
What if Hollywood had to use tech like we have to watch movies? - aaronklein
http://www.aaronklein.com/2012/01/hollywood-edition/
======
rockarage
This is just sad, I get the impression from the comments and up votes that
tech does not get Hollywood. Hollywood business only work because only
Hollywood is willing to give Christopher Nolan 200+ million dollars to make
Dark Knight, ditto with James Cameron's Avatar. When Google, Microsoft, Apple,
Facebook or Yahoo decides to give a Christopher Nolan or James Cameron
$200million+ to make a movie, things will be different. Then these
multinationals can distribute to everyone who wants to buy the movie without
DRM, without regional restriction and at a competitive price. Until then
everything is just posturing, indie budgets will not change Hollywood. Tech
world has competition, but only Hollywood is making these big budget
productions.

edit: not sure why this is getting down voted, it would be interesting to see
a counterpoint.

~~~
tomjen3
It is properly downvoted because it is wrong.

Until Bieber came along, _the_ most watched clip ever (Charlie bit my finger),
having been seen 100 of millions of times cost a few cents of electricity to
produce.

This indicates that there is an entire market out there which Hollywood is
incapable of satisfying but which could easily be filled by a start up.

~~~
rockarage
Long before youtube, there was a show called American funniest home videos.
You should check it out.

------
fleitz
I think this is great, we should add a licensing clause for this, if you work
for a subsidiary of an MPAA member you have to check a box to get the
Hollywood edition else you are not entitled to use the software, perhaps even
a Hollywood IP database for internet companies.

If Hollywood execs had to sit through 5 minutes of ads to use Google they'd
soon get the message.

Anyone have any ideas on how to get the IP blocks of MPAA member companies? Is
there anything better than just whois'ing every class A/B/C?

I'm thinking of a javascript that creates a black modal dialog with a youtube
video queue of startup video ads. Use the chromeless video player, I'll even
max the volume for them.

Simple one line addition to your site and voila your startup/site/blog is
Hollywood Edition.

~~~
mishmash
> Anyone have any ideas on how to get the IP blocks of MPAA member companies?

It's been tried before. Maintaining the list is very difficult for the exact
same reasons that would have made PIPA/SOPA technically inept.

e.g. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PeerGuardian>

~~~
cookiecaper
Such lists continue in wide use. Of course they are not foolproof, but it does
help.

~~~
notatoad
peerguardian and it's ilk don't help at all. they make uninformed people feel
safer.

~~~
alexgemmell
Is that true? Could you let me know where you got that info from so I can
check for myself? Thanks!

------
MarkTraceur
I love this article for its irony, intentional or no.

The author cites perfect examples of why the software industry is _exactly
like_ Hollywood with its products. Word? Need a license key. Can't open or
save ODT files without annoying popups. Apple? Don't even try to partition the
system or it will break, and don't use the software on non-Apple hardware.
Certainly don't try jailbreaking it. Google? Can we talk about privacy
policies?

Of course, the biggest problem is that none of those instances of software are
even accessible (fully) by their users. The user can't change the software,
they can't even use the software in every capacity.

So I guess the real question is, why are we still acting like Hollywood?

~~~
SquareWheel
"Certainly don't try jailbreaking it. Google? Can we talk about privacy
policies?"

Could you explain that? I've been jailbreaking for, maybe five years now, and
it's very easy. And I think Google's new privacy policies are an improvement
over the old.

Maybe that's your point, but I'm not sure what you're getting at.

~~~
MarkTraceur
Well, the Google privacy policies have been consolidated, which means less
piecewise freedom for people who use one or two Google products. I, for
example, use Mail and (barely) use Search. I don't need to agree to things
about Google+!

And jailbreaking Apple devices, while possible and, in some cases, easy, has
never been encouraged by or even considered by Apple. In order to jailbreak,
you have to find exploits in the software. This is opposed to free software,
where you are able to do anything you want with the phone's software from the
start--no exploits, no jailbreaking, just freedom.

~~~
aaronklein
There are certainly ways that tech companies operate in a Hollywoodesque
manner.

Apple trying to assert DMCA against jailbreaking phones is a great example.
It's YOUR phone. You paid $600 for it (either over time, or up front). You
should be able to do whatever you want with it.

You've made a very poor case with Google privacy policies, though. If you
don't use Google+, there's no way for any of its privacy policies to affect
you. If you don't like their policies, don't use their free product. Period.

~~~
MarkTraceur
I suppose I jumped into an example I didn't fully understand--sorry about that
:)

------
gerggerg
Most importantly, we should send them extortionate threats of law-suit based
on easily fake-able evidence that claim they owe us thousands of dollars just
to get us to not send them more letters.

And then when they stop using our service we'll say it must be because they're
doing something illegal.

------
quink
You, Mr. living in San Diego, are trying to get KWIK24, PBS Wikipedia LA,
instead of KOSA13, PBS Wikipedia San Diego, aren't you?

Well, unfortunately we know that you can't get it over 3G or 4G because you're
outside the reception area and we've encrypted KWIK24 to be received by people
in LA only on Fibre or ADSL.

KOSA13 might have 30 second ads before each article, doesn't carry half of the
most popular articles and re-compresses every image with a watermark, but
that's not our problem.

------
sounds
Pure genius. You can, by the way, offer better licensing to specific companies
and unaffiliated individuals -- leaving Hollywood with the unskippable ads,
"premium tweets," and all the rest.

Good luck, however, winning in court to enforce your license.

~~~
jerf
As mentioned on the Wikipedia page for EULAs towards the end [1], the solution
is to encase absolutely everything in DRM, making it a DMCA violation to
remove the DRM without permission. Then, Google permits everybody except
Hollywood to remove it freely.

Oh, and while the DMCA requires DRM to be "effective", that has proved to be a
low bar.

More seriously, EULA case results are mixed, and Wikipedia's somewhat
sarcastic first sentence of that section as I write this is broadly correct:
"The enforceability of an EULA depends on several factors, one of them being
the court in which the case is heard." Maybe there's some other legal doctrine
about contracts that would knock this out, but it's not immediately obvious to
me that this couldn't be done. (Not that it will, of course.)

[1]: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-
user_license_agreement#Enfo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-
user_license_agreement#Enforceability_of_EULAs_in_the_United_States)

~~~
nitrogen
_Oh, and while the DMCA requires DRM to be "effective", that has proved to be
a low bar._

I think the "effective" in "No person shall circumvent a technological measure
that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title."[0]
probably means something more like "has the intended effect of" rather than
"does a good job at."

[0]
[http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_0...](http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode17/usc_sec_17_00001201
----000-.html)

------
ericflo
Hollywood business aside, I think you just came up with Twitter's business
model. I'm joking, but only somewhat.

~~~
marshray
Twitter? Oh I remember them. They were popular back in the MySpace days right?
Silly of them to drive away their users with the lag punishment paywalls like
that. As I recall it, folks seemed to be wandering over to Facebook and G+ by
then anyway.

------
blhack
pre-edit: nevermind, Aaron removed it. Better now :)

Whatever that black popdown thing is called is really, really obnoxious.

Here is what it looks like in my browser: <http://imgur.com/cKiYN>

Chrome 16.0.9 on Snow Leopard.

The problem is that it covers text as I'm scrolling through the page.

To recreate it: start scrolling down the page.

~~~
joejohnson
I can't recreate this in Chrome or Safari on OSX Lion. Are my corner actions
preventing me from seeing it?

~~~
aaronklein
I killed it. Only added it because some readers were having a hard time
finding the "share" buttons. I'll find a better solution.

~~~
nyellin
That looks exactly like the OKTrends sharing bar. Did you implement it, or is
there js library for that?

------
zimbatm
We're sorry, this tweet is not yet available in your country but we are
working hard to make it possible !

~~~
aaronklein
Ha! Awesome. Should have thought of that one.

------
sofuture
It's mind boggling that people treat being able to consume (fettered or not)
media as a god-given right. The suggestion here is that our best option is to
'be terrible' to old media until they understand what it's like to be treated
poorly?

You want to know how to fix things?

Stop buying what they sell.

~~~
aaronklein
That's not my take at all.

The content companies do believe they are God's gift to mankind and they have
some very anti-customer policies. They think they are optimizing their revenue
from such policies.

I think they underestimate the kind of growth they could see if they started
treating their customers the way that most of the tech industry does.

Tech is far from perfect, but it does a better job of being customer centric.

------
DanBC
> _Since they’re so persnickety about licensing agreements,_

I'm not convinced that they are. I'm sure that an audit of Hollywood software
licensing would find many unlicensed copied (their word "stolen") bits of
software.

------
dirtbox
Hollywood are not in the business of offering a service, only a product. This
is mostly why the two aren't compatible and why they aren't interested in
developing it.

The thinking is that a product is far more profitable and has higher gains
than a service which bleeds money by comparison due to it's constant
maintenance costs, upkeep and customer care and that drop in profit would make
their pyramid business model unsustainable.

------
nyar
That article is dumb in its examples, lets consider something more realistic.

Every developer from this point onward adds a licensing clause for holywood
execs - if that product is showcased during the movie a certain amount is owed
to the developer at this point. Start putting it in every single app they will
start making mistakes.

The other day I saw Open Office 2.0 in Girl with Dragon Tattoo - Libre office
could easily add this clause.

~~~
eurleif
>Libre office could easily add this clause.

That clause is incompatible with the LGPL, and Libre Office doesn't do
copyright assignment, so there are many copyright holders, all of whom would
have to agree to the licensing change. Not so easy.

------
yycom
Humour.

To everyone taking this seriously, please remember, variously, "two wrongs
don't make a right", the "golden rule"
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Rule>), "don't stoop to their
level", etc.

------
d5tryr
Thankfully we can use a user's ip adress to ensure this only effects Hollywood
executives.

------
paul9290
The Twitter one sounds good then you realize an entrepreneur will come in and
create a Twitter for Hollywood types. Twitter would lose millions of users to
this competitor, as following celebrities draws millions.

------
mrebus
They probably do. I download movies and they probably download tech.

------
hunterp
This is petty and immature.

------
mrleinad
I think Hollywood is just a facàde for the US government. A while ago, Hillary
Clinton admitted the US government is losing the "information war"[1]. What
could possibly be better for winning an information war, than to pass
legislation like this, under the guise of "fighting piracy"? The government
could not be seen as promoting this kind of legislation.. otherwise, they´d be
on the same league as Iran or China..

Hollywood´s not the problem. Your government is.

[1] Hilary Clinton Admits US Is Losing The "Information War":
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMoeDaLV2WA>

~~~
wisty
A long time ago, the US pushed Hollywood because they knew it would
essentially be free advertising for everything else the US sold. That's
probably unnecessary these days. It's pretty obvious from certain comments
that Hollywood is helping members keep their seats (via campaign funding), and
threatening to pull the funding of anyone who rocks the boat.

It's like a Hollywood movie, about a beast (or robot) which ends up
overpowering its master.

