from Hacker News

Killing the Internet to save Hollywood

by daspion on 12/22/11, 6:59 PM with 30 comments

• by jjcm on 12/22/11, 8:40 PM

  A 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".

• by Osiris on 12/22/11, 11:25 PM

  I'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/ 2. 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.

• by dhughes on 12/23/11, 3:19 AM

  As 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.

• by sbov on 12/22/11, 8:34 PM

  Title aside, I thought it was a good article that summarized the problems with SOPA, from multiple angles, for the largely disinterested populace out there.

• by SnowLprd on 12/22/11, 8:18 PM

  "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.

• by imgabe on 12/23/11, 12:23 PM

  I 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.

• by thisismyname on 12/23/11, 1:36 AM

  This 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

• by athompson on 12/22/11, 7:57 PM

  The title suggests that Hollywood is in trouble which isn't the case at all.

• by bigohms on 12/22/11, 8:14 PM

  NyPost is killing content delivery and monetization by not making that article accessible through Safari on iOS.

• by code_duck on 12/23/11, 2:13 AM

  Good article. When I'm agreeing with someone from the Cato institute, you know things are serious.

• by Tripatimishra on 12/23/11, 2:06 PM

  Actually 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.