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New Court Evidence Reveals Hollywood’s Plan to Smear Google

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Re: New Court Evidence Reveals Hollywood’s Plan to Smear Google

#131
post #92

Hollywood is an industry that should be very vulnerable to disruption. Even if we ignore the whole digital distribution aspect, there's so much bloat in the overhead cost of producing a film. Everything about the industry is based around croneyism, various inside deals made between established independent contractors on short term contracts with all sorts of padding. Plus overhead for safety & insurance, lots of manu…

No need to shoot on location? This is how it was done in the studio system from the early days through about the 1970s. The studios were more dominant then. I agree some aspects of film are ripe for disruption but many aspects have already been disrupted multiple times over the years. I'm in the medical industry, which is another field that tech newbies think will be fixed real soon now as hackers turn their attentio…

The opinion that I wrote here was formulated several years ago after a long conversation with an accountant I met on the set of a major film, who was sent by the studio to audit the production. The inefficiencies and borderline corrupt nature of hollywood's film production spending habits are mind blowing. I would get into detail but it’s a bit long of a yarn for a HN comment.

Healthcare has some systemic similarities I suppose, but the case I'll make is that there's a historic precedent for digital disruption of creative media with books, increasingly TV, and particularly music. We think of online piracy as the main disruptor of the record business, but the record industry also lost a lot of power when artists no longer needed a major label's advance check or marketing to record & distribute a successful album. Advances in home recording technology and social media are decentralizing the music business, and if similar leaps come along in filmmaking tech it isn't a stretch to guess it would decentralize the film industry in a similar fashion

Re: New Court Evidence Reveals Hollywood’s Plan to Smear Google

#132
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your point about "shooting on location" versus CGI seem absurd to me. A Hollywood production is so much more that just the logistics to shoot on location. It is actors, directors, casting, production design, production management, music, manuscripts, editing etc. All of these things requires a specialized skillset. None of these can be replaces with a server rack. Animation is somewhat different production-wise, but…

Those roles can be outsourced offshore to cheaper labor markets or handed to cheaper (aka non-union) domestic talent markets, which is what I was hinting at. Wasn't really implying that computers can replace creatives. Basically the argument is when you level the geographic playing field, quality creative talent is a cheaper commodity.

Lots of movies (and especially TV) are made on the cheap outside of Hollywood and around the world. There still seem to be a significant demand for Hollywood-style grand productions and movie stars.

Re: New Court Evidence Reveals Hollywood’s Plan to Smear Google

#133
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No need to shoot on location? This is how it was done in the studio system from the early days through about the 1970s. The studios were more dominant then. I agree some aspects of film are ripe for disruption but many aspects have already been disrupted multiple times over the years. I'm in the medical industry, which is another field that tech newbies think will be fixed real soon now as hackers turn their attentio…

The opinion that I wrote here was formulated several years ago after a long conversation with an accountant I met on the set of a major film, who was sent by the studio to audit the production. The inefficiencies and borderline corrupt nature of hollywood's film production spending habits are mind blowing. I would get into detail but it’s a bit long of a yarn for a HN comment. Healthcare has some systemic similaritie…

The technology is already there to create movies and and distribute them digitally. You could probably, as an outsider, even send your movie to a theater as long as they have digital projection. A talented, hardworking team of outsiders could produce a variety of films just as good as anything out of hollywood. But that remains rare. I believe the bottleneck is talent and experience. There is no market for a competent movie. Even what you would consider a bad hollywood movie is a top 1% kind of thing. Consider the similar field of music. Lot's of people play music. But if you were given the choice between listening to a good local band and a top world famous band, almost everyone chooses the latter. This is partially the result of technology especially distribution technology. Our media appetites are so set to expect the best of the best that 90% of the best of the best seems mediocre to us. That is the problem you need to solve to disrupt the movie business.

Re: New Court Evidence Reveals Hollywood’s Plan to Smear Google

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is probably covered by defamation of character law (it would be in the UK at least) or by malicious litigation law.

Hollywood is not in the UK. In the US, true statements are not defamation. There is plenty of damage Hollywood could do to Google purely by telling the truth.

Well in the UK true statements are not defamation either (as of a change in legislation last year).

My point is more that if Hollywood were lying about Google then Google would have legal recourse. If they are not then Google will just have to suck it up.

Re: New Court Evidence Reveals Hollywood’s Plan to Smear Google

#135
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They make up a big enough proportion of the search market that whether or not they'd ultimately prevail, a move like that would tie them up in anti-trust battles for the next decade.

They can choose to not deliver "enhanced" search results -- showtimes, links to buy tickets, links to IMDB/RT/etc., that appear outside of the "native" search results. As long as they don't mess around with the native search results, they'll be safer from an anti-trust perspective.

Doesn't matter - it'd still be "trivial" to put together a sufficiently complicated case to have it survive dismissal attempts and drag it out for years.

The point is they're not just at risk of losing an anti-trust battle, but simply of having their execs embroiled in it for years.

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