Techdirt. Stories filed under "hollywood"

Ridiculous: Short-Sighted, Anonymous Hollywood Exec Flips Out Over Using BitTorrent For Promotions

Mike Masnick — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 13:13:00 PDT

I had thought that we'd gotten past the point at which Hollywood execs would freak out over the use of a modern, better, more efficient technology to help promote a movie, but apparently in the minds of some of the folks who run the big movie studios, we're perpetually stuck in 2004 or so. That's the only explanation I can figure out for this wacky article from TheWrap, which highlights what appears to be a single (completely anonymous, of course) Hollywood studio big shot absolutely losing his mind over the fact that a major movie is promoting itself by distributing the first 7 minutes for free via BitTorrent, in a marketing deal done with BitTorrent Inc. Indie studio Cinedgim made the deal with BitTorrent to promote their new film Arthur Newman, starring Colin Firth and Emily Blunt, and it seems like a perfectly normal way to promote stuff, but not to one studio exec who can't even bother to stand behind his words by identifying himself.

"It's a deal with the devil," one studio executive told TheWrap. "Cinedigm is being used as their pawn."

A deal with the devil? Funny, I remember most of the major studios doing deals with BitTorrent Inc. six years ago. That was for a poorly planned out and poorly executed video download store, but still. Most people now recognize that there are all sorts of opportunities in going where your customers and fans are. That a Hollywood exec doesn't see that is a bit scary for whichever studio they happen to work for.

"It's great for BitTorrent and disingenuous of Cinedigm," said the executive. "The fact of the matter is BitTorrent is in it for themselves, they're not in it for the health of the industry."

Now that's just funny. As if the studio execs are not in it for themselves? The studios have focused on a business model that sucks the life out of the "health of the industry" for ages, by trying to squeeze out as much money as possible from just a few ideas -- doing remakes and sequels and adaptations, rather than doing anything that is new or unique. And then they use Hollywood accounting to make sure the actual creators almost never get paid any additional money, while they make many times over the amount invested. A statement like that pretends that the exec has the "health of the industry" in mind, rather than his own bottom line.

And, of course, there's a strong argument that this statement is totally wrong as well. Cinedigm really does appear to have a much bigger focus on the health of the industry than this nameless studio exec, because Cinedigm is trying to adapt with the times and to embrace new opportunities.

"I really missed them being at the forefront of the piracy issue," the studio executive said. "I don't remember them going, 'Naughty, naughty, don't use our technology for that.' They don't give a shit."

Huh? Actually, from rather early on, BitTorrent made clear that you shouldn't use their technology to infringe, because BitTorrent does nothing to hide your IP address. When it first came out, in fact, most people talked about how it wasn't a great technology for infringement, given the lack of secrecy involved in using it. Furthermore, from as far back as I can remember, BitTorrent the company (which this exec seems to confuse entirely with BitTorrent the protocol) has worked hard to promote legitimate and non-infringing uses. We already talked about the (failed) partnerships with Hollywood in the past, but the company has long been focused on helping to try to find ways to drag Hollywood execs into the 21st century with a better, more efficient platform for distribution.

Really, this exec just seems to be acting in a knee jerk way against BitTorrent the company without understanding very much at all. Hell, even the idea of releasing the first seven minutes of a movie online for free to drive more views -- that's been done for years. There's almost nothing new here at all. In fact, we wrote about a movie studio doing the exact same thing thirteen years ago when Dreamworks did that with Chicken Run. How could it possibly be a bad thing to release the first 7 minutes of a movie for free, in an effort to convince people that it will be worth their while to go see the full thing? Well, I can think of one way: if you make crap movies where the first seven minutes will convince you not to pay to see the rest. Perhaps that's this exec's problem.

Thankfully, the forward-looking folks at Cinedigm don't seem put off by one anonymous exec at a competing studio:

"Blaming BitTorrent for piracy is like blaming a freeway for drunk drivers, " Jill Calcaterra, Cinedigm's chief marketing officer said. "How people use it can be positive for the industry or it can hurt the industry. We want it help us make this indie film successful."

Furthermore, it appears that they're planning to use BitTorrent to promote a number of other films this way as well.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

When Corruption Fails: Hollywood Has 'Turned Off The Critical Thinking Functions Of Many Democrats'

Tim Cushing — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 08:45:00 PDT

The Washington D.C. revolving door that turns policymakers into lobbyists and stocks corporate boardrooms with former lawmakers and advisors has been the accepted norm for so long it takes a supremely audacious act to inspire any sort of outrage.

A long piece for the New Republic written by Noam Scheiber details the large number of former Obama team members moving into the private sector, leveraging their administration connections to start lucrative consulting firms. Nearly anything goes without anyone inside the administration blinking an eye -- provided certain political lines aren't crossed.

[W]hile joining a consulting firm is acceptable, those who do are reluctant to work for clients reviled by liberals: gun makers, tobacco companies, Big Oil, union busters.

This is acceptable behavior. Don't be shy about cashing in on your political connections but don't embarrass anyone by courting unacceptable clientele. It's a good piece and worth a read, but there's a really damning statement hidden in the article that Matt Yglesias highlights over at Slate.

The big through-line in Noam Scheiber's piece on former Obama administration officials cashing in is that there are certain sensitivities and levels of mixed feelings. And after all it makes sense. If you're trying to parlay your connections and inside knowledge into financial gain, you can't go do things that anger all your former colleagues. But he does note one exception that I think is important and actually more pernicious than the other examples he explores in more detail:

There’s also the entertainment industry, which is “a for-profit corporate space that’s a safe area for Democrats,” says a former White House staffer. “You can go work for Harvey Weinstein and make all this money.” Obama aide Michael Strautmanis recently left to help oversee “corporate citizenship” at Disney, and Jim Gilio, a White House spokesman, now represents talent at a Los Angeles entertainment law firm.

As Yglesias puts it, former pols and administration insiders have to take care to avoid being caught "defending indefensible positions" while spinning their Washington connections into private sector gold. Those moving from the political world to the entertainment industry, however, find they don't need to be quite as careful.

[I]n high-level Democratic Party circles, the entertainment industry is somehow seen as different from other corporate sectors—intrinsically viewed with less suspicion. And that's when your corporate lobbying gets extremely effective and when the policy consequences can get really pernicious.

Even with the failure of SOPA last year and the ongoing debacle that is the prosecution of Kim Dotcom, federal agencies are still running errands for Hollywood. ICE still regularly seizes sites and the DOJ continues to pursue extradition for overseas copyright infringers. This cozy relationship ensures that Hollywood's interests continue to be well-represented, even if its favored legislation failed miserably. But this relationship, as long-lasting (and profitable) as it has been for both sides, is doing damage to the credibility of the Democratic Party.

[H]ollywood has really managed to turn off the critical thinking functions of many Democrats, leading to a situation where the backlash against SOPA/PIPA had to be lead by Republicans.

All the back scratching in the world doesn't help when everyone's whose back isn't getting scratched rises up against you. A huge opportunity was wasted by Democrats and by the administration itself. When the internet began pushing back, the party headed by the new face of politics (i.e., not another old, white guy) reacted much too slowly, allowing the opposition to seize the victory. Hollywood's symbiotic relationship with Democrats was far too ingrained to result in anything but a delayed reaction. As Yglesias puts it, the corruption's now so deep it's no longer recognized as corruption.

How else do you explain MPAA head Chris Dodd publicly threatening to cut off the flow of money to politicians who voted against SOPA? The corruption was always there, right below the surface, but it took a moment like this, where legislators were forced to decide between pleasing a powerful industry or dropping their support for a politically toxic bill, for it to noisily break the surface. Many politicians chose the option that seemed more likely to preserve their careers, and the MPAA, unused to being ignored, lashed out.

Hollywood may not forgive and forget, but it does know where the power lies and has the money to purchase access. The fallout from the SOPA disaster is that the Democrats' failure to quickly alter course has turned IP legislation into a partisan issue. The entertainment lobby still holds some sway over Republicans. Derek Khanna's swiftly disappearing copyright reform memo (and almost as swiftly-disappearing job) are evidence of that. But there's enough of a wedge present to prevent the smooth passage of any copyright-related legislation.

Hollywood may still be a safe haven for Democrats to earn some post-D.C. money but it's hard to believe the sheen hasn't worn off a bit at this point -- on both sides of the revolving door.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Surprise: Rep. Bob Goodlatte Thinks The Justice Department Is Too Cozy With Hollywood

Mike Masnick — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 10:41:44 PDT

Rep. Bob Goodlatte, the current head of the House Judiciary Committee, is seen as a friend of copyright maximalists -- generally supporting their legislative efforts. He's not nearly as extreme as his predecessor, Lamar Smith, but he's hardly seen as a problem for Hollywood. So, it's a bit surprising to see Goodlatte pen an article for Politico, talking about "waste" at the Justice Department, where he explicitly calls out the DOJ's cozy relationship with Hollywood.

While he isn't talking about the cozy relationship that worries us -- the domain seizures, the willingness (and eagerness) to act as Hollywood's personal police force, and the revolving door between DOJ lawyers and big entertainment lobbying and litigation firms -- it is still interesting to see Goodlatte less than happy about some aspect of the DOJ and Hollywood's close and personal relationship:

Tax dollars are also used at the department to help the entertainment industry. The FBI has its own Investigative Publicity and Public Affairs Unit, which is dedicated to helping Hollywood make movies and TV shows, including “The Kingdom,” “Fast and Furious 4,” “CSI,” “Numb3rs” and “Without a Trace.” This perk for Hollywood comes with an annual price tag of $1.5 million to the American taxpayer.

We actually agree that this is a sickening waste of taxpayer funds. And while it's less concerning than those things we mentioned above, it does serve to provide more reasons why the DOJ seems so eager to buddy up with Hollywood when it comes to law enforcement. They're star-chasing. Either way, kudos to Goodlatte for calling out this point, and hopefully it will also lead to him recognizing that the improper relationship between Hollywood and the DOJ goes well beyond making TV shows.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Senator Hatch's Plan To Give Hollywood The Key Seat At The Table For All Future Trade Negotiations

Mike Masnick — Fri, 5 Apr 2013 09:53:00 PDT

We recently wrote about Senator Orrin Hatch's plans to create a special new ambassador-level role within the USTR for someone focused solely on pushing copyright and patent maximalism around the globe. Hatch actually claimed that intellectual property issues don't get enough attention in international trade negotiations. This is ridiculous, as IP issues have actually been getting way too much attention -- so much so that the announcement of the bill came just days after a huge number of public interest groups put together a letter stating that we should take intellectual property out of international trade agreements entirely.

There was one oddity, of course: despite announcing the bill, and even having a bill number for it (S.660), Hatch did not immediately release the actual text of the bill he was proposing. That text is now out and the EFF has jumped in with a thorough analysis of why it's a disaster. Basically, as expected, this is not about more effective or reasonable stances on intellectual property in international trade agreements. No, the bill is fairly explicit that this is solely about helping out legacy companies push through what's in their own best interests, rather than the public's interest (which is what the Constitution says patents and copyrights are supposed to be about).

The new Chief “Intellectual Property" Negotiator would have to be approved by the Senate Finance Committee — of which Senator Hatch himself is the Ranking Member — and would be required to "be a vigorous advocate on behalf of United States innovation and intellectual property interests." That is to say, this representative wouldn't be there to represent the public interest, or the average Americans who are paying his or her salary.

Worse still, this proposal comes at the precise moment that the legacy content industry's trade agenda has shown itself to be most at odds with the public interest. In particular, opponents of an effective and permanent fix to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act's ban on phone-unlocking have cited language in recent trade agreements as a reason why any such legislation could be impossible — even though it's been described as simple "common sense" by the White House. Regardless of the truth of those opponents' claims, they slow the pace of change, even for extremely popular proposals. In other words, industry interests at the international level are trying to tie the hands of democratically elected legislators and dictate which laws are unacceptable.

Hollywood is already deeply, deeply embedded into the process of negotiating international trade agreements. It seems rather blatant to create a position whose role is pretty clearly designed solely to serve Hollywood's interests at the expense of the public. Senator Hatch is making it clear who he serves, and it's not the public. To be so explicit, and to state directly in the bill that the role of this job is to "advocate on behalf of... intellectual property interests" is incredible. Congress shouldn't be in the role of picking winners and losers, but Hatch has decided to write into the law that only one particular industry must win, even if it is obsolete.

As Upton Sinclair once famously wrote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." On this point, Hatch's proposal is clear: question the assumption that "vigorous" copyright and patent enforcement may be at odds with innovation, or that the public interest should supercede industry interest, and you're out of a job. Appointing a representative for the industries dedicated to "strong" copyright and patent laws all but guarantees that U.S. trade policy will reflect the industry-friendly regulations that representative is paid to promote, regardless of whether they are in the public interest.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

How Hollywood's Own Pirates Must Inform The Future Of Copyright

Peter Richman — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 08:47:06 PDT

A guest post from Peter Richman, a lawyer working in the motion picture industry in Los Angeles.

After last year's Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) debacle, Hollywood quietly retreated from the copyright debate to nurse its wounds and rethink strategy. Now, with recent activity at the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the introduction of the Copyright Alert System (CAS), the industry is poised to re-enter the conversation with a fresh plan. As MPAA Chairman Chris Dodd recently admitted to the National Press Club, "I'm looking for a new approach." But in the wake of SOPA, with opposition from Silicon Valley and little traction in D.C., is there anywhere left to look? As it turns out, Dodd's answers may be waiting in the unlikeliest of places -- Hollywood's own backyard.

Don't let the party line fool you -- if there's one thing the film and television industry can't live without, it's copyright infringement. Ask any assistant. Piracy in Hollywood is not just a quiet expectation, it's a stated requirement, and oftentimes a formal part of job training. When I started as a studio assistant, one of the first lessons I learned was how to rip an encrypted DVD. But it's not just the studios. From agencies to management firms to offices all over town, the volume of infringing material that trades hands on a daily basis makes Hollywood look like a Chinese flea market.

Let's take an example. An agent wants to introduce her new director client to the town. How best to make the introduction? Burn 40 copies of the client's debut feature and send them out to producers. Now one of the producers watches the film and sees potential for a big-budget remake. How does he pitch the project to financiers? Burn another dozen copies and send them out. Now one of the financiers watches the film and wants to gauge the opinion of a younger demographic. So he burns a few copies and sends them to his daughters at college. And just like that, 3 executives (and their assistants) have committed over 50 acts of copyright infringement.

Now multiply that by the daily routine of buying, selling, and trading movies, TV shows, books, and comics, and piracy in Hollywood starts to look less like a dirty secret and more like a cultural norm. But beyond the illegality and hypocrisy of the situation lies a much more salient point which is its sheer, bottom-line necessity. Because the truth is, there's no better alternative, and not even a close second. The quick pace of the industry requires a constant flow of content and infringement is the way to get it done. In Hollywood, piracy isn't a matter of legal rights; it's just business.

So where does that leave industry policy? While it's safe to assume the MPAA doesn't endorse the casual infringement that courses through the industry, the organization is working hard to distance itself from SOPA's one-size-fits-all approach to IP protection. From Dodd's consistent rhetoric of cooperation to the recent appointment of Diane Strahan as COO, the MPAA has made a clear push to partner with the technology industry in the distribution and protection of digital content. Some may question whether these efforts are genuine -- is Strahan's background with UltraViolet and digital rights management the right type of experience for the job? Nevertheless, assuming the best, while it's certainly refreshing to see the industry operate under a banner of collaboration, the real question is whether these efforts are sufficient to craft a new, comprehensive copyright regime.

Let's take a step back. In the larger scheme of finding Dodd's "new approach," there's one inescapable reality -- intellectual property protection is a matter of law. Business strategies and technological advances shape the means of consuming and distributing content, but without a legal foundation for support, they'll continue to operate on shaky ground. Because as we've seen, whenever a new wall goes up, a new tunnel isn't far behind. And there's the elephant in the room of the MPAA's newfound belief in tech-centric partnerships -- what happens when those tunnels are exposed? When the CAS is subverted? When Ultraviolet is hacked? How will the MPAA respond when the new salvos break and we're left with the same copyright legislation still woefully unsuited to the times?

Enter the Hollywood pirates. This is where industry infringement can move the needle by highlighting the absolute kookiness of our copyright laws. The MPAA professes to support our current policy in the name of the agents, executives, and filmmakers who undermine that policy every single day. So what gives? Does the MPAA ignore its industry's behavior and retreat to the comfort of the status quo? Or does it stick with its new message, swallow the bitter pill, and truly commit to a new approach?

The answer comes down to leadership, and if Chris Dodd's words are anything to go by, I'm inclined to hope for the latter. In every speech, press release, and policy paper, the MPAA makes sure to stress one common point -- job creation. The film and television industry creates jobs -- not just in Los Angeles and New York, but across all 50 states. Those jobs are what the MPAA says it's fighting for, and when the industry says stop pirating, those jobs and a respect for their craft are a reason many of us listen. There are a host of issues wrapped up in the copyright debate -- creative, business, legal, technological -- but when the dust settles, the industry spends nearly $15 million a year on lobbying to protect its own interests and that means the jobs of its constituents.

So when a core requirement of those very jobs is to pirate copyright material, it is incumbent on the MPAA leadership to take a close look at the industry it represents and figure out why. If Dodd takes that look, he'll see the reality on the ground -- that there are scenarios where an owner can't control all uses of her work. That speed, or convenience, or necessity may take priority over a legal claim. In short, that content "in the wild" can take on a life of its own.

And sometimes that's a good thing.

Piracy facilitates business in this industry - and that means jobs. Obviously, the physical copying of Hollywood mailrooms is a far cry from the digital and international piracy truly threatening the studios, but the takeaway remains the same -- copyright is complicated, content is malleable, and any honest attempt to institute a new intellectual property regime needs to be flexible enough to accommodate the times. It may mean carve-outs and exceptions, it may mean years of research, and it may mean a renewed commitment to the legislative process. No matter the path, it means that as Dodd continues looking for a new approach, instead of starting on Capitol Hill or in Silicon Valley, Hollywood might be the place to look after all.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Dear Hollywood: Hire Better Shills

Mike Masnick — Tue, 5 Mar 2013 11:02:00 PST

The Wall Street Journal recently ran a puff piece showing just how much work it is for NBC Universal to keep fighting all those darn pirates. It's basically a propaganda piece starring Rick "Save the Corn Farmers!" Cotton, NBC's general counsel who fights piracy the way that Captain Ahab chases Moby Dick. There are all sorts of problems with the piece, including the fact that it appears to believe that just because NBC is sending a lot more takedowns, it means that the "problem" is growing. Of course, as we were just discussing last week, when you look at the actual data, it makes a pretty clear case for anti-piracy efforts doing nothing to stop piracy, but investment in lots of innovative startups providing consumers what they want being the path to success. But, that's not Cotton's style.

Anyway, Janko Roettgers, over at PaidContent, wrote a nice post debunking much of the story, which quickly got three comments that all sounded vaguely similar in their poor use of the English language -- all of which tried to spin the story into "proof" that greater enforcement, such as the six strikes effort, was needed. Two of them make the laughable claim that each infringement represents "lost revenue." That's not how it works. Here's one of the three comments:

I’m glad the author is pointing out what is pretty clear to people who browse the internet everyday, piracy is still widespread and is evolving every year. Not even taking into account the huge piracy issues overseas, each of these takedown requests represents lost revenue for both views and time spend tracking and reporting this illegal behavior. NBC will and should continue to do this because legal viewing of their content is vital for their business. But the better long term solution is to create a system where NBC isn’t playing a carnival game just to receive the proper copyright benefits for the content they invest so much in.

Of course, the real way to get to that "long term solution" is for NBC to stop playing the carnival game of takedowns -- which do nothing to reduce infringement -- and focus on making sure its content is more widely available from more legitimate sources.

Either way, Janko quickly pointed out that, in a surprise to no one, it was pretty clear that the comments were from DC-based hired shills for the entertainment industry:

Kelseliz, AlexB and SteveFeather, I’m glad you all enjoyed my story. However, I’m not too surprised you all share the same point of view. After all, the three of you commented from the same Washington D.C.-based IP address, and one of the email addresses you left points to a D.C. lobbying firm that gets paid by major labels, rights holder groups and movie studios… but I’m sure that’s all just one big coincidence.

I know that it's common in our comments for people to accuse others of being "shills." Frankly, people jump to the shill label way too fast. While it is clear that some of our commenters do work in the industry, there are very few indications that they are paid to be propaganda spreaders, and I try to give them the benefit of the doubt (similarly, I would urge our commenters to stop throwing around the "shill" term so readily -- unless there's actual evidence, don't leap to unsupported conclusions). That said, in this case it seems pretty blatant that some entertainment industry "friends" from a DC lobbying group are now out trying to spread a very poorly argued concept that we somehow "need" six strikes. I'd suggest that the RIAA, MPAA and others might find better ways to spend their money.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Hollywood Accounting Strikes Again: Universal Sued For Screwing Over Its Own Sister Company

Mike Masnick — Mon, 4 Mar 2013 07:40:30 PST

We've discussed a few times the concept of Hollywood Accounting, which covers the various tricks of the trade pulled by the big studios to basically keep all the money for themselves, and guarantees that the movie is never, ever seen as "profitable," as that would mean they would need to share some of the profits. It appears that we may be about to see significantly more dirty laundry revealing some of that Hollywood Accounting in detail. And this time, it's extra special because it involves two companies who were corporate siblings for much of the time in dispute, as both were owned by Vivendi. However, StudioCanal is now suing Universal, claiming that Universal pulled accounting tricks to deny giving StudioCanal many, many millions of dollars that were owed.

For nearly ten years, Universal was delighted to accept StudioCanal's investment of hundreds of millions of dollars to offset Universal's financial obligations. During most of this period, StudioCanal and Universal were corporate siblings through common ownership by the French company Vivendi. The StudioCanal/Universal joint venture financed forty-four Working Title motion pictures, including About A Boy, Bill Elliot, Bridget Jones Diary, Frost/Nixon, Love Actually, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Pride And Prejudice, and United 93.

Last October, StudioCanal concluded an audit of the joint venture's development and overhead expenses, which Universal had managed. StudioCanal also concluded audits of Universal's distribution of several of the joint venture-produced motion pictures, in several (but hardly all) Universal-assigned territories and in several (but hardly all) media.

Those audits revealed that Universal was violating its fiduciary and contractual obligations to StudioCanal. For example, based on the audit reports, StudioCanal is informed and believes, and based thereon alleges that: (a) Universal intentionally hid from the partnership and kept for itself benefits it derived from off-balance sheet financing arrangements; (b) Universal failed to report, or reported negligible amounts of, ancillary revenues from sources such as music publishing, only to somehow "find" several million dollars in such revenues after receiving the audit reports; (c) Universal retained for itself financial benefits from vendors, thereby profiting for itself at the expense of its partners; (d) Universal double-charged the partnership for producing and other fees paid to Working Title without StudioCanal's knowledge or approval; and (e) Universal deducted millions of dollars in unsubstantiated expenses before reporting the results to its partner StudioCanal.

Of course, none of this should be remotely surprising. We've seen so many stories of movie financing shenanigans that these stories hardly sound unique. It's just that the lawsuit might make some of the actual details public, which would certainly be educational.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Who Sets Up An 'Innovation Forum' Hosted By A Guy Who Insists That Nothing Good Has Come From The Internet?

Mike Masnick — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 10:24:56 PST

A few days ago, I received a surprise invitation to an "innovation forum" in Los Angeles to be held at the beginning of February. I have other commitments, and on such short notice, I couldn't attend, but in looking over the program, I was a bit surprised to see who's behind it: I'm all for forums that discuss innovation -- and I think it's both helpful and important to have content folks and tech folks discussing innovation together (in fact, we've been doing exactly that ourselves). But... this still seems like a rather odd group of folks to lead an "innovation forum."

Universal Music's Lucian Grainge is the guy who, upon taking over that company, announced that CDs were a big part of its future. He's also the guy who has lobbied politicians directly for ISPs to spy on users and report to the labels if they thought someone was infringing.

Then there's Ari Emanuel, Hollywood's super agent, who (among other things) claims that Google engineers just need to invent a magic stop piracy button (he's sure they can do it). He also insists that cord cutting is a "myth." He's also clinging to the past, claiming that the movie business is all about DVDs (ignoring, of course, that the movie business once tried to kill the home movie business). Oh, and he was directly pressuring President Obama to put a three strikes plan in place.

And then there's Michael Lynton, the head of Sony Pictures. You may remember him from this lovely statement: "I'm a guy who doesn't see anything good having come from the internet. Period." Given a chance to provide a more nuanced explanation, he doubled down, insisting that fewer people will create content because of infringement (even as the data shows an explosion in new content). He's also claimed that piracy is killing the movie business, even as the box office continues to set new records every year.

Basically, if you had to pick three "innovators," I'd put these guys pretty close to the end of the line. All three of them have a history of not innovating, but pushing protectionist policies to hold back innovation and to promote legacy business models at the expense of innovators and innovation.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

One Year Later, SOPA/PIPA Supporters Still Completely Ignore The Public

Mike Masnick — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 11:12:22 PST

On this Internet Freedom Day, Declan McCullagh has a great post in which he reached out to the key politicians and lobbyists who supported SOPA and PIPA last year to see what they had to say one year later. The quotes are really incredible in their tone deafness to what happened. All of them -- smartly -- are about looking forward, rather than looking back, but none of them mention the public or doing what's best for the public. A bunch of them set up the false dichotomy of "Hollywood" vs. "Silicon Valley" as if this was all a giant commercial dispute. The others all speak of it in commercial terms. Incredibly, despite millions of individuals speaking up for our rights, not a single person interviewed by McCullagh seems to even think it's worth mentioning.

Let's take a look at some of the statements.

The problem of Internet piracy and the sale of counterfeit products online has not gone away. Senator Leahy continues to monitor law enforcement actions, significant developments in the courts and voluntary industry practices, and all those pieces will help determine what next steps are appropriate.
— spokeswoman for Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee and author of the Protect IP Act

Well, first problem: the continued conflation of internet copyright infringement with the sale of counterfeit products. These are two very, very different issues with very different causes that require very different approaches to dealing with them. Yet, Leahy and others have used this conflation to dangerous ends with bills like PIPA. What they do is take the widespread nature of copyright infringement and mix it with the very very very small, but still real, possibility of serious harm from some very specific cases of product counterfeiting (i.e., drugs and military equipment) -- and then try to create broad "solutions" that have massive unintended consequences impacting individual freedoms like freedom of speech. If both of those things are "problems" then lets have real discussions about them individually. The second you mix them together, you know that something bad will come out of it.

We can all agree about the importance of protecting American innovation from foreign thieves, but I think it is critical that all parties have a seat at the table and work together to solve important policy issues. As chairman of the Judiciary committee, I look forward to working with both the technology and content communities to find ways to protect America's competitive advantage while promoting internet freedom and growth.
— Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia), chairman of the House Judiciary committee and original sponsor of SOPA

First of all, you don't "steal" innovation. Innovation is a process. But, even beyond that, when he talks about "all parties" having "a seat at the table" and working together, notice that he doesn't mention the public at all. It's just "technology and content communities." That was a big part of the problem in the first place and it's disappointing that Goodlatte is still pushing this silly line. This was never "tech vs. content." This was about the public and forward-looking organizations who want to keep the internet free and open -- and legacy players (in both the content and tech industries, by the way) who were looking to lock down and control new systems in a weak attempt to protect increasingly obsolete business models. Bringing "tech" and "content" to the table and thinking those are the two sides in this fight isn't just mistaken, it gets the whole basis of this dispute wrong and will inevitably lead to more problems. Out of that comes bogus "solutions" like the six strikes agreements, which again completely left the public out in the cold.

Goodlatte is now the head of the House Judiciary Committee. He's always presented himself as a friend to Silicon Valley (and reminds us over and over and over again that his son works at Facebook). If he wants to do a better job than his predecessor, he needs to get past the artificial divides like "tech" vs. "content" and start looking at the real issues: the public and innovators vs. legacy players. Those cut across both lines. There are legacy tech players looking to hold back innovation, just as there are innovative, public-embracing content players.

Hollywood and Silicon Valley have more in common than most people realize. We share a commitment to innovation, to our consumers, and are working together to develop new platforms to make that content easily and legally accessible. Like the tech industry, the well-being of the film community is dependent on a vibrant First Amendment and we would never support any legislation that limits this fundamental right. We can all agree no one wins if everyone loses. Preserving freedom of speech and protecting intellectual property rights are not mutually exclusive efforts. Intellectual property protection is essential to creators and makers in both industries and we need to discuss it rationally. Let's use this anniversary to forge a path toward the future where the creative content and technology industries work together to develop meaningful solutions that ensure an Internet that works for everyone.
— Michael O'Leary, senior executive vice president for global policy and external affairs at the Motion Picture Association of America

We agree on the first half, but as is so often the case, O'Leary states the first half to basically try to avoid the obvious criticism of the second half. He states that the MPAA would never support legislation that limits the First Amendment, but he's done exactly that. Preserving freedom of speech and protecting "intellectual property" may not be mutually exclusive, but they absolutely can conflict, and frequently do conflict. The MPAA has refused to even acknowledge this possibility.

From there, the statement gets more and more problematic. We've seen over and over again that, while many creators and tech companies do use copyright, patents and trademarks, they are hardly "essential". Again, by simplifying this to "tech" vs. "content" it's easy for O'Leary to point to legacy tech companies who lean hard on copyright or patents, and then suggest that both "sides" want greater protectionism. But that's misleading. As discussed above, much of this is really about legacy players trying to block innovators who are looking to benefit the public. You can easily line up a bunch of legacy players on both the tech and content sides who will agree until the end of time about the values of protectionism -- just as you could line up true innovators in both areas who say that patents, copyright and trademark are of little value and are mostly a distraction.

It's a new day for a new music business and for the RIAA. For the better part of the last year, we have focused on being an evangelist for the dynamic, exciting legal online marketplace that now exists for fans. That will continue to be our priority in 2013. We earn more than half of our revenues from digital services and platforms. Not many creative industries can say that. Music helps drive social media trends and device sales. In fact, in 2012, the two top Google searches were music-related. Currently, 19 of the top 20 YouTube videos are music videos. And according to Twitter, seven of the top 10 Twitter accounts are held by artists.

What does this all tell us? Music is at the center of cultural and commercial phenomena. We are not stuck in the past but looking ahead at a promising, bright future teeming with new music options. Which is why we created, along with our online retailer partner NARM, WhyMusicMatters.com, a one-stop educational guide for digital music so fans can know where to get their favorite music in a variety of different ways. And we expect that this bright future will offer access to music in ways currently unimaginable but will perhaps seem commonplace a year from now.

Yes, piracy still continues to plague us and is a continuing threat to our business. But instead of looking to Congress for help, we are tuned in to the marketplace and actively seeking out voluntary partnerships with intermediaries like ISPs and advertisers to help curtail illegal downloading. Moving forward, we want to simplify music licensing to make it easier to develop music business models. We know that music models continue to evolve - access and listening models are becoming more prevalent and it's imperative we derive a fair market return for the music that is the foundation of those businesses. And as always, we'll continue to find new ways to promote the dynamic music marketplace.
— Mitch Glazier, senior executive vice president at the Recording Industry Association of America.

In typical Glazier fashion, those first two paragraphs are simply misdirection. Yes, of course music is important and a part of the cultural fabric. Duh. But notice that he's not actually concerned about ways to increase that through the better spreading of music, the ability to share and experience culture. No, he's solely focused on one thing: getting paid directly for each use of the song. And that's because the companies he represents -- the music labels -- were mostly built on that as a sole revenue stream. He's not talking about neat things like Kickstarter or Bandcamp that have allowed artists to "go direct" to fans, because that kind of stuff gets in the way.

It's good to see him committed to fixing licensing, because it's a massive problem, but I'll note that the RIAA was heavily involved in trying to block a bill last year that would have made music licensing more reasonable and affordable so that there would be new ways to distribute music legally.

Finally, the whole "voluntary" agreements thing is a bit of a red herring as well, as it seems as though the MPAA and RIAA are really focused on using these "voluntary" agreements to more or less get what they wanted in SOPA in the first place -- and that often means less due process and fewer fundamental rights and abilities for the public.

Protection of intellectual property and Internet freedom are critically important. The Chamber will work with members on both sides of the aisle to find an effective and commercially reasonable solution to address this ongoing problem.
— U.S. Chamber of Commerce spokeswoman

Not much to say on that, other than the US Chamber of Commerce was the leading lobbyist pushing for SOPA/PIPA last year. Their interpretation of "commercially reasonable solution" is highly suspect. Oh yeah, as is their interpretation of the "ongoing problem." The last time we looked, the US Chamber of Commerce was using flat-out bogus numbers and claims to support their description of "the problem." If you define "the problem" incorrectly, the "solution" is probably going to be an even bigger problem.

If you had asked me how I felt on January 18, 2012, about the prospects for protecting the creative work of artists and innovative businesses in the wake of the internet revolt against the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act, my response might have involved some muttering under my breath and a request for a stiff drink. In the coming week, many who seek to exploit the work of creators without their consent will be looking backwards and celebrating last year's defeat of those bills. So one might expect advocates for artists and creators to be in a dour mood again, but there is ample cause for optimism among members of the creative community...

At least some of the goals of the legislation have been achieved through increased private and government action since the introduction of the first version of the bills in 2010:

More credit card companies are engaging in best practices. In June 2011, major credit card companies and online payment processors (American Express, Discover, MasterCard, PayPal and Visa) reached an agreement on voluntary best practices to reduce sales of counterfeit and pirated goods by cutting off sites that distribute infringing goods from conducting financial transactions through these processors.
More advertisers are engaging in best practices. On May 3, 2012, the Association of National Advertisers and the American Association of Advertising Agencies issued a statement of best practices to address online piracy and counterfeiting.
Internet service providers, movie studios and record labels are collaborating on a Copyright Alert System. Under this system ISPs have agreed to notify users when their accounts appear to be used for illegal downloading activity and to impose real consequences on users who refuse to stop after receiving multiple notices.
Google finally started considering whether sites are rogue websites when doing search rankings. In August 2012, Google announced a change in its search algorithm that takes into account the number of "valid copyright removal notices" when determining the ranking of search results. In its announcement, Google indicated the goal was to help its users find legitimate sources of content more easily...
As more artists and creators stand with their peers and highlight what is really happening on the Internet, more people will listen and think twice. If there is a silver lining to the blackout, it has been the people who we have met this year: artists, reformed 'pirates' academics and lawmakers who want to begin meaningful conversations about promoting creativity and ensuring it finds a place in all of our lives.
— Sandra Aistars, executive director of the Copyright Alliance

This picks up on Mitch Glazier and Senator Leahy's comments on "voluntary" solutions and shows something important. Note that all of those bullet points in the "voluntary" category are the kinds of things that SOPA/PIPA sought to make mandatory. As incredibly vital as the fight against SOPA/PIPA was last year, it's also important to see that the industry (sometimes with government help) has continued to browbeat companies into more or less implementing the rules anyway. When those "voluntary" rules conflict with individual freedoms -- as is the case with certain gatekeepers (e.g., limited number of payment processors) -- we should be worried.

All in all, these comments show a consistent pattern. SOPA and PIPA might not come back as new legislation... but the issues are still very much with us. Those in power still don't understand the core issues, believing it's a commercial dispute between two mis-defined industries, while the focus on "voluntary" solutions seems to be attacking individual rights without people noticing.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Embedded In The Fiscal Cliff Deal: Hollywood Gets A Big Tax Break

Mike Masnick — Wed, 2 Jan 2013 08:35:39 PST

Last month, we wrote about some of the more ridiculous subsidies that Hollywood studios get these days, in which approximately $1.5 billion in taxpayer money goes straight to Hollywood studios in the US (and even more internationally). While the reasoning given for most of these programs is that they create jobs, a thorough study of the various programs showed that almost never happens. Of course, most of those programs have been state subsidies. The federal government also has its own subsidies for Hollywood -- and they just got renewed in the fiscal cliff deal, despite being scheduled to expire.

It's one of the head scratchers that some noted would take people by surprise given all of the talk about the "fiscal cliff." Here's what it looks like: Like many such things, this started out with good intentions, with the idea being to help small, independent films stay in the US. But that changed:

The original tax incentive applied to productions costing less than $15 million to make ($20 million in low-income areas). The 2008 extension applies to all films, up to a deduction of $15 million (or $20 million in low-income areas). The incentive is especially generous to television series; it applies to each TV episode.

Apparently, this sucker costs the American taxpayer about $150 million per year. As that link notes, "Disney's Gotta Eat." Yes, this was just one of many such "pork" efforts slipped into the fiscal cliff deal -- along with things like providing Goldman Sachs subsidies for its headquarters, special breaks for NASCAR, tax benefits for Puerto Rican Rum, and more -- so perhaps it's not that surprising. But, it's stories like this that explain why so few people trust Congress, and why they're fed up with "crony capitalism."

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Hollywood Studio IP Addresses Sharing Hollywood Movies Via BitTorrent

Mike Masnick — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 10:54:37 PST

The folks over at TorrentFreak teamed up with BitTorrent monitoring firm Scaneye to look and see if files being shared via BitTorrent happened to be coming from some IP addresses held by the big Hollywood studios... and they found what appears to be tons of Hollywood flicks shared from Hollywood studio IP addresses. Of course, plenty of caveats apply: it's possible that these are super ham-fisted honeypots for copyright trolling, in which they're recording the IP addresses of downloaders. It's possible that the system is wrong. It's possible that the IP address information is wrong. But... it's also possible that some employees at these studios are (whether on purpose or not) using BitTorrent and sharing films -- sometimes films from other studios. For example, they found a Paramount Pictures IP address sharing Happy Feet, which is a Warner Bros. film. In the end, there could be any number of reasons they were able to find these results, but given that when the shoe is on the other foot, the studios and other copyright holders seem to insist that a single IP address is proof positive of liability, doesn't it seem reasonable to question the studios about this bit of evidence as well?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Administration's Shortlist For Ambassador Appointments Includes Four Hollywood Donors

Tim Cushing — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 17:30:00 PST

It's time for Obama to appoint a few ambassadors and the short list appears to be stuffed with exactly the sort of people that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce would wholeheartedly approve. The CoC's desire to rewrite other nations' IP laws through slanted "free trade agreements" or the odious TPP would likely gain a few allies willing to soften up the opposition before the main push.

The Hollywood Reporter has taken a look at Obama's donor list and named a few loyalists who might be rewarded for their election-run largesse with an ambassadorial appointment. And, no surprise, many of the names have close ties with Hollywood.

Among the Barack Obama loyalists under consideration for ambassadorial appointments are Los Angeles-based White House decorator Michael Smith, 47; Hollywood philanthropist and television producer Colleen Bell, 45; industry money manager John Emerson, 57; and Tennis Channel chief Ken Solomon, 49. And the Westside L.A. dinner-party circuit has started buzzing with conversations about who else might be in the mix this time around.

According to sources, many of the candidates were among 100 guests invited to the White House in early December for an East Room dinner at which Obama and the first lady thanked longtime fundraisers and Democratic activists for their support. Among the Hollywood-connected contingent at the event were Emerson; Solomon; Wintour; Smith and his partner, HBO executive James Costos; Bell and her husband, soap opera producer Bradley Bell; political and philanthropic consultant Noah Mamet; Harvey Weinstein; and Hollywood political consultant Andy Spahn.

In addition to the title (which appointees get to hold onto for life), there's a bit of prestige and a salary of $150,000-180,000 attached to the job. In order to repay an industry for its nearly unwavering support, the administration may choose a few from its rank, both as a thank-you gesture and to ensure the "proper" mindset when approaching other countries about their "weak" IP laws.

This, of course, is part of the "revolving door" process. If an appointee serves well in this position, it gets them a foot in the political door, which could lead to a political career... which would then lead to a post-career chairperson position or the like with the entertainment industry... which could lead to a lobbying position... and so on. The entertainment industries know this political game well, and Hollywood has been more active than most in the process, especially over the past several years.

Some will claim that these appointments have nothing to do with rewarding donors, like this unnamed person:

According to an administration insider: "There is no single thing that qualifies you to be an ambassador, but they have one thing in common: They have all earned the trust and respect of the president. He isn't going to choose someone just because they've raised $500,000. He has to know them."

Of course, it's not all about the money. It's also about the industry itself. The entertainment industry has been a strong supporter of the Obama administration and has not been very shy about expressing its appreciation for the government's willingness to cater to its every need. It also hasn't held back when it thinks it has been wronged, as MPAA CEO Chris Dodd's post-SOPA-failure threat to withhold ~~bribes~~ contributions if the administration failed to hold up its end of the bargain.

So, if these candidates end up with ambassadorships, the posts will lay somewhere between thank you cards and olive branches, letting the entertainment industry know that the administration still wants its ~~money~~ support, and that it's willing to send the industry's people out to win hearts and minds abroad.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Creators: Kill The Hobbit To Save Regular Earth, And Win!

Leigh Beadon — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 15:59:21 PST

Last week, we wrote about an article by Joe Karaganis discussing the huge tax subsidies and political concessions wrested from the New Zealand government by Warner Bros. in order to film The Hobbit in the country. The editorial was entitled Kill The Hobbit Subsidies To Save Regular Earth, which inspired an editorial cartoon that Bloomberg View attached to it, which in turn has inspired Joe to launch a contest for creative interpretations of The Hobbit as an allegory for the situation.

First, I confess I hadn't fully thought through how to map the various heroes and villains of ‘Kill the Hobbit’ back onto ‘The Hobbit.’ But on reflection, this drawing seems a bit off. In my version of the story, the hobbit is the villain, stealing gold from the people of New Zealand (I guess to take back to Hollywoodshire?) This would make Smaug the dragon the public, and Smaug’s giant pile of gold the commonwealth (that’s why it’s so large). Smaug should be casting the Expecto Patronum (EP) spell to banish the Hobbit, not the other way around.

But hey, people may see it differently, and their right to publish those perspectives on our common culture is part of what’s at stake in ‘Kill the Hobbit to Save Regular Earth’ (pivoting here to New Zealand’s support for the IP-enforcement-on-steroids Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement).

So with that in mind, I am happy to announce the ‘Kill the Hobbit to Save Regular Earth’ Initiative– KH2SREI for short (pronounced Kisstory, after the ancient Elven admonition to beware Hobbits bringing gifts).

I invite you to flesh out the Kisstory allegory in whatever direction makes most sense to you. If you send me pictures, I will publish them here (as long as they are not obscene or gratuitously nasty). I will even try to talk the good people at Bloomberg View into running them. And if we get enough submissions we will have a public vote to award copies of the “semi-epic” Media Piracy in Emerging Economies to the two most worthy entries (plus whatever other awards we can accumulate in the meantime.)

As for those "other awards", we're throwing a Techdirt t-shirt into the mix. So if you're a creator, whatever your medium, we hope you'll submit something! Head on over to the contest page for more details and some "extra points" guidelines, including a "Special award for the best pro-Hobbit, pro TPPA, pro Warner Bros art, if we get any" because hey, political cartoons can cut both ways.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

State Subsidies To Hollywood: Almost Every Program Has Been A Dismal Failure, Costing Taxpayers

Mike Masnick — Thu, 6 Dec 2012 14:08:18 PST

So we've had a couple stories recently about the immense failures of taxpayers being forced to shovel money to Hollywood studios via various local "incentive" programs to try to convince the studios to film their movies in various locations. The studios, with the help of the MPAA, of course, continually argue that these programs create jobs, jobs, jobs. However, as the NY Times investigation pointed out, those "jobs" really don't seem to be appearing. Instead, film crews ship in a crew from LA or NY and hire just a couple of locals for low-level jobs... which last a few months and that's it. The impact on the local economy appears to be minimal. And, basically, the studios just keep asking for more money playing different locations off of one another.

Adding more data to this mess (which has grown massively in just the last decade), Adam Thierer points to a survey of studies looking at how successful those programs have been in various states... and found that nearly all of them have flopped. The various studies show that the return for such subsidies tends to be less than par (i.e., a loss) in nearly every state studied. There were only two exceptions: New York and New Mexico -- and both of those studies were done at the behest of the local film offices. With New Mexico, in particular, a separate, independent study found the exact opposite to be true, and found that the subsidy resulted in significant costs to the economy.

“Based on fanciful estimates of economic activity and tax revenue, states are investing in movie production projects with small returns and taking unnecessary risks with taxpayer dollars,” noted a 2010 Tax Foundation study. “In return, they attract mostly temporary jobs that are often transplanted from other states.” Studies of specific state incentive programs confirm this finding, almost universally finding miniscule revenue gains for every dollar of film subsidies offered. The adjoining table, derived from a meta-survey of film incentives studies by the Center on Budget & Policy Priorities, illustrates how much revenue was lost per net job created by film tax credits as well as how little revenue each program generated for every dollar of state revenues awarded.

State Net Revenue Foregone per Net Job Created by Film Tax Credit Revenue Gained from Feedback Effects per Dollar of Film Subsidy Claimed($)

Massachusetts $88,000 $0.16

Connecticut $33,400 $0.07

Louisiana $16,100 $0.13

Louisiana $14,100 $0.18

Michigan $44,561 $0.11

New Mexico $13,400 $0.14

New Mexico ($400) $1.50

Pennsylvania $13,000 $0.24

New York ($2,000) $1.90

Arizona $23,676 $0.28

The only two studies that have revealed positive results for such film incentive programs were both conducted by Ernst and Young on behalf of the New York and New Mexico film offices. All others have shown consistent negative returns.

In case it's not clear, that last column shows the return per dollar spent on subsidies. If it's less than a dollar, it means that taxpayer money is being lost and it's not benefiting the local economy. If you're wondering why there's such a big difference in those two New Mexico studies, the full report goes into detail of just how weak the methodology was for the NM study claiming economic benefit. It involved massively overestimating the tourism benefits, contrary to actual data, and then double counting much of the supposed "benefit." For example, the study claims that a significant "benefit" is the salaries provided to producers and directors... but those are rarely local residents:

As discussed above, such highly skilled talent tends to be imported from other states, especially California and New York. Consequently, these individuals likely spent a much smaller percentage of their compensation in New Mexico than resident employees did. While non-resident employees do spend money on food, housing, meals, and other items while working in New Mexico, those expenses are covered by allowances, which did qualify for the film subsidy and, therefore, whose economic impact had already been taken into account. E&Y’s apparent assumption that highly paid non-resident employees spent most of their salaries in New Mexico, on top of their living allowances, amounts to double counting.

Basically, nearly all of the evidence shows that these programs harm the economy, rather than help it. But they do seem to help studio bosses.

So why are states (and countries) so eager to hand over taxpayer subsidies to Hollywood?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Republican Study Committee Dumps Derek Khanna, Author Of Copyright Reform Brief, After Members Complain

Mike Masnick — Thu, 6 Dec 2012 08:56:52 PST

We'd heard this last week, but it's now been confirmed that, due to significant lobbying pressure by the entertainment industry and (even more so) the US Chamber of Commerce, Derek Khanna, the Republican Study Committee staffer who penned the first thoughtful policy brief on copyright reform to come out of US government offices in a long time, has been let go from his job. There was expected to be some staff turnover in January, as the new RSC leadership took place, but several Republican members of Congress explicitly asked incoming RSC boss Steve Scalise not to retain Khanna in response to the copyright brief.

If this is how the "new" GOP expects to interest young people, it seems to be going about it exactly backwards. Khanna wrote a thought-provoking paper that expressed views that many people believe to be true -- in a voice that is rarely heard in Congress. And, for that, he got fired. While the RSC and various copyright maximalists have been insisting that the paper was not properly vetted, we've had it confirmed that this is simply not true. The paper went through the standard procedure of any RSC brief, and was properly reviewed and vetted. It's just that once lobbyists hit the phones to various members of Congress (friends of Hollywood, mainly), pressure was put on the RSC to retract the document, and to jettison Khanna.

This is not going to interest very many young people, when a thoughtful critique of policy that finally raises issues that concern many leads to the staffer in question getting the axe. Khanna, for his part, has been valiantly continuing the conversation via his Twitter feed, but various lobbyists are now ensuring that elected officials can safely stick their fingers back in their ears.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Surprise: Two Of Hollywood's Favorite Representatives, Howard Berman & Mary Bono Mack, Defeated

Mike Masnick — Wed, 7 Nov 2012 09:42:31 PST

While people who just got into Congressional issues during the SOPA fight may have thought that Rep. Lamar Smith was Hollywood's favorite representative, that honor much more likely fell on Rep. Howard Berman -- who, for many years was Hollywood's guy in Congress (somewhat literally, as parts of Hollywood were covered by his district). There was, of course, no chance that Lamar Smith was going to lose his re-election campaign, as there were no serious challengers, but Berman was definitely a different story. Due to redistricting, his district was merged with another longterm Congressional Rep., Brad Sherman -- and the two had to face off. It turns out that Berman lost and Sherman won. Sherman, not surprisingly, also tends to support the entertainment industry's position on a lot of things, but never quite to the level of Berman over the years.

Another longterm favorite of the entertainment industry, Rep. Mary Bono Mack, who ushered in the ridiculous Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension and has been a regular supporter of the entertainment industry's crazier plans, has lost out in a very tight race.

As for Smith, he won his election to no one's surprise -- but the margin was actually a lot lower than I expected. He took it with 60% of the vote. In 2008 he had 80% of the vote and in 2010, 69% of the vote. It may not have been enough to tip the election, but perhaps young people in his district voted for internet freedom.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

The Proof That Movies Won't Get Made Any More Is That... More Movies Are Being Made Today

Mike Masnick — Thu, 1 Nov 2012 05:34:40 PDT

The Hollywood Reporter recently had an article which is pretty much all doom and gloom about the movie industry, based on a conference at USC about the "Entertainment Law and Business." Seeing as it's an LA event, it's not surprising that much of the story took the typical Hollywood line about how terrible things are these days. But what's amazing is that it seems to treat the success stories as if they're failures. It quotes YouTube star Sam Tsui, who points out that "you can't become complacent as a content creator -- you need to do new, exciting stuff" and turns that into the complaint that artists have to spend all their time running "to keep in the same place." Most of us call that "a job."

But the really stunning bit is that right after three paragraphs moaning about the state of the indie film business today, there's this:

Even when the indy news is good, it isn’t: Wilson said she saw more films on offer at the Cannes Film Market in May than she’d seen in a decade. That bountiful crop translates to an oversupply of product, a point Zimmer emphasized when he noted that there are only three key buyers of arthouse product remaining, Focus, Fox Searchlight and The Weinstein Company.

Er. Wait. That is good news. More films at Cannes than in a decade? Seems like lots of people are still making movies, and still have tremendous incentive to create, even if some of the old guard haven't quite figured out the business model just yet. Even more hilarious is the "explanation" for this "oversupply":

Panelists spoke ominously of films getting made "that shouldn't have gotten made."

Remember, these are basically the same people who are complaining all the time that movies won't get made if they don't get extra special protections. These are the same folks who say that the film business is collapsing and it's all a disaster. And then... when the evidence to the contrary is shown -- with more movies showing up at Cannes than any year in a decade -- that too is suddenly incorporated into the "disaster narrative" even though it goes directly against their claims. So, apparently, the movie business is collapsing and movies won't get made any more, and the evidence of this is that a ton of new movies got made last year.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Hollywood Still Resisting The Idea That Cheaper, Better Films Is The Way To Beat TV

Mike Masnick — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 09:30:21 PDT

Over the weekend, the NY Times had an article about how the movie industry is struggling to remain relevant as a bunch of "culturally relevant" content seems to be moving to TV, where some of the top hit series have taken their place in the cultural landscape the way movies used to. Apparently "film people" are particularly ticked off that Seth MacFarlane will host the Oscars this year since his biggest claim to fame is from TV, rather than movies (even though his movie Ted recently became the highest grossing R-rated comedy ever). Of course, what's ignored in the article is that the movie industry isn't really suffering that much economically.

What did strike me as interesting, however, is that the article highlights a key point that many of us have been making. The industry really only has itself to blame for continuing to churn out expensive remakes and sequels, rather than investing in quality -- the continued quest for "$100 million films" rather than figuring out how to make good movies for less money. The article makes that point, referring to critic David Denby:

“They feel puzzled,” said the critic David Denby. “They’re a little baffled.” He was referring to those who have applauded his argument — made both in a New Republic essay “Has Hollywood Murdered the Movies?” and in a new book, “Do the Movies Have a Future?” — that the enduring strength of film will depend on whether studios return to modestly budgeted but culturally powerful movies.
“If they don’t build their own future, they’re digging their own graves,” Mr. Denby said.

This seems like such common sense advice... and yet, it's not what we see. We see Hollywood being more timid, but rarely actually translating that timidity into focusing on more products with lower budgets and compelling storytelling. It's all just about rebooting old stories with bigger special effects.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

For All The Talk From Hollywood About Making Sure People Get Paid, Why Doesn't It Pay Interns?

Mike Masnick — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 09:19:02 PDT

We hear the refrain from the entertainment industry all the time, about how they are fighting against modern technology because without it, people don't get paid, and how unfair is that? The RIAA's Cary Sherman keeps talking about all those lost jobs (even though his math doesn't add up), and talking about all the people the movie industry "employs" (exaggerated by an order of magnitude) has become a key part of the MPAA boss Chris Dodd's stump speech.

So, isn't it interesting that the entertainment industry may be facing a potentially big class action problem... for not paying interns? Apparently, it's quite common for entertainment industry heavyweights to take on unpaid interns, usually eager kids hoping to "break into" the business. But, federal law (and the key state laws) are pretty explicit in noting that "free" internships are almost always illegal for for-profit companies.

Now, to be clear, I actually don't think free internships -- entered into willingly -- should be illegal (just as I don't think there's anything wrong with people volunteering to do stuff for free). But if Hollywood is running around whining about getting more people paid... it seems pretty hypocritical to then not pay people working for you.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Hollywood Accounting: How A $19 Million Movie Makes $150 Million... And Still Isn't Profitable

Mike Masnick — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 08:44:14 PDT

We've written about the wonders of Hollywood accounting before. It's a series of tricks pulled by Hollywood studios to make most of their movies look unprofitable, even when they're making a ton of money. The details can be complex, but a simplified version is that every studio sets up a new "shell" company for each movie -- and that company is specifically designed to lose money. The studio gives that company the production budget (the number you usually see) and then also agrees to pay for marketing and related expenses above and beyond that. Both of those numbers represent (mostly) actual cash outlays from the studio and are reasonable to count as expenses. Then comes the sneaky part: on top of all that, the studios charge the "movie company" a series of fees for other questionable things. Many of these fees involve no real direct expense for the studio, but basically pile a huge expense onto the income statement and ensure that the studio keeps getting all of the movie income -- rather than having to share the profits with key participants -- long after the movie would be considered profitable under regular accounting rules.

Here's a hypothetical example of how this could work in practice, using round numbers just to make the point (these aren't directly accurate numbers, but the concept is). A studio funds A Movie with a production budget of $100 million. It sets up AMovieCo Inc. and gives it the production budget money. The studio then spends another $50 million on marketing and puts that down as an expense as well -- though, with some of the big studios, some of this money involves paying itself for advertising on its own properties. Still, even if we assume that's real money spent, you might think that AMovieCo now needs to make back $150 million to be profitable. But... the studio (which, again, controls AMovieCo completely) then tacks onto all of that, say, a $250 million "distribution fee." Now, while there may be some money spent on actually distributing the film, the number is almost completely bogus, and much higher than the actual expense for the studio. Very little actual money needs to change hands here -- it's just a fee on the books (a fee they are effectively charging to themselves). And it's not just "distribution" but a variety of additional charges. On top of that, the studio may then charge "interest" on that money, even though it's really just lending money to itself. What it all means is that rather than becoming profitable at ~$150 million (the actual money spent), AMovieCo now needs to earn over $400 million before anyone with a cut of the profits sees an additional dime from the movie, thanks to completely imaginary accounting entries on the books.

Over on Kevin Smith's (really, really, fascinating) Smoviemakers podcast, Smith recently interviewed filmmaker Scott Derrickson, who has made a name for himself in the horror film world. The whole interview is fantastic and well worth listening to, starting with part one. However, right at the beginning of part two, Derrickson reveals how he effectively got shafted on one of his most well known films, The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

Scott Derrickson (SD): It made $75 [million] domestic and $150 [million] worldwide...

Kevin Smith (KS): Nice. You're a true filmmaker, you know exactly what your movies made everywhere...

SD: Hellllll yeah.

KS: It's a badge of honor.

SD: And to all the young filmmakers listening, I had 5% of the net of that movie. That was in my contract. And it cost $19 million. And it made $150 million worldwide. There's no net. That's how movie math works.

KS: So even you were not above being screwed by the system.

SD: I told my attorney, the next time you're negotiating my net profit for a movie, ask for a ham sandwich instead.

KS: 'Cause you'll get something.

SD: 'Cause I'll get something [laughter]

Basically, it's the same story as always. The net doesn't exist... but because of the extra massive "fees" the studio tacks on, it makes back many times its money before it even has to go anywhere near paying the writer and director to whom it promised 5%.

Related to this, it comes as no surprise that later in the podcast, Derrickson talks about his recognition that the real future in movies is being able to make them much more cheaply, and outside of studio control. He talks about being influenced by the movie Monsters, which was made for a few hundred thousand dollars, but which he notes would have probably cost a studio $50 million to make. At that point, he realized that to survive in this business, he had to be able to learn to make movies much more cheaply:

SD: The other thing that was happening at that time, was I was watching the business change dramatically.... The movie that was a paradigm shift for me was the sci-fi movie Monsters. Have you seen that movie?

KS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SD: It's this great sci-fi movie where this guy, for $800,000 and his little barebones crew, with a small digital camera, made a movie that would have cost Warner Bros. $50 million to make.... He was one of the first of this new generation who grew up with his laptop. He did like 250 visual effects in the movie on his own laptop. And he made a $50 million movie for $800,000. I saw that happening. I saw what Jason Blum was doing with the Paranormal Activity movies and I said, you know what, the business is changing and you gotta evolve or die. And so part of my interest in doing a movie so small is that I want to be a part of what's happening right now. And I want to be a front runner. I want to be good at it.

They then discuss his new movie, Sinister, which had a $3 million budget (which shocks Smith, who insists it looks like a movie that's much more expensive). Of course, in many ways, this goes back to the discussion we've been having here for many, many years -- responding to the old school movie studio guys, who demand that we answer how could they possibly continue to make $200 million movies. One answer, which we've pointed out time and time again, is that the question is the wrong one. Any business should be asking how it can make its product profitably -- not how it can keep its costs high. No one in the tech industry asks "how can we continue to make $5,000 computers?" They ask "how can we make profitable computers" and one answer is to make the product more efficiently. It's great to see filmmakers like Derrickson not just get that, but then celebrate what that means for him artistically and financially as well.

SD: I want what matters to matter to me.... Knowing that I had final cut in the movie, knowing that's what it was about, I've never had more fun or been more relaxed while making a movie, because I just wasn't worried about how it would do. I'm making this movie because when it's done I'm gonna see it.... I think a lot of filmmakers go through the experience.... you have that difficult studio experience.... you come out of that experience, and it's not just that 'if you die on a swords, it's gonna be my sword,' it's that thing that 'I'm going to make something that's 100% pure. I'm just going to make something 100% pure...'

In the last few years we've been hearing and seeing similar things from a number of filmmakers, recognizing that perhaps the challenges that the movie industry has faced have been self-imposed in large degrees. The industry got used to doing things one way and have had trouble adapting. But, of course, the actual artists and creators figure this stuff out and they adapt... even while the big studios still play their accounting tricks. And have no fear, with a movie this cheaply made, Derrickson notes that if the movie does okay, it could make him "rich" based on the way he structured the deal this time around. He teamed up with Blumhouse Productions (who backed Paranormal Activity) and while they're using a traditional distributor (which anyone still has to do for a real theatrical release), the economics this time around are quite different than for a film where a major MPAA studio is playing the usual accounting tricks.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Hollywood Star Rosario Dawson Speaks Out Against Hollywood's 'Six Strikes' Plan

Mike Masnick — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 08:36:30 PDT

To hear the MPAA and RIAA tell the story, they represent "the entertainment world." They like to pretend that they represent all of the actual content creators, but more and more people are realizing the truth: they represent the legacy gatekeepers, who have often done more to screw over the actual artists than to help them. So, as we get closer and closer to the silly "six strikes" plan that the MPAA and RIAA worked out with ISPs, it's good to see that some of those they pretend to represent are speaking out against the plan. Actress Rosario Dawson has taken to Twitter to speak out against the plan:

ISPs caving to copyright holders- could shut off your Internet if you're accused of piracy...! bit.ly/VRNLFa via @demandprogress
— Rosario Dawson (@rosariodawson) October 11, 2012

If you can't read that, it says:

ISPs caving to copyright holders- could shut off your Internet if you're accused of piracy...!

And then it links to DemandProgress' petition to the ISPs telling them not to support the six strikes plans or subscribers will take their business elsewhere. Of course, for too many customers, "elsewhere" isn't an option, thanks to a lack of a truly competitive market. Either way, as we saw with the SOPA fight, more and more artists -- musicians, actors, writers, etc. -- are making it clear that the RIAA & MPAA don't represent them, and they know part of these crazy plans that are being pushed in their names. Kudos to Dawson for speaking up.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Hollywood Wines & Dines Kiwi Politicians To Get Them To Support Hollywood's Copyright Insanity In TPP

Mike Masnick — Tue, 9 Oct 2012 19:47:53 PDT

The whole Megaupload/Dotcom mess seems to have really woken up New Zealand to just how much damage an overzealous interpretation of copyright laws can do. New Zealand has already passed a ridiculous three strikes law that US diplomats offered to write for them -- but it seems that the whole Megaupload case has many in the country rethinking their government's support for Hollywood's interpretation of copyright.

And that actually represents a big problem for Hollywood, because New Zealand has been a key force in pushing back on Hollywood's plans for copyright expansionism in the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations. But Hollywood (and the USTR) need New Zealand to come on board, so they've moved into aggressive lobbying mode. Prime Minister John Key, fresh off of apologizing to Kim Dotcom, showed up in Hollywood recently to be wined and dined by studio execs:

The movie industry's main motives for wining, dining and flattering the Prime Minister were not about Dotcom or subsidies, although it has an obvious interest in both.

The end-goal is to get Key's Government to drop its opposition to aggressive United States demands in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) negotiations. New Zealand will host the next round of TPPA talks in Auckland in early December.

And... at the same time he was being catered to by studio bosses, counterparts in New Zealand were aggressively lobbying other officials there:

While John Key was in Los Angeles, top US intellectual property negotiators were in Wellington lobbying for their latest proposals.

The article linked above, published in the New Zealand Herald, properly points out that what Hollywood is asking for of New Zealand "is too high a price" to pay, just to keep Hollywood happy, and to bring big movie productions to New Zealand. It will impact too many other businesses and "stifle the growing local industry." Hopefully, politicians in New Zealand understand that keeping Hollywood happy seems to result in pretty damaging situations for people in New Zealand and continues to push back against such overreach.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Chris Dodd: Hollywood's Most Predictable Dissembler

Mike Masnick — Wed, 3 Oct 2012 09:49:20 PDT

There were actually a few different interesting events happening in San Francisco last night, all of which were tempting, but it was impossible not to head over to The Commonwealth Club to hear former Senator and current MPAA boss Chris Dodd being interviewed by former SF mayor and current California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom. Given pretty much everything we've written about Dodd during his short tenure at the MPAA, I could have guesssed most of what he was going to say... and, indeed, there were few surprises.

As in the past, he stuck to his favorite themes since the defeat of SOPA, pretending to extend an olive branch to Silicon Valley, to talk about how we all need to "work together," but ignoring that Silicon Valley has tried repeatedly to help Hollywood innovate, and every time we're called thieves for doing so. Or, worse, Hollywood starts demanding ever increasing fees, making it impossible to build a profitable business, or innovators are told to make the product worse to slow the inevitable move into the future. What Dodd really means is not that he wants Silicon Valley to help Hollywood innovate, but rather wants Silicon Valley to figure out ways to prop up the obsolete parts of Hollywood's business models with technological forms of protectionism.

As per usual, Dodd also tried to completely ignore the fact that there were many, many times during the crafting of SOPA and PIPA that the tech industry asked for a seat at the table, and Dodd's MPAA rejected it. He ignored the fact that, during the height of the debate, when Senator Feinstein tried to broker a meeting between top tech companies and Hollywood studios, it was the MPAA studios who rejected the meeting. When asked directly (after the on-stage interview) about the failures of the MPAA itself to actually work with the tech industry, Dodd more or less tried to pass it off on past MPAA leadership, despite much of it happening under his watch.

And, of course, Dodd continues to focus on the tech industry as being who he needed to talk to... and not the public. This, honestly, is the biggest problem and misconception with Dodd's approach to all of this. He's still viewing it as a fight between the tech industry and the movie industry. He still hasn't figured out that it was really the users of technology -- i.e., the public at large -- who form the key party here. While speaking at the Commonwealth Club is one way to "reach out" (though, it didn't seem like there were very many tech industry folks there), that's not the people he needs to reach (I would guess that the majority of the audience were AARP members). What Dodd could have done is actually met with the public. He could have gone on Reddit and done an AMA. Even the President of the US can do that -- why not Chris Dodd?

Perhaps it's because Dodd and the MPAA know that the folks on Reddit would actually fact check his bogus statements in real time.

Because if there's one other common thread through Dodd's speeches since the whole SOPA/PIPA fight blew up, it's that he often has a rather loose relationship with something called "facts." And last night was no exception. He, once again, argued that the movie industry employs 2.1 million people. As the Congressional Research Service has shown, the actual number is 374,000 -- oh, and it's growing, except possibly at theaters, but that's got everything to do with consolidation, not copyright issues.

Dodd's bizarre move of the night was to use The Hurt Locker as his key example of why we need greater copyright protectionism. He argued that the movie was a financial disaster, because of piracy. Unfortunately, the evidence says... no freaking way. The movie had a production budget of $15 million. Yet, it made $17 million in the domestic box office, $33 million in the international box office, and then another $34 million on DVD. And that doesn't count any additional licensing, such as for Netflix streaming or TV broadcast. So, between box office and DVD rentals, we're talking a take of $84 million on a $15 million production budget. Another report claims that the movie was rented 8 million times, and was purchased on pay-per-view or VOD another 3 million times by mid-2010 (and probably plenty more since then). So there's likely to be a few more millions to pile on top there.

Now, that doesn't include the marketing budget, but the same report that details the rentals also highlights that the studio behind The Hurt Locker, Summit Entertainment, didn't spend that much on marketing the flick. In fact, people in the article complain that "Summit is not spending any money." Even if we go crazy and assume that Summit spent twice the production budget on marketing (so another $30 million in marketing the film), it seems pretty clear that the movie did quite well. To argue that it was in trouble due to piracy is simply hogwash.

Even worse, Dodd conveniently left out that the producers of The Hurt Locker sued tens of thousands of fans, and called any fans who criticized this bizarre move morons and thieves. He also ignored that among those that the producers sued was a dead man. So far, this strategy of suing fans has not met with legal success. Either way, you'd think such things would be relevant, but Dodd didn't mention them at all. In fact, quite bizarrely, he later claimed that one of the things the movie industry learned from the failures of the recording industry was that suing "the kids" who are file sharing is "misguided."

And yet his one shining example of a movie decimated by piracy (even though it wasn't) is a film whose producers directly sued over 20,000 of "the kids" and continues to do so? Really?

Perhaps this is why Chris Dodd doesn't want to have an open discussion with the public. The public might call him out (and, if you were wondering, people could only submit written questions at the event, rather than getting to stand up and ask).

Again, when Dodd was asked about The Innocence of Muslims film, after first distancing himself from it and noting that it was not an MPAA production, Dodd delivered a stirring defense of free speech, directly arguing that he "gets uncomfortable" with the idea of the movie industry "becoming a cop on speech." That's kind of funny, because so many of his efforts are about forcing others -- mainly the tech and broadband industries -- to "become cops" on expression.

There were a couple points at which Dodd went into his current favorite stump speech. Newsom asked him a question about whether Hollywood was "all red carpets." That had to have been fed to him by Dodd, who has been using the line about how Hollywood is not all red carpets for months now. He then does his "pull on the heartstrings" bit, about how the makeup artist and "the guy behind the microphone" are all suffering because of piracy -- but he fails to explain how. Again, the industry is making more films than ever before, and they're actually doing pretty damn well. He also ignores the real reason why those people might be suffering: because they're union employees, and the big MPAA studios have been trying to do non-union productions or move filming offshore to avoid having to pay American salaries.

Finally, he did the politician thing where he made statements that he'll ignore later or weasel out of at some point. He talked about how he would "do anything and everything... to protect the vitality of the internet." Yet, it was under his watch, and via direct MPAA suggestion and later pressure, that both SOPA and PIPA included DNS blocking which would have undermined the internet in a big, bad way. In fact, from what we've heard, even when Congress talked about dropping DNS blocking early on, it was Dodd's MPAA who was adamant that it had to stay in. Later, he also claimed that SOPA and PIPA were dead and that they needed a completely different approach. When asked directly afterwards, he insisted that he didn't think there would be any more legislation... but, of course, he left out the international trade forums that the MPAA has its fingers deeply in. Things like ACTA and TPP are heavily influenced by the MPAA, and while ACTA is on life support, the TPP is still very much alive, and may be significantly worse. So, don't think for a second that the MPAA isn't still pushing legislative and regulatory "solutions" to its perceived problem.

All in all, there was nothing too surprising, but it all highlights, yet again, how Chris Dodd is absolutely the wrong person for the job. There was no visionary talk. There was no recognition of a truly new approach. There was no recognition of the public's concerns. There was no realization that the talk needs to be with the public, not with top execs from a few big tech companies. In other words, he's still doing business as usual, when what the MPAA really needs is a visionary who will actually recognize that the path forward is learning to embrace, not fear, innovation, and working with the public to understand what they want and to try to fulfill that. The MPAA needs a visionary right now, and that's not Chris Dodd.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

The DVD Is Dying. Hollywood's Plan? Do Nothing And Cede Ground To File Sharing

Tim Cushing — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 07:06:39 PDT

David Pogue, NY Times columnist and known copyright infringer, has a new post up over at the Scientific American discussing piracy; more specifically, Hollywood's insistence on driving people to piracy with its lack of digital offerings and a distribution system that depends heavily on artificial limitations.

The first issue plaguing Hollywood's thinking? The DVD is dead and no one in control has realized it. The future lies in streaming movies, not plastic discs. It took the recording industry several years to realize the fact that its customers were not nearly as attached to its physical products as it was. Add to that the fact that many people prize convenience over ownership and it's clear that trying to steer people toward purchasing all of their entertainment isn't the way to go.

Netflix's CEO says, “We expect DVD subscribers to decline steadily every quarter, forever.” The latest laptops don't even come with DVD slots. So where are film enthusiasts suppose to rent their flicks? Online, of course.

Streaming movies offers instant gratification: no waiting, no driving—plus great portability: you can watch on gadgets too small for a DVD drive, like phones, tablets and superthin laptops.

The demand is already there and, as the technology catches up, it will only increase. You can take your music anywhere but most DVDs are still relegated to DVD players. Yes, there are workarounds, but when consumers are looking for the least amount of friction, streaming a movie easily trumps burning off a copy or ripping it to the hard drive. If they can't get the films they want in the format they want, they'll either skip it entirely, find a "competing" provider or look for something else readily available through streaming services.

Streaming services or online rentals, if implemented correctly, would give the motion picture industry some steady, if not increasing income well into the future. But it's completely disinterested in implementing these services in a realistic fashion, instead choosing to double-up on artificial scarcity.

For all of the apparent convenience of renting a movie via the Web, there are a surprising number of drawbacks. For example, when you rent the digital version, you often have only 24 hours to finish watching it, which makes no sense. Do these companies really expect us to rent the same movie again tomorrow night if we can't finish it tonight? In the DVD days, a Blockbuster rental was three days. Why should online rentals be any different?

Yeah. Exactly. Why? Why 24 hours? Netflix, your main competition in this arena, will let you keep the DVD(s) all the way up until they actually shut down the DVD service, only this time for real. As for their streaming "rentals?" Whatever's available stays available for repeated viewings all the way up until it's yanked from the lineup, usually by one of you (points accusingly at the Motion Picture Industry).

Speaking of holes in the lineup, when are you (again with the pointing) going to stop doing this sort of thing?

[P]erhaps most important, there's the availability problem. New movies aren't available online until months after they are finished in the theaters, thanks to the “windowing” system—a long-established obligation that makes each movie available, say, first to hotels, then to pay-per-view systems, then to HBO and, only after that, to you for online rental.

Worse, some movies never become available. Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jurassic Park, A Beautiful Mind, Bridget Jones's Diary, Saving Private Ryan, Meet the Fockers, and so on, are not available to rent from the major online distributors.

How's that "plan" working out for you, Hollywood? Keeping those pirates at bay with your sometime/later/still later/possibly never windowing? To be honest, I don't think you really care. Once all the distribution lines have been wrung dry of any cash, it's time to retire back to the boardroom and blame filesharing for any numbers that seem slightly weak. Blame them if you must, but who's screwing who at this point?

Of the 10 most pirated movies of 2011, guess how many of them are available to rent online, as I write this in midsummer 2012? Zero. That's right: Hollywood is actually encouraging the very practice they claim to be fighting (with new laws, for example).

Look, I don't want to tell you how to do your jobs, but sweet something of somewhere, someone needs to be offering a little guidance. You don't offer rentals of movies people actually want. You do offer rentals of movies that everyone's sick of after their multiple appearances in various windows. Other movies you just flat out don't offer at all. And yet, it's piracy that's keeping you from "breaking even." I would assume someone has put a bit a thought into this self-inflicted predicament. Pogue finds something akin to an explanation browsing around Disney's website:

“Unfortunately, it is not possible to release or have all our titles in the market at once.” Oh, okay. So they're not available because they're not available.

"Not possible" being PR code for "not until we're absolutely forced to, but we will fight this every step of the way." But why all the fighting? It didn't work for the recording industry. It won't work for the movie industry. The television industry seems to have weathered the disruption slightly better, but still expends a lot of effort locking up currently running shows and shutting down live streams that would actually GAIN them additional viewers to sell to advertisers.

Pogue has appended a list entitled "5 Ways Hollywood Can Stop Digging Its Own Grave" to his post and they're all common sense (at least to the "layperson"). The largest Hollywood-wielded shovel should have disappeared long ago: the release window. Related: "When it's buyable, it should be rentable."

This is the way things work these days and it's not just something that went into effect over the last 72 hours. If pirates have your stuff several months before you're planning on releasing it to paying customers, how many paying customers do you expect to have left once you deign them worthy of throwing money at your product?

Final word from Pogue:

Listen up, Hollywood: Nobody ever went out of business offering a good product for sale at a reasonable price with an eye toward pleasing the customer. You should try it some time.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Hollywood Made Him Do It: Two More Theories On The Aurora Shooter

Tim Cushing — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 12:26:07 PDT

As is the case with any inexplicable tragedy, a million pundits and armchair psychoanalysts have emerged to "explain" what would turn a person into someone who would enter a darkened theater and methodically open fire on a crowd. Tim Geigner ran down a few of these earlier, and so far the blame lies at the combined feet of opponents of bullying, opponents of Judeo-Christian lifestyles, Star Trek, video games, Occupy Wall Street, and the easy availability of weapons and ammo.

Two editorials have been added to the mix, pointing the finger at violent movies in general, and even more peculiarly, at Warner Brothers Studios itself. Michael Cieply's editorial for the New York Times never comes out and states explicitly that Warner Brothers is responsible for the Aurora shooter's actions, but its opening anecdote seems to think that such a connection should be made.

For decades Warner’s films have frequently put the studio in the middle of a perpetual and unresolved debate over violence in the cinema and in real life. That debate has been revived after the deadly shootings last Friday in an Aurora, Colo., movie theater at an opening night showing of “The Dark Knight Rises,” from Warner.

While the box-office success of “Dark Knight” seems assured — the opening weekend produced $160 million in North American sales — Warner executives have decided to delay the planned Sept. 7 release of another film, “Gangster Squad,” according to a person who was briefed on the studio’s plans on Tuesday and spoke anonymously because the change has not been officially announced. The film is a hard-edged cinematic portrayal of the police war on mobsters in mid-20th-century Los Angeles.

Trailers for the movie, which showed gunmen firing into a movie theater, were pulled after the shooting last week. Executives have further debated whether to go so far as to reshoot portions of “Gangster Squad,” according to published reports. Warner executives declined through a spokeswoman to discuss their plan or the studio’s posture in general toward screen violence.

To go forward with “Gangster Squad” as is might trigger revulsion at scenes that seem to recall the movie-theater slaughter in Colorado. But to change it substantially or delay it for long (no new date has been set) might seem to acknowledge an otherwise debatable link between movie violence and real events, breathing life into a discussion that is perhaps more familiar at Warner than at any of Hollywood’s major studios.

It's quite a stretch to contend that an unreleased movie somehow "acknowledges" the "link" between movie violence and actual violence. Unless James Holmes was part of the "Gangster Squad" crew, this is simply unfortunate timing, much like the terrorism scenes that caused several films to be delayed following the 9/11 attacks.

Branching out from this dubious start, Cieply retells the story of Warner Brothers' fascination with violent movies, stopping to discuss copycat rapists/killers "inspired" by "A Clockwork Orange," "Natural Born Killers" spawning imitation acts of violence and a few others before winding up at "The Matrix," tenuously tied to defendants trying to cop an insanity plea by claiming they were trying to "escape from the matrix."

A few "copycat killers" may emerge for the Aurora shooting or from the movies themselves, an unpreventable byproduct of evil people with limited imagination. In many cases, the copycat aspect is simply a convenient scapegoat for the killers to use themselves: "The devil made me do it."

After this history lesson, Cieply just lets himself out the back door without drawing any real conclusion:

Three decades earlier, however, a Newsweek writer, in a review that derided the “lethal ugliness” of “Dirty Harry,” also registered the futility of worrying about the bad effects of a movie. Good-hearted pictures, the magazine reasoned, rarely seemed to do much good. “There is little chance that this right-wing fantasy will change things where decades of humanist films have failed,” the review said.

True enough. If positive, non-violent films aren't resulting in copycat altruism, it's just as likely that even the most dark-hearted film won't have much of an impact.

Peter Bogdanovich, director of "The Last Picture Show" and "Paper Moon," has an op-ed of sorts as well over at The Hollywood Reporter laying the blame for the Aurora shooting at the feet of violent films. Bogdanovich probably has a more relevant take on the shootings considering his film, "Targets," ends with a sniper attack at a drive-in, as well as having lived through a very violent experience when Dorothy Stratten was killed by her estranged husband.

Unfortunately, this piece (credited with "As told to Gregg Kilday) isn't it. He sounds completely dismayed and genuinely angered by the shooting, but emotional reactions rarely make for the best logical arguments.

Violence on the screen has increased tenfold. It's almost pornographic. In fact, it is pornographic. Video games are violent, too. It's all out of control. I can see where it would drive somebody crazy.

I'm in the minority, but I don't like comic book movies. They're not my cup of tea. What happened to pictures like How Green Was My Valley or even From Here to Eternity? They're not making those kind of movies anymore. They are either making tentpole pictures based on comic books or specialty pictures that you pray someone will go see.

The fact that these tentpole movies are all violent comic book movies doesn't speak well for our society.

Today, there' a general numbing of the audience. There's too much murder and killing. You make people insensitive by showing it all the time. The body count in pictures is huge. It numbs the audience into thinking it's not so terrible. Back in the '70s, I asked Orson Welles what he thought was happening to pictures, and he said, "We're brutalizing the audience. We're going to end up like the Roman circus, live at the Coliseum." The respect for human life seems to be eroding.

Orson Welles make a good, if inadvertent point: compared to the actual violence that was used for entertainment in the past, today's movie violence is a very pale imitation. And the level of violence in major motion pictures is nothing compared to the violence displayed in theaters elsewhere in the world. If movie violence were truly driving people to this sort of behavior, one would expect Japan and Korea to be epicenters of mass killing. What Cieply lists (and Bogdanovich echoes) is truly kids' stuff compared to the imagery conjured up by Takashi Miike and Park Chan-Wook.

The problem with all of these theories is that the variables are common to the entirety of the US population. If these are all creating killers, we should be suffering from an epidemic of violence rather than dealing with isolated tragedies. And the issue with violent movies is nothing new either. Concern about the level of violence and portrayal of villains and anti-heroes goes all the way to the Hays Code. Read this stipulation from the Code and see if you don't find that echoed by the implicit statements in Cieply's and Bodanovich's editorials:

Theft, robbery, safe-cracking, and dynamiting of trains, mines, buildings, etc. (having in mind the effect which a too-detailed description of these may have upon the moron)

These editorials argue that homogenization or repression (or at least a return to the "good old days") is preferable to the current cinema's taste for violence in light of the Aurora shooting. The deplorable actions of a single individual somehow makes the case that the general public should be denied access to portrayals of violence, because "there but for the grace of God, go..." well, not these authors anyway, but certainly everyone else. Whether its movies, video games or music, the "answer" to violent tragedies is always the same: the public cannot be trusted with questionable material. This sort of punditry is the worst kind. It willingly throws personal responsibility out the window in favor of mass scale condescension.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

State	Net Revenue Foregone per Net Job Created by Film Tax Credit	Revenue Gained from Feedback Effects per Dollar of Film Subsidy Claimed($)
Massachusetts	$88,000	$0.16
Connecticut	$33,400	$0.07
Louisiana	$16,100	$0.13
Louisiana	$14,100	$0.18
Michigan	$44,561	$0.11
New Mexico	$13,400	$0.14
New Mexico	($400)	$1.50
Pennsylvania	$13,000	$0.24
New York	($2,000)	$1.90
Arizona	$23,676	$0.28