Killing the Internet to save Hollywood • Hacker News Board

Re: Killing the Internet to save Hollywood

#31

Post by WayneDB » Fri, Dec 23, 2011, 3:56 PM UTC

jballanc wrote: post #17

Osiris wrote: post #13

I'm not sure that Hollywood is, in fact, dying. The evidence[1][2] suggests that Hollywood has been making more money in the 2000's than ever before. 1. http://the-numbers.com/movies/records/ 2. http://www.thewrap.com/movies/article/2010-box-office-more-r... They are having record breaking revenue years in 2009 and 2010. It's not like they are suffering the downtown that the newspaper industry has and they don't have…

So, I've been thinking. I know the whole "don't attribute to malice..." line, but isn't it possible that SOPA is an effort by big media to control all online content? Is there anything in the proposed laws that mandates rights-holders actively pursue violators? (Trademark law does have this requirement.) Could SOPA be used as a tool to weaken content-driven tech startups, until they can either be shut down or scooped…

Hanlon's razor (aka "cock-up before conspiracy") is nothing more than an opinion. Whether we should regard selfishness as malice or not is beside the point, but it is quite clear to me that people in general often act out of selfishness!!

This is so clear to me, that I am convinced that Hanlon's razor is utter hogwash (because I do actually think that selfishness and malice are simply one and the same and furthermore when someone "screws up" it's often because they were being selfish with regards to the use of their attention (e.g. texting while driving)).

Re: Killing the Internet to save Hollywood

#32

Post by bitcracker » Fri, Dec 23, 2011, 4:33 PM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #25

jjcm wrote: post #8

A better title might be, "Killing the internet to preserve the old methods of distribution so segments of the movie industry dont have to adapt." Hollywood is trying to fight against an enemy that they don't understand. They think censoring piracy will stop it, when it's obvious that it wont. Gabe Newell said it best - “In general, we think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a…

Their arguments are also pretty inconsistent. They complain about piracy, yet Avatar, a movie released in the age of piracy, is the highest-grossing movie of all time. They aren't afraid of loses from piracy, instead they are afraid that they'll have to start producing quality content instead of dumb movies like Jeniffer's Body, Jack and Jill, Season of the Witch, Red Riding Hood and Shark Night.

I think they are afraid of Youtube, and they are even afraid of becoming obsolete. I think this is the real reason for SOPA.

What happened through the Opensource movement is beginning to repeat in the movie industry. Twenty years ago Big Blue, Cray et.al. laughed at Linux and GNU. Now Linux has gained world domination in the mobile market (Android), and now Linux is leading the TOP 500 supercomputer list.

http://www.top500.org/list/2011/11/100

I think the same phenomeon is starting right now in the movie industry. Private people produce massive amounts of short movies with low quality. But in the long run I believe they will produce high quality movies which will eventually compete with Hollywood standards.

With suitable software and upcoming PCs with multicore processors and possibly TB of RAM it is not an illusion that even a single person could produce movies which match Hollywood standard.

Look at StarWars Revelations. This video was produced in 2005: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars:_Revelations

Re: Killing the Internet to save Hollywood

#33

Post by iso8859-1 » Fri, Dec 23, 2011, 5:39 PM UTC

yeswecan wrote: post #29

bad_user wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their arguments are also pretty inconsistent. They complain about piracy, yet Avatar, a movie released in the age of piracy, is the highest-grossing movie of all time. They aren't afraid of loses from piracy, instead they are afraid that they'll have to start producing quality content instead of dumb movies like Jeniffer's Body, Jack and Jill, Season of the Witch, Red Riding Hood and Shark Night.

I would hardly call Jennifer's Body a dumb movie.

It is certainly dumb compared to the movie they ripped off (Carrie).

Re: Killing the Internet to save Hollywood

#34

Post by ithought » Sat, Dec 24, 2011, 11:30 AM UTC

jballanc wrote: post #17

Osiris wrote: post #13

I'm not sure that Hollywood is, in fact, dying. The evidence[1][2] suggests that Hollywood has been making more money in the 2000's than ever before. 1. http://the-numbers.com/movies/records/ 2. http://www.thewrap.com/movies/article/2010-box-office-more-r... They are having record breaking revenue years in 2009 and 2010. It's not like they are suffering the downtown that the newspaper industry has and they don't have…

So, I've been thinking. I know the whole "don't attribute to malice..." line, but isn't it possible that SOPA is an effort by big media to control all online content? Is there anything in the proposed laws that mandates rights-holders actively pursue violators? (Trademark law does have this requirement.) Could SOPA be used as a tool to weaken content-driven tech startups, until they can either be shut down or scooped…

Those small tech startups are exploiting a loophole in the law to allow them to monetize the studios' content. There is nothing unethical about monopolizing access to content you create.

Think of how profitable cable & satellite TV is now. If they applied that model of guaranteed revenue to the entire Internet, and eliminated piracy 100% with SOPA II, they will make hundreds billions of dollars more.

This is not about stopping piracy, it's about gaining control and a market of guaranteed revenue regardless of the junk they put out through it. In other words, this sinister conspiracy you suggest is just in fact good business, they 100% know about technology trends and thus is why they seek to control, manipulate and police the Internet at this early stage rather when it's too late to take it over.