to maximise profits under the current models.
To truly "fight piracy", they would have to make long-term and potentially risky changes to their businesses. For example, they would have to recognise that half the reason why "foreign rogue sites" even exist in the first place is due to regional and format windowing that leave most foreign markets feeling ripped off and left unserviced. They would have to totally revamp regional licensing regimes, create different licensing models for physical and digital markets, and numerous other things that would remove an area that's currently easy, relatively risk-free profit for them. Or, they can just lobby for laws that force other people to block those sites for them - much easier.
It doesn't matter to them that this will not work, nor that there's unacceptable levels of collateral damage. By the time that the industry is shown that this has failed and that they need to adapt as they have in the past, those in charge will have retired with their fortunes intact, for as little work as possible.
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My wife buys fewer DVDs these days because she has encountered problems playing legally-purchased DVDs. Fortunately, I was able to rip the problem disc and remove all the protection. But many people don't know how to do that, so they just suffer through it. You may be able to get a replacement disc, but I'm sure they the companies will make you go through hoops - after all we are all pirates to them.
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Let me spell it out.
We are trying to kill your business, we are trying to remove your greedy ass from the face of this earth and you just keep hanging on like the blood sucking leach you are. Maybe the internet will finally kill you, but i doubt it.
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sopa
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Re: sopa
Can I have the spam, spam, beans and spam?
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Sure, it will work
If the music and entertainment industry cannot adapt to the real world and develop a business model that works with that reality, they deserve to die. It's survival of the most adaptable.
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