It’s Not Silicon Valley Versus Hollywood – It’s Greed Versus Greed
It’s a funny thing living in California. While the rest of the country sees SOPA and PIPA as another crazy congressional move, here it’s more of a Civil War. There are the hackers in the north, capable of producing viable companies in mere weekends, with the power to make any idea into a reality with a few thousand lines of code. There are the entertainers in the south, older and more established, used to their power, watching their retirement funds decay before their eyes thanks to internet innovation.
In the Bay Area, showing support for SOPA, well … you just don’t. You’d have an easier time defending North Korea in a human rights debate. SOPA would kill innovation! It would restrict the freedom of speech! It could take down Reddit and YouTube and even Wikipedia. When I first learned about the bill, I was sure statements like these were mostly sensationalism. I mean, this is the United States. We don’t just take down websites! But I looked into the issue a couple months back, and most of those seemingly sensationalistic assertions are true.
But.
Yes, in my mind, there’s still a but.
What really shocked me during the whole SOPA debate, and the ensuing “War on Hollywood” that’s buzzing around the Bay, is that Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and techies and journalists alike spent so much time decrying Hollywood’s greed and no one bothered to look at the proverbial log in our own eye. Millions of people, including members of the tech and startup community have been stealing movies and music and TV shows for years now. In talking to programmer friends, we’ve agreed that many members of our circle are habitual downloaders of pirated content. I’m not saying that everyone in Silicon Valley steals their Showtime serial of choice instead of purchasing it, but it happens enough. Considering the millions of computer literate consumers involved with the startup community, I would guess that on our own, we’ve deprived Hollywood of tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.
And no one in Northern California addressed this issue, or led a charge to start paying for content.
You could assert that not paying $25 for a season of Weeds is a whole different ballgame than taking down a website with hundreds of millions of users. But is it? It’s taking advantage of the power you have to produce an outcome that benefits yourself, and that hurts another. It’s greed. The entertainment industry is made up of men and women who work just as hard, and who are just as creative and intelligent as members of the startup community. It’s not just a bunch of old white men in suits as they’ve been portrayed. That would be like portraying the startup community with a picture of 25 venture capitalists. Hollywood is made up of writers and designers and editors and sound people and even computer programmers. And these people are losing millions of dollars in their hard-earned money due to piracy.
Paul Graham recently argued that SOPA and PIPA made it obvious that “Hollywood is dying.” Why else, he asked, would they resort to tactics such as these? I have a lot of respect for Graham (if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have my job!), but in this case I have to disagree. Hollywood is not dying. Even in Silicon Valley, I don’t know many folks who don’t have a TV series they’re stuck at the moment or who don’t curl up on the couch to a good movie on some weekend nights. We’re still watching TV and movies just as much, if not more than we used to – it’s just that many of us aren’t paying for them. If Hollywood is dying, it’s not because of lack of demand, it’s because of theft.
I agree that Hollywood needs to innovate. No one watches TV on TV anymore. In 20 years, TV channels and commercials probably won’t exist as we currently know them, except for events like football games or the evening news, things that pretty much have to be live. Licensing content to iTunes and Netflix is a step in the right direction. Hollywood needs to create more ways for people to consume content on demand. But instead of declaring war, instead of going to battle, I don’t see why Silicon Valley can’t be the “bigger person” in this argument. Don’t destroy Hollywood with your products while you steal and enjoy it in the comfort of your own home. Let’s stop being greedy and work together.
“And no one in Northern California addressed this issue, or led a charge to start paying for content.”
Netflix? iTunes? Amazon? Hulu?
Once a cheap, frictionless, legal method is available then most people are happy to pay for content. Netflix, for me, is “better than free” as it cuts out the hassle, time and legal risk involved with less legitimate methods of downloading.
There’s plenty of precedent for companies who try to do this, but the labels and studios are doing their best to make it as difficult as possible to innovate in this space.
Doesn’t Ycombinator actively dissuade music-related startups because licensing is essentially impossible for smaller companies? Sure I remember reading that on their site recently.
GSP
28 Jan 12 at 10:11 pm
“If Hollywood is dying, it’s not because of lack of demand, it’s because of theft.”
Don’t use the word “theft” if I copy something to know if I’m interested on it. It is a copy, not a theft. 90% of the times I’m not interested on it,really, but I won’t pay 10 times more than what I already do. I pay a lot of money for the ones that I’m interested in.
One thing is for sure, I won’t pay for a bad film ever, like I did some times being cheated by money spent on Ads.
It is exactly the same that happens when I enter a library, I read books without paying 100% full price!!!! And I’m not a criminal for that, it is just common sense.
The same happens when an artist pirates software like full versions of Photoshop, or Final Cut for learning instead of using demos-limited ones. They do, I have seen it, and it is not a big deal, when they start getting money, usually they start to pay for their software.
In an imaginary world everybody would pay for what they consume. The problem is that we could create a way worse world trying to create perfection(witch we won’t be able to create anyway).
We should not overreact, making criminals out of normal people, like you did with the Prohibition laws with those that consumed Alcohol, or you do with those that consume drugs, or plan to do with SOPA with those that pirate anything(or cites or link content).
In Portugal drugs consumption was legalized, and it improved a lot the criminal rates(people steal(real stealing, some times using force) and kill for getting their drugs), more than half the people in jail is because of “war on drugs”. In jail they become criminals as they have to survive in a very hard environment.
Mafias are instantly created as people could feel that “is is not that bad to pirate a little”, like “it is not as bad to drink a little”, and support the people that goes against the law. Overreacting means drinking or pirating something has the same penalty than killing someone so they start kill people.
I’m not using my imagination here, you just need to read the thousands of books that talk about Prohibition, watch the films(like the Untouchables) or meet the people that is living the Mexican drugs drama(mafias stronger than government), or working with drug addicts(get out of the building).
But SOPA is only so much about piracy, it is mainly about the power to censor the Internet, the only media not directly controlled by them, with just using piracy as an excuse, like they used weapons of mass destruction and Sadam as an excuse to own Iraq’s bast energy resources (and they plan owning Iran’s).
Jose
28 Jan 12 at 10:28 pm
[...] More:Â It's Not Silicon Valley Versus Hollywood – It's Greed Versus Greed at … [...]
It's Not Silicon Valley Versus Hollywood – It's Greed Versus Greed at … | Silcon Group
29 Jan 12 at 12:01 am
There is really only one way to settle this debate. Hollywood needs to offer a convenient way for people to view their content on demand at a reasonable price that takes into account content becoming a commodity, and then we see if people still resort to the Pirate Bay and other filesharing sites.
Today, my mom asked me to go to the movie theater with her. Several observations:
(1) IMHO, having to get in a car, drive across town at a fixed showing time and then sit in a cinema in silence is an inconvenience. I had to stop what I was doing and work around the showing time.
(2) My mom snuck food in her purse because the food costs at the cinema are outrageous. Had we been able to watch at home, we would have been able to enjoy our snacks of choice at a reasonable price.
(3) 95% of the people in the cinema were senior citizens. Why? Because the cinema is still the most convenient way for them to enjoy a film. They probably don’t have the skills to view a movie (legally or illegally) at home, because those options either don’t exist, the usability sucks (my mom still can’t figure out Time Warner OnDemand) or they don’t know how to pirate a film.
Personally, while I really enjoyed that movie, I wouldn’t pay $6.50 to watch it or really any other film for that matter. Nor would I have spent the time and effort to cross town for that experience. I also wouldn’t have pirated it because pirating, while more convenient than the experience Hollywood offers us, really isn’t as convenient as other forms of entertainment. Consuming services like r/pics on Reddit is cheap, free and can entertain me for well over 1.5 hours.
I would however have gladly paid $2 maybe $3 to watch that new release in the comfort of my own home at my convenience on demand, eating the snacks I have in my house with people I want to watch it with. That is what it is worth to me given all the other options to entertain myself. The price of content has fallen because other forms of entertainment have become cheaper, abundant and more usable.
Question: What’s easier? (1) finding a show time when you and three friends can meet at a cinema, (2) finding any time when you and three friends can meet at your home to watch a film.
TBH, I haven’t downloaded a film in ages (>1 year) because even torrents have proven to be more trouble than other forms of entertainment on the internet.
You cannot call it greed until they permit an easy to use, on-demand alternative at a competitive price with other forms of entertainment and most people still choose to pirate the content.
The only thing that keeps them from reacting to market forces are government granted monopoly rights.
Andrew de Andrade
29 Jan 12 at 12:52 am
I am a 20 year veteran of Silicon Valley and now 8 years Director of Software Engineering for a major Hollywood Studio and I congratulate Megan for her analysis of the situation.
While SOPA is a shameful, dangerous and ineffective way to deal with content theft, I appreciate and have witnessed the devastating effect piracy has had on our industry.
Hollywood is investing a *lot* of money to produce content that they want to *sell* to you to experience in theaters, on discs and via the internet. If you like the content and pay the price for admission then enjoy the show. A film is not like software that you can use until it gives you a benefit and then “maybe” pay for it. The price to see a film is to experience the content not to copy and distribute it to all of your friends. It’s pretty simple really.
If you don’t like the quality of our content or think it is too expensive then don’t consume it. If you can do a better job then just do it. You have all the tools needed at your disposal. After you invest your money and time to produce something then you can decide if you want everyone to distribute your work for free or pay a fee to view it. If you want others to use your content in their work then checkout Creative Commons. It’s up to you what terms you want to put on your work.
For all the Silicon Valley Entrepreneurs with great ideas to remake Hollywood, I hope you go for it but don’t fool yourself that the established tech companies (you know who they are) and patent trolls aren’t going to try to eat your lunch if you are successful.
Greed is behind our rationalizations for sharing content we’re not authorized to share, changing privacy policies as we pivot our business model, prevent users from migrating content between social sharing platforms, acquire huge software patent portfolios and break the internet to safe guard content. If you don’t like this then respect the work of others and abide by their terms or get off the sofa and create (don’t copy) and do something better.
rlk
29 Jan 12 at 1:18 am
[...] It’s Not Silicon Valley Versus Hollywood – It’s Greed Versus Greed 29 January 2012, 2:18 am [...]
Links | Hobbits, Home and Abroad
30 Jan 12 at 1:47 pm
[...] I was, claiming that Hollywood is greedy, and that Silicon Valley is greedy too, and we’re all just a bunch of greedy West Coasters who steal others’ property and [...]
What Silicon Valley And Hollywood Can Learn From Each Other at meganhannay.com
30 Jan 12 at 9:36 pm
Here’s another interesting perspective from Seth Godin that sort of falls between you and Paul Graham:
http://www.thedominoproject.com/2012/01/ubiquity.html
Ben D
31 Jan 12 at 12:38 pm