Entertainment Industry Again Says Everyone Else Must Protect Its Business Model

from the please,-please-help-us dept

The Progress & Freedom Foundation is hosting its annual tech policy conference in Aspen, and given that it’s PFF we’re talking about, it’s chock full of entertainment industry folks without any input from anyone who questions the basic premise that the entertainment industry puts forth: that content creators need to charge for each individual copy of their works. Thus, it should come as no surprise that a panel of entertainment industry lobbyists fell into the usual routine of insisting that everyone else — mainly ISPs — be responsible for protecting the entertainment industry’s business model.

The reasoning seems to be the same as always: the entertainment industry itself has found it too difficult to come up with a business model (even as those who have escaped the traditional bounds of the industry seem to be figuring it out on their own), and thus others simply must be responsible for propping up the business model. If you put them all on a panel together, of course, they’re going to whine and complain that others have to fix their business model for them — but that doesn’t mean it’s true. There are plenty of business models that they could embrace on their own, requiring no assistance from others. That they chose not to is their own mistake — not the fault of companies in a totally separate industry.

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Companies: progress and freedom foundation

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Comments on “Entertainment Industry Again Says Everyone Else Must Protect Its Business Model”

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11 Comments
Jon L (profile) says:

Never has been an industry of innovation

I’ve been a part of the film & tv industry for over 10 years, and the innovation and change we’ve had have always come from outside our business.

Even technical advances like non-linear editing were fought tooth and nail for years (and in some cases, is STILL being fought), and again, were not advances created or moved ahead by business executives.

In terms of using technology to increase worker productivity, it amazes me how far behind and how much change is fought from top to bottom. While we use computers in offices to write things and send emails, we still have very poorly coordinated systems for managing productions and budgets, much less systems that give us new creative tools (and even if we had them, you’d be hard pressed to get people to USE them).

There’s a lot of change coming, and it will take a long, long time for it to sink in or be changed from within by the new generations of people creating content with their own rules.

For a business driven by lots of folks who consider themselves “visionaries” it’s amazing how short-sighted much of Hollywood really is.

miket says:

umchecked money and power

I’ve been in the mobile entertainment industry for nearly 6 years now and I can only say this:

They will keep blaming everyone for changing their industry. ISPs were their first target and easiest. They then went for content developers like us until they smacked into Steve Jobs. They played with that for awhile but then, once realised Apple wasn’t kow-towing, decided to start their own music sites. That didn’t go too well. Now they’re back to the same bullshit blaming ISPs. Money and power. That’s all they know. Look where it got the Superpower today?

Jim says:

Government should protect businesses :-)

Government should protect businesses. To prevent shoplifting the government should pass a law requiring patrons entering any retail establishment to be strip searched and everything they have be inventoried and then strip searched again on exit and any additional items beyond what their inventory list says they carried in must have a receipt. Another alternative would be force every patron to strip and leave their clothing and other items in a secure locker at the store entrance which they can retrieve when they are done shopping. They will of course have to undergo a cavity search upon exit.

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