Future of Entertainment & Hollywood

There has been no greater series of digital-age conflicts than the one between the entertainment industry and the common media pirate. The Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act are merely the latest attempts by lobbyists for media agencies to shut down the unrestricted exchange of movies and music through the Internet. From the RIAA prosecuting individual users, to convincing Internet service providers to come down on their customers, the industry has made it clear that they will not exhaust their resources to stop piracy.

What exactly do these companies have at stake? Do they really not make enough money? And if they do, what’s the difference between winning the $15 million Power Ball and the $145 million jackpot?

In times of prosperity, a company’s focus is to keep doing what they’re doing, because they’re obviously doing it right. So what about when profits are sinking and investors are backing out? As the entertainment industry has shown numerous times, you protect what you have left. You ready your last line of defense – the one that makes you look like the bad guy – your teams of lawyers.

Although SOPA and PIPA have been sacked, the philosophy that punishment for downloading one song or film should be as severe as some murder trial verdicts is well alive. So the brains of Silicon Valley get their own defense as a business necessity. The makers of the next Facebook or Spotify are watching their backs for the ominous shadow of litigation. Instead of two technology entrepreneurs working 15-hour days in a dimly lit garage, start-ups require two programmers in a garage and a team of 10 attorneys on the floor above them that allow the entrepreneurs to keep their jobs.

Threats of legal retaliation drown out the media’s own cry for help. Their pain isn’t caused by a mere decline in their sales, but rather a fundamental problem with their business model. Imagine that legislation is passed and people are no longer able to download the latest version of Adobe Photoshop or the new Red Hot Chili Peppers album. There is only a small chance that they would purchase this item if they couldn’t get it for free. The price isn’t right for what’s on offer. Sure, some die-hard fans Chili fans will shell out the cash for a 12-song LP. The rest will go without, or find some other way to get it for free. Until innovators and publicists work together, rather than against each other, to give users what they want, the law will stand in the way of progressing both art and technology.