[IP] The Hollywood crisis that isn't
Begin forwarded message:
From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: October 4, 2005 7:23:39 PM EDT
To: Dewayne-Net Technology List <dewayne-net@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [Dewayne-Net] The Hollywood crisis that isn't
Reply-To: dewayne@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Original URL: <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/04/
hollywood_crisis_no_crisis/>
The Hollywood crisis that isn't
By Andrew Orlowski in San Francisco (andrew.orlowski at
theregister.co.uk)
Published Tuesday 4th October 2005 20:31 GMT
Analysis Barely a week has gone by without reports of Hollywood's
great box office slump of 2005. So our thanks go to screenwriter John
August for pointing out that on closer examination, the 'slump' is as
elusive as missing Weapons of Mass Destruction.
"Every Monday brought new speculation about just what was causing the
downturn, and What It Really Meant. Could the problem be the poor
state of movie theaters, the growth of DVD, the price of gasoline?"
observes John.
"What makes this self-flagellation so annoying and unwarranted is
that the 'box office slump' is basically a myth," he points out.
In fact 2005's box office returns mirror 2004's very closely, and box
office receipts are down just six per cent this year. One more
blockbuster would have turned the slump into a boom.
"Is there really an industry crisis if just one movie would eliminate
it?" asks John.
Of course not. But a better question is why do so many people want
you to engender this panic?
Because it suits them, that's why.
Phony crisis
Listening to our old friend Lawrence Lessig and former MPAA boss Jack
Valenti debate each other on National Public Radio last week, it
became clear. The dears sounded like a couple of senior citizens
grumbling their way a cold day trip to Brighton Beach - but in
reality the phony crisis suits them both.
Representing the pigopolist lobby, Valenti wants to instil widespread
panic so he can outlaw new technologies of storage and distribution.
History tells us that rights holders have always profited from such
new technologies, and it's a point Lessig has himself made superbly
in the past.
Representing the technology determinists, Lessig also wanted to tell
us the sky is falling, because copyright was the real obstacle to
technical innovation. The favorite narrative of today's techno-
utopians goes "X is the end of Y as we know it!" (or "Z changes
everything!") - it's a recurring adolescent fantasy.
History tells us that copyright has always bent to accommodate the
new technologies, and the social contract always engineers new
compensation models. Instead, Lessig concluded with a little Hallmark
Card homily to the power of creativity, citing "14 million blogs" as
a testament to human ingenuity. No, really.
[snip]
Weblog at: <http://weblog.warpspeed.com>
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