[Natsu]

He wants to kill Hollywood, not artists. Personally, I believe that the best way to do that would be to help the artists break free of the middlemen by giving them a better deal and helping them engage with their audiences.

Ideally, it would make art an industry where more people make $100k instead of $30k.

[nextparadigms]

Maybe there needs to be something like YCombinator for making movies, instead of start-ups.

Seed the scripts and the initial team, and then get other investors to invest a few hundred thousand or a few millions in the movie.

Also think about how to best distribute those movies - maybe a special site that shows all these movies, or a partnership with ThePirateBay to promote the movies.

A news/information site about these new upcoming movies and about the teams - kind of like TechCruch, would help, too.

[9999]

There are. Small production companies. Hundreds of them. But when it comes to marketing and distibuting what you've made, you really need a major studio's support.

[ctwk]

Does it necessarily have to be this way? The internet has provided a way of sharing and proliferating and distributing content. As long as a content is quality enough, people will tend to share the content and as more people distribute and share the content, you have a relatively inexpensive way to market and distribute the content. Now all this needs is a startup cracks a way for artist and content creators to monetize this way of distribution and marketing method online. I have posted my idea somewhere on this page. Care to discuss what you think? It would be great if small production companies can allow me to test my hypothesis =)

[TomOfTTB]

But Hollywood funds artists. My issue with pg's post is it's a clarion call to kill an industry without considering what that industry does and who that industry supports.

If someone can think up a better system I'm all for it. There's no shortage of startups creating media for online dissemination. But as of right now none of them manage to support artists like the traditional system.

So I don't disagree with you. If there's a better system then let it take hold and let the current media companies burn. But pg should be encouraging people to build a better system not focusing them on tearing down the current one.

[marcamillion]

It's not a clarion call to kill an industry, it's a clarion call to accelerate creative destruction on an industry. All that does is puts the bad entities out of business and creates new entities. Sure, there will be some labor displacement, but that's the nature of capitalism. The fact of the matter is that it is inevitable. You can't stop it. The fact that hollywood feels that they have to sue and legislate to protect their declining revenues and profits, shows that they are ripe for disruption.

No need to get pissed about it, you should get on the right side of it.

[TomOfTTB]

I get pissed because of the rhetoric. Not just from this side. I have many friends in the entertainment industry and from there it's all about "thieves". So you have "hate" and "kill" on this side and "theft" and "arrest" on that side and I'm sick of all of it.

The most effective solution to problems with the media industry has always been the same: Collaboration.

Look at allthestepisodes.com. This is a site that allowed people to watch every Star Trek episode for free and I personally know an actor who lost residuals because of it. But that problem is gone now. Their traffic has been in a freefall (http://siteanalytics.compete.com/allstepisodes.com/)

Why?

Because Netflix offers all those episodes now. Neflix, a company that engaged the industry rather than trying to kill it, solved that problem and everyone's happy. No one's killed or arrested or anything of the sort.

[timknauf]

Well, Netflix still isn't available to most of the world (even with its recent international expansions), so I wouldn't say that everyone is happy just yet. And I'm sure it's not technical issues that make going truly global so difficult for them - it's the machinations of old-guard media companies.

[TomOfTTB]

But it isn't. It's the machinations of SOME of the old-guard media. Other parts of the old-guard media, who want those extra revenue streams, feel the same way you do. That's the problem with wanting to kill the entire industry. You lose the good and the bad.

[Natsu]

They're working to kill Netflix, though.

First by restricting just how early it could get videos, then by making them pay for streaming on every user, not just those who stream. I understood that to be the whole point of the ill-fated attempt at splitting the company, in fact.

[TomOfTTB]

Follow the logic here. Denying Netflix content for a little longer might hurt Netflix because people will come to Netflix during that time, look for the content, and not find it. So if that's true wouldn't it just be easier to never give Netflix the content. I mean, if they're trying to kill Netflix that would seem the way to go.

The truth is they aren't trying to kill Netflix they're trying to maximize profit which is what every company does. They are delaying movies to Netflix because they've found people will buy the movies from iTunes during that time period.

If that will kill Netflix it's their job to say "hey, we're a revenue stream for you and we're going to go away if you delay these movies" and then a negotiation will ensue. This is how capitalism works with each company trying to make as much money as they can and companies negotiating with each other to do so.

Having said that I've always believed media should be treated as a monopoly and regulated accordingly. The current law treats media like just any other product where the free market can decide the price. This works with most products because there isn't that much of a difference between one brand of Vanilla Ice Cream and Another. But there is a big difference between different bands and since labels sign bands exclusively they should be regulated like monopolies

[Natsu]

> Having said that I've always believed media should be treated as a monopoly and regulated accordingly.

I believe there are compulsory licenses for sound recordings. It could be interesting to make all copyrighted works subject to something like that, but I can't imagine the details required to make it workable. Larry Ellison would probably have a heart attack...

[Natsu]

> But pg should be encouraging people to build a better system not focusing them on tearing down the current one.

It appears as though you let the title of the piece distract you from the content of it.

[TomOfTTB]

Not the title but this paragraph...

"Hollywood appears to have peaked. If it were an ordinary industry (film cameras, say, or typewriters), it could look forward to a couple decades of peaceful decline. But this is not an ordinary industry. The people who run it are so mean and so politically connected that they could do a lot of damage to civil liberties and the world economy on the way down. It would therefore be a good thing if competitors hastened their demise."

I have no problem with healthy contributions from startups. I do have a problem with demonizing people especially when I know some of those people are working towards the same goals as technology enthusiasts.

[im3w1l]

I have a problem with trying to kill the internet.

[JumpCrisscross]

Ditto. Creative destruction involves tearing down the legacy institutions.

[zotz]

> But Hollywood funds artists

I'm an artist, a musician to be precise. I've done ok for myself without Hollywood. I've known many artists that have been wrecked by Hollywood's promises of wealth and fame, far more than have benefited from it.

Hollywood needs to die and let the next model(s) of the marriage of art and business thrive. I actually envy the younger generation of musicians that have been raised to think of producing and distributing their own work rather than depend on a larger, centralized entity for their livelihoods.