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Killing the Internet to save Hollywood
- athompson 15y agoThe title suggests that Hollywood is in trouble which isn't the case at all.
- intellection 15y agoHollywood suggests it is? Title lessens abstraction of their War On *.
- bigohms 15y agoNyPost is killing content delivery and monetization by not making that article accessible through Safari on iOS.
- torontos 15y agolooks fine on ios safari to me
- v21 15y agoYeah, just shows me a full page ad for the iPad app, and tells me their content is now exclusive to their app. Would be interested to know what causes it to vary... But yes, a touch of irony there.
- forensic 15y agoSafari is gonna need support for spoofing headers, all these companies want to get their foot in the door by having you use their app
- bigohms 15y agoDownload Terra, which lets you spoof headers as FF or whatever you want.
- m_eiman 15y agoDisable Javascript while loading the page and the iPad check wont run. You'd think they'd do the check server-side, but apparently not.
- extension 15y agoThey are killing the web too.
- SnowLprd 15y ago"Save Hollywood," eh? As if SOPA will actually achieve any of its purported goals? As if there's any saving Hollywood needs except from itself? I'm all for encouraging folks to fight SOPA, but perhaps we could save our up-votes for articles with more accurate titles.
- sbov 15y agoTitle aside, I thought it was a good article that summarized the problems with SOPA, from multiple angles, for the largely disinterested populace out there.
- jjcm 15y agoA better title might be, "Killing the internet to preserve the old methods of distribution so segments of the movie industry dont have to adapt." Hollywood is trying to fight against an enemy that they don't understand. They think censoring piracy will stop it, when it's obvious that it wont. Gabe Newell said it best - “In general, we think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem".
- redmethod 15y agoAnd meanwhile, people like Louis C.K. are making quite a bit by selling DRM free content on their own. Hopefully, more content providers will learn to adapt to the internet sooner than later.
- pstuart 15y agoHollywood said the VCR would kill them. Then they said the DVD would kill them. They don't have the best track record in this regard...
- ra 15y agoJust like home taping killed music
- bad_user 15y agoTheir arguments are also pretty inconsistent. They complain about piracy, yet Avatar, a movie released in the age of piracy, is the highest-grossing movie of all time. They aren't afraid of loses from piracy, instead they are afraid that they'll have to start producing quality content instead of dumb movies like Jeniffer's Body, Jack and Jill, Season of the Witch, Red Riding Hood and Shark Night.
- yeswecan 15y agoI would hardly call Jennifer's Body a dumb movie.
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- Osiris 15y agoI'm not sure that Hollywood is, in fact, dying. The evidence[1][2] suggests that Hollywood has been making more money in the 2000's than ever before. 1. http://the-numbers.com/movies/records/ http://the-numbers.com/movies/records/ 2. http://www.thewrap.com/movies/article/2010-box-office-more-record-revenue-fewer-tickets-sold-19915 http://www.thewrap.com/movies/article/2010-box-office-more-r... They are having record breaking revenue years in 2009 and 2010. It's not like they are suffering the downtown that the newspaper industry has and they don't have nearly the legal protections that Hollywood has and while they are struggling, they are adapting. If Hollywood were to take a new approach to entertainment, who's to say they wouldn't be having even higher revenue than they are having now? It just seems like a fix for a problem that doesn't exist.
- jballanc 15y agoSo, I've been thinking. I know the whole "don't attribute to malice..." line, but isn't it possible that SOPA is an effort by big media to control all online content? Is there anything in the proposed laws that mandates rights-holders actively pursue violators? (Trademark law does have this requirement.) Could SOPA be used as a tool to weaken content-driven tech startups, until they can either be shut down or scooped up at bargain basement prices by a studio? Would it be completely inconceivable that an industry guilty of payola (multiple times over) might collude to use SOPA only target web properties not owned by an RIAA/MPAA member? Hell, I don't even think collusion would be required. All it would take is a massive cross-licensing deal covering online media. Then BAM! You're logging on to Sony Facebook or sharing a link on Twitter by TimeWarner. What if the true targets of SOPA aren't the pirates, but rather the small tech startups that have been making so much noise about how harmful passage would be to their business model. The small tech startups that aren't so small anymore and, day by day, are looking more and more like the future of content. I begin to wonder if the studios are not so ignorant of technology trends as we might hope, but rather see a way to ensure that our computer screens are controlled by the same groups that control our television and movie theater screens...
- WayneDB 15y agoHanlon's razor (aka "cock-up before conspiracy") is nothing more than an opinion. Whether we should regard selfishness as malice or not is beside the point, but it is quite clear to me that people in general often act out of selfishness!! This is so clear to me, that I am convinced that Hanlon's razor is utter hogwash (because I do actually think that selfishness and malice are simply one and the same and furthermore when someone "screws up" it's often because they were being selfish with regards to the use of their attention (e.g. texting while driving)).
- thisismyname 15y agoThis isn't about saving Hollywood... Its about stopping the 99.99%'s of the populations first amendment platform - the internet. Its about stopping sites like Wikileaks and blogs that speak their opinions about the gov and politicians. thats my $.02
- code_duck 15y agoGood article. When I'm agreeing with someone from the Cato institute, you know things are serious.
- dhughes 15y agoAs a Canadian I worry more about US media corporations influencing Canadian politicians which leads to laws being passed. Bev Oda being the the example of an MP that money can buy. It's bad enough to have DMCA, HDCP, copy protection up the yin yang but when some suit in LA influences what laws are passed in a foreign land I say that's grounds for extradition of the executive and treason charges (or whatever the term would be) for the Canadian politician. If the situation was reversed I'm sure people in the US would freak out if a music executive from Canada bribed a US congressman to help get laws passed.
- imgabe 15y agoI wish journalists would stop referring to SOPA as the "bill to stop piracy" or the "bill to save Hollywood". Even this article admits that SOPA is not going to do a thing to stop piracy. It's easily circumvented. The only thing it's going to accomplish is killing the Internet. There's no upside to it.
- Tripatimishra 15y agoActually everywhere in the world the big problem is the law makers of every country does not fully understand what law they are going to make. They just follow their party stand to save their political position.