5 ms·
1. Hollywood is dwarfed by Big Internet companies. Big Internet is more important to the economy of both the U.S. and the world than Hollywood is. 2. The MP
by beloch 15y ago
1. Hollywood is dwarfed by Big Internet companies. Big Internet is more important to the economy of both the U.S. and the world than Hollywood is.
2. The MPAA declared war on Big Internet with SOPA.
What's really going on is that, thanks to that SOPA wake-up call, companies like Google and Comcast now have lobbyists on the ground in Washington greasing palms and promising campaign contributions, and they can offer a lot more cash than the MPAA can. The MPAA has grown accustomed to being able to buy politicians but now they're being outbid.
- nkassis 15y agoUnless I'm totally confused I would think comcast would be on the side of SOPA type legislation. I mean there interest aligns more with content companies than with Tech companies.
- flyt 15y agoComcast is a content company. They own NBC Universal, among other broadcast and content production companies.
- Steko 15y agoThat's where the argument falls apart. One third of big internet is pro-SOPA and another third is mostly indifferent.
- bad_user 15y agoNot all thirds are created equal.
- narrator 15y agoThe MPAA represents the interests of companies that are owned by media conglomerates that control the mainstream news media. They strongly influence who wins elections. Don't underestimate their power.
- stephengillie 15y agoThe influence of the mainstream media is waning. All they do is gather information into a centralized location, editorialize, and distribute the information. How much longer will people listen to them instead of their friends on Twitter?
- bratsche 15y agoLong enough to to let the Internet get fucked over. And I'm sorry, but outside tech people I know almost nobody who really uses Twitter. I know a ton of people who have Twitter accounts and almost none of them ever use it. The influence of mainstream media is not waning. The influence of proper journalism is waning though, and that's pretty scary.
- cabalamat 15y agoMaybe. But Wikipedia going blank for a day had a fair bit to do with SOPA's demise. And I suspect Google and Facebook get more pageviews in a day than all news sites put together.
- jonnathanson 15y ago"Hollywood vs. Big Internet" is a false and simplistic dichotomy, and perpetuation of it does us no favors. The reality of the situation is far more complex. Some of the primary sponsors of SOPA were big ISPs, like Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, etc. These companies -- especially Comcast, which owns NBC-Universal -- have vested interests in maintaining and growing their control over the internet. The movie industry represents a significant, but non-majority piece of the puzzle here. I'm not going so far as to call it a red herring, but I would say that a laserlike focus on the MPAA, and the MPAA alone, is dangerously incomplete. Case in point: you rally to the side of Comcast, not realizing that it's a SOPA/PIPA supporter. Similarly, I've read quite a few blog posts calling on movie buyers to switch their time and dollars to the video game industry (whose lobby, the ESA, is also a SOPA/PIPA supporter, and is standing united with the RIAA and MPAA). It's time to draw a more holistic and accurate picture of the battle lines here. There's blood on plenty more hands than we're giving credit for. And continued ignorance of the bigger picture would have us withdrawing support from one SOPA-supporting industry, simply in favor of another.