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Remember that there is no such thing as 'the media industry'. The Internet killed the music industry because the music industry was literally in the disc-and-t
by bcoates 13y ago
Remember that there is no such thing as 'the media industry'.
The Internet killed the music industry because the music industry was literally in the disc-and-tape business. They were all about distribution, only doing production as necessary to ensure there was something to distribute. The only chance the RIAA had was to whine and fight because there was no place for them in post-CD world.
Movies, on the other hand, are actually in the content production industry. The Internet and desktop software make movie production and distribution cheaper, but not by that much. It still takes thousands of people and millions to hundreds of millions of dollars to make a movie. This isn't likely to change in the next few decades. This incredible cost of production and large fixed overhead, combined with vast demand for the product, mean there will always be opportunities for movie producers to make money, even if the entire way we distribute and consume movies is turned on its head.
As for the emotional impact disruption: most of the disruption is happening on the financial side; the alleged reason these people are trusted with billions of dollars is because they can put on their big boy pants and adapt to changing business circumstances, because business circumstances are always changing. For the people in the trenches, stuff isn't changing that much. The percentage of revenue from PPV vs DVD sales vs Licensing only matters to a grip if they have a really bizarre contract.
- zanny 13y agoThis neglects the still noticeable difference between "high end consumer sound setup" that might cost a few hundred bucks, and studio grade audio recording. Yes, making a movie takes magnitudes more capital investment than making an album, but I'd argue the scale of the initial investment is irrelevant - the larger the initial commitment just expands the required adoption to turn a profit. But all media requires, first and foremost - and most scarcely in an economic sense - skilled creative people putting in the hours forging their craft. That never changes, regardless of where you extract value from (and you might as well just extract the value from the act of the craft at this point, by kickstarting or something else your albums / films / games / etc to be made).
- ztratar 13y agoInteresting take -- I guess I was trying to generalize a tad too much :] Thanks for the great info.
- alex_doom 13y agoNailed it. I felt the article was a bit much on the hand-wringing of constant technological changes.
- ztratar 13y ago*wrings hand
- JVIDEL 13y agoYeah sorry but from where I'm standing the studios are just suffering the consequences of their own ineptitude: as you might know the app is (originally) from Argentina, but what you likely don't know is that over here there is no legal alternative like popcorntime, and what little there is sucks, its overpriced to protect the traditional media system (which is getting pwn by the oldschool DVDR) and full of really old content nobody cares about. Mind that by neglecting those markets the movie industry is losing even more money because people over here would actually pay for a service like popcorntime, but the bizantine system of regional distributors and studios run by people who don't even know how the internet works stands in the way of such a legal app. I know because I was part of a team that once tried to do such thing: the tech part is easy, the legal part is impossible.