14 ms·

Hollywood invests as much as $100M in a single movie, probably no hair style has involved such effort. Perhaps if someone did invest $100M developing one hairst

by tlb 15y ago

Hollywood invests as much as $100M in a single movie, probably no hair style has involved such effort. Perhaps if someone did invest $100M developing one hairstyle, they would try hard to protect it.

davidw 15y ago
Voting down this point of view is pretty sad. While the content guys have certainly behaved badly, and sure don't seem to be creative in searching for solutions, you can't deny that there is a huge problem for them if we went to the other extreme of having everything free everywhere for everyone. Huge investments in films like that would completely cease to exist. No amount of hand waving will paper over that fact, and he's just stating it, not advocating SOPA or anything like that.
- jamesbritt 15y ago
  *...if we went to the other extreme of having everything free everywhere for everyone." My interest in this is wondering about areas where people innovate but rarely expect any sort of copy protection. Few people are going to invest the budget of a Hollywood movie into a hair style. Is this because they know there is no practical way to stop people from copying hair styles? Suppose the was never any way to copy protect [films|recordings|whatever]. How would this change things? Is (or was) the difficulty of copying things an aberration, a quirk of a relatively brief period of technology? Should we tell the MPAA and RIAA, hey, you guys just happen to have lucked out for a few decades? If someone invested several million dollars in a hair style, and then tried to get laws to prevent people from copying it because copying breaks their business model they'd be mocked for basing a business model on an untenable condition. At what point do we do the same for people creating digital goods?
  - davidw 15y ago
    You write "you guys" as if the public has not benefited from the music and film industries over the years.
    - davidw 15y ago
      If you've ever seen a movie or listened to music, it stands to reason that you've benefited in some way from those industries, no? Come on people, engage your brains, this isn't reddit. IP is a complex, multi-faceted issue without any easy answers.
      - rbanffy 15y ago
        Most of the reasoning about piracy is based on the idea of content consumption. Content is not consumed in the sense that consuming it doesn't make it vanish. If I listen to a recording, you can listen to it, either at the same time, or later, when convenient. The economics of content production and distribution changed. It's no longer difficult to move, replicate or make content from it. When refrigerators threatened ice factories we didn't outlaw them. How much does long-distance telephony cost to airlines? How much more business would they have if, in order to talk to your factory manager in Shenzhen, you had to be there? How much business have hotels lost thanks to it? Luckily for us, they didn't have the power to outlaw long distance telephony. This is exactly what's happening with MPAA, RIAA and others - they are afraid they will have to change their businesses and will fight to prevent it.
        davidw 15y ago
        You're conflating things that are useful with things that have some kind of inherent enjoyment value for people. For instance, if someone spends a year writing a book, and gets paid nothing for it, I guess we could just shrug our shoulders, but I think the world would be worse off for it. > This is exactly what's happening with MPAA, RIAA and others - they are afraid they will have to change their businesses and will fight to prevent it. I'm not in favor of what they are proposing by any means, but do think there's a balance to be struck somewhere. What Amazon is doing with the Kindle isn't bad: it's very quick and easy to get eBooks across a whole range of devices. It's not perfect, but things like that and iTunes seem to be a good direction.
        rbanffy 15y ago
- nitrogen 15y ago
  Huge investments in films like that would completely cease to exist. No amount of hand waving will paper over that fact... Since we've never experimented with a total abolition of copyright, the idea that investment in film would cease cannot be called a "fact." I think the overall idea is that, if we reduced the scope of or eliminated copyright, other incentive systems would emerge to allow passionate creators to continue to practice their art. There's probably another sentiment that Hollywood could do everything it does now with smaller budgets if they were subject to more natural market forces. I don't think most people arguing for drastic copyright reform are arguing for a complete destruction of the arts (though many on that side of the debate probably wouldn't miss most of what Hollywood puts out). Personally, I think it's reasonable to expect that movies that were made in my childhood can be reinterpreted freely well before my death, just as Shakespeare and Dickens can be reinterpreted now. Allowing slightly aged works to fall out of copyright shouldn't disincentivize future creation.
  - davidw 15y ago
    If you read carefully, I said "huge investments", not that investment at all would cease to exist. What are some of the "other incentive systems" that would allow you to sink 100 million dollars into a film and hope to recover them? The only one to spring to mind would be in-film product placement and advertising, although to tell the truth I think there's already enough of that. > Personally, I think it's reasonable to expect that movies that were made in my childhood can be reinterpreted freely well before my death, just as Shakespeare and Dickens can be reinterpreted now. Allowing slightly aged works to fall out of copyright shouldn't disincentivize future creation. I agree with that 100%. Copyright is too far tilted in favor of producers right now. My point is merely that it is a balance.
    - rbanffy 15y ago
      > What are some of the "other incentive systems" that would allow you to sink 100 million dollars into a film and hope to recover them? Maybe we are approaching the end of the $100M movie era. Maybe they will no longer be able to spend $100M in special effects and famous faces and be required (gulp) to deliver compelling stories.
rbanffy 15y ago
> Hollywood invests as much as $100M in a single movie I seriously doubt any single copy deprives movie producers of $100M. Most probably, they haven't even lost a sale - if someone finds $10 too expensive and opts for a free copy, they wouldn't buy the DVD either.
- VMG 15y ago
  > I seriously doubt any single copy deprives movie producers of $100M. No, but creating the first copy costs that much. Creating the second copy costs a few cents.

by tlb 15y ago

Hollywood invests as much as $100M in a single movie, probably no hair style has involved such effort. Perhaps if someone did invest $100M developing one hairstyle, they would try hard to protect it.

davidw 15y ago

Voting down this point of view is pretty sad. While the content guys have certainly behaved badly, and sure don't seem to be creative in searching for solutions, you can't deny that there is a huge problem for them if we went to the other extreme of having everything free everywhere for everyone. Huge investments in films like that would completely cease to exist. No amount of hand waving will paper over that fact, and he's just stating it, not advocating SOPA or anything like that.

jamesbritt 15y ago
*...if we went to the other extreme of having everything free everywhere for everyone." My interest in this is wondering about areas where people innovate but rarely expect any sort of copy protection. Few people are going to invest the budget of a Hollywood movie into a hair style. Is this because they know there is no practical way to stop people from copying hair styles? Suppose the was never any way to copy protect [films|recordings|whatever]. How would this change things? Is (or was) the difficulty of copying things an aberration, a quirk of a relatively brief period of technology? Should we tell the MPAA and RIAA, hey, you guys just happen to have lucked out for a few decades? If someone invested several million dollars in a hair style, and then tried to get laws to prevent people from copying it because copying breaks their business model they'd be mocked for basing a business model on an untenable condition. At what point do we do the same for people creating digital goods?
- davidw 15y ago
  You write "you guys" as if the public has not benefited from the music and film industries over the years.
  - davidw 15y ago
    If you've ever seen a movie or listened to music, it stands to reason that you've benefited in some way from those industries, no? Come on people, engage your brains, this isn't reddit. IP is a complex, multi-faceted issue without any easy answers.
    - rbanffy 15y ago
      Most of the reasoning about piracy is based on the idea of content consumption. Content is not consumed in the sense that consuming it doesn't make it vanish. If I listen to a recording, you can listen to it, either at the same time, or later, when convenient. The economics of content production and distribution changed. It's no longer difficult to move, replicate or make content from it. When refrigerators threatened ice factories we didn't outlaw them. How much does long-distance telephony cost to airlines? How much more business would they have if, in order to talk to your factory manager in Shenzhen, you had to be there? How much business have hotels lost thanks to it? Luckily for us, they didn't have the power to outlaw long distance telephony. This is exactly what's happening with MPAA, RIAA and others - they are afraid they will have to change their businesses and will fight to prevent it.
      - davidw 15y ago
        You're conflating things that are useful with things that have some kind of inherent enjoyment value for people. For instance, if someone spends a year writing a book, and gets paid nothing for it, I guess we could just shrug our shoulders, but I think the world would be worse off for it. > This is exactly what's happening with MPAA, RIAA and others - they are afraid they will have to change their businesses and will fight to prevent it. I'm not in favor of what they are proposing by any means, but do think there's a balance to be struck somewhere. What Amazon is doing with the Kindle isn't bad: it's very quick and easy to get eBooks across a whole range of devices. It's not perfect, but things like that and iTunes seem to be a good direction.
        rbanffy 15y ago
nitrogen 15y ago
Huge investments in films like that would completely cease to exist. No amount of hand waving will paper over that fact... Since we've never experimented with a total abolition of copyright, the idea that investment in film would cease cannot be called a "fact." I think the overall idea is that, if we reduced the scope of or eliminated copyright, other incentive systems would emerge to allow passionate creators to continue to practice their art. There's probably another sentiment that Hollywood could do everything it does now with smaller budgets if they were subject to more natural market forces. I don't think most people arguing for drastic copyright reform are arguing for a complete destruction of the arts (though many on that side of the debate probably wouldn't miss most of what Hollywood puts out). Personally, I think it's reasonable to expect that movies that were made in my childhood can be reinterpreted freely well before my death, just as Shakespeare and Dickens can be reinterpreted now. Allowing slightly aged works to fall out of copyright shouldn't disincentivize future creation.
- davidw 15y ago
  If you read carefully, I said "huge investments", not that investment at all would cease to exist. What are some of the "other incentive systems" that would allow you to sink 100 million dollars into a film and hope to recover them? The only one to spring to mind would be in-film product placement and advertising, although to tell the truth I think there's already enough of that. > Personally, I think it's reasonable to expect that movies that were made in my childhood can be reinterpreted freely well before my death, just as Shakespeare and Dickens can be reinterpreted now. Allowing slightly aged works to fall out of copyright shouldn't disincentivize future creation. I agree with that 100%. Copyright is too far tilted in favor of producers right now. My point is merely that it is a balance.
  - rbanffy 15y ago
    > What are some of the "other incentive systems" that would allow you to sink 100 million dollars into a film and hope to recover them? Maybe we are approaching the end of the $100M movie era. Maybe they will no longer be able to spend $100M in special effects and famous faces and be required (gulp) to deliver compelling stories.

rbanffy 15y ago

> Hollywood invests as much as $100M in a single movie I seriously doubt any single copy deprives movie producers of $100M. Most probably, they haven't even lost a sale - if someone finds $10 too expensive and opts for a free copy, they wouldn't buy the DVD either.

VMG 15y ago
> I seriously doubt any single copy deprives movie producers of $100M. No, but creating the first copy costs that much. Creating the second copy costs a few cents.