The panel was about the future of filmmaking, but that didn’t mean anyone had to like what they saw. “I’m a guy who doesn’t see anything good having come from the Internet,” said Sony Pictures Entertainment chief executive officer Michael Lynton. “Period.”
At a breakfast cohosted by the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and The New Yorker Thursday, Lynton wasn’t just trying for a laugh: He complained the Internet has “created this notion that anyone can have whatever they want at any given time. It’s as if the stores on Madison Avenue were open 24 hours a day. They feel entitled. They say, ‘Give it to me now,’ and if you don’t give it to them for free, they’ll steal it.”
Co-panelist Nora Ephron, who started her career in print, said the Internet has had a greater effect on “our beloved print than it’s had on the movie business.” But, she conceded, “We’re in the last days of copyright, if you want to be grim about it….Stop it. I dare you.”
#9:
THANK YOU for sticking it to one of these I-can’t-argue-your-point-so-I’m-going-to-apply-a-shitty-analogy-to-it DU readers.
*bleating* It’s it’s it’s like, uh, TRAFFIC LAWS!
NOT.
Copyright laws were created so that publishers have a reasonable length of time to make their money. 2 centuries ago they needed years to print and distribute their copies.
These days they can make their millions in a single summer so *logically*, the length of copyright should be REDUCED.
Copyright should be reduced as the distribution tech gets better. That’s the only thing that makes sense to me.
Actually I like the road rules analogy. I broke the law many times yesterday (speeding on major roads, rolled a stop sign at ~5 km/hr since no one was nearby, etc). Does that make a criminal? I don’t think so.
Why? Because I didn’t endanger anyone. I slowed down to a crawl when there were children near the road. I came to a full stop at stop signs since there was traffic nearby. I slow down and follow at a safe distance in heavy traffic, etc.
I download TV shows occasionally since I can’t buy them online or see them on TV (e.g. Dr Who Easter Special). I occasionally download music and listen to it for a while. If I like it, I buy it. If I don’t like it I toss it. I buy all my music online since record stores are stupid. I lend DVD’s to friends and they lend them to me since I generally don’t watch them more than once.
I break the law when I drive but I’m a very safe driver based on my record and insurance rates. I occasionally download music and TV shows but ~98% of everything on my iPod or computer is legit (I did a quick check). I think I’m normal and generally responsible.
However, Sony wants to prosecute me for that 2%. They have a French “guilty until proven innocent” attitude towards me. They raise the barriers to make it easier for them, and harder for me. Water goes downhill and so do I – I go where it’s easier.
Apple, Amazon, and AudioBooks get my business because they offer me terrific product, a pleasant customer experience, and generally a fair price. All three companies are working hard to remove barriers imposed on them by Sony and others. They make it easier to buy products. They’ll win, and Sony will lose. So sad, too bad.
17 “The problem is that the analogy IS valid”
Even though others get it, I’ll give one more try as to why traffic laws are not analogous with copyright laws.
Let’s assume we eliminate all traffic laws. What would be the result? People would die.
Let’s assume we eliminate all copyright laws. What would be the result? Some profits would drop and other profits would increase.
See? There would be different results because the underlying laws are completely different.
#23:
Give it up on this guy.
If he can’t see that traffic laws and copyright laws are different because, er, you know, they’re just not the same thing – he’ll never get it.
Leave him to flounder in his sea of analogies, drowning in his childlike world view…
hey, was that an analogy?
SN, read the quote I responded to. I’m interested in your take on the concept of making things legal because nobody obeys that law.
Copyright laws are very unlikely to change in your favor, so get with the program and quit whining.
Dinosaurs never see it coming.
brm…if they are the same thing then they’re not analogous, they’re the same thing.
Supposing some of you didn’t do particularly well on that section of the SAT.
The truth is these big media producing companies haven’t beeen producing anything but crap for years. I’ve got a largish collection. But 98% of the stuff worth collecting is the old stuff. They hire some tithead with a college degree to decide what we’re going to see and hear. Top it off, if we don’t wan’t to pay for it we’re pirates. That and the attitude that since they own everything they should never have falling sales, and if they do it’s because of the internet.
PLEASE everybody! Let’s get this overwith as fast as possible. Boycott them! Download from the net what you want or need and save your pennies. Sooner or later somebody will figure it out and we’ll be able to pay a reasonable price for a quality service with a quality product.
This guy must not realize that one of his companies most successful products was a device thats main purpose was to copy copywrited material. They even took it to court and proved it was legal. I still have about 400 hours of betamax tapes in the attic.
If these fuctards haven’t made their nut back on “Gone with the Wind” yet, they’re too stupid to breathe, so I can’t get overly excited about their whining. Certainly they should get their money back on a movie and profits as well, but after 20 or 30 years, they might be appalled to discover that even people who liked a movie or record album or TV show, might just not be enamored enough of it to spend money on it, especially a second time. That this may result in a bit torrent acquired copy, or even nothing at all, because the potential customer just didn’t buy or even download it, it’s not a lost sale, because at $15.00 for a CD of 30 year old music, most of the potential customer base ain’t buying anyway.
There is a very simple solution to Sony’s problem: cut the copyright to 5-10 years. If they did that, their “losses” will vaporize.
There are some significant differences between traffic laws and the internet. For one thing, traffic laws relate to something that is tangible and isolated to a specific set of laws. The Internet is global and spans all governments. Second, if people regularly exceed the speed limit, they either post more cops or raise the limit.
#27:
Piss off. You *know* what I meant.
When I say ‘they’re not the same thing’ I also mean ‘they’re not analogous.’ This is normal everyday usage that everyone understands.
Sorry that unlike you I’m not in dictionary-definition hair-splitting mode when I post on DU.
Is this the same guy who rewarded me for buying legitimate music from his company by putting a root kit on my computer?
The only thing that concerns me about a-holes like this. Is the number politicians he owns that write laws for him over common sense and the good of the future.
I guess that’s why Sony lost a BILLION DOLLARS last year!!! Clueless execs !!! Time to FLUSH THE DEADWOOD OUT OF THE EXECUTIVE SUITES !!!