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Sony Pictures CEO Thinks the Net Wasn't Worth It
Posted by
timothy
on Sat May 16, 2009 02:34 PM
from the neither-was-coming-out-of-the-trees dept.
from the neither-was-coming-out-of-the-trees dept.
rossturk writes "Michael Lynton, CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, said, 'I'm a guy who doesn't see anything good having come from the Internet, period.' Why? Because people 'feel entitled' to have what they want when they want it, and if they can't get it for free, 'they'll steal it.' It's become customary to expect a somewhat limited perspective on things from old-world entertainment companies, but his inability to acknowledge that the Internet has changed everything makes me think he's a very confused man. Is this when we all give up hope that companies like Sony Pictures can adapt? Will we look back on this as one of the defining moments when the industrialized entertainment industry lost touch for good?"
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Technology: Sony CEO Proposes "Guardrails For the Internet" 708 comments
testadicazzo writes "Micheal Lynton, the guy who said 'I'm a guy who doesn't see anything good having come from the Internet. Period.' has posted an editorial at the Huffington Post titled Guardrails for the Internet, in which he defends his comment, and suggests that just as the interstate system needs guardrails, so too does the information superhighway. The following is pretty indicative of the article: 'Internet users have become used to getting things when they want it and how they want it, and those of us in the entertainment business want to meet that kind of demand as efficiently and effectively as possible. But what has happened online is that if it is 'beyond store hours' and the shop is closed, a lot of people just smash the window and steal what they want. Freedom without restraint is chaos, and if we don't figure out some way to prevent online chaos, the quantity, quality and availability of the kinds of entertainment, literature, art and scholarship we need to have a healthy, vibrant culture will suffer.'"
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1. Reject Technology 2. Criminalize Customer 3.??? (Score:5, Insightful)
'I'm a guy who doesn't see anything good having come from the Internet, period.'
Well then I trust you personally don't use it at all.
It's become customary to expect a somewhat limited perspective on things from old-world entertainment companies.
Relax, he's just one voice of a thousand at Sony.
Is this when we all give up hope that companies like Sony Pictures can adapt?
Frankly, I've got enough problems of my own to be concerned with their problems. It is and has been for quite sometime an adapt-or-die scenario for these guys. If they haven't figured it out, you won't see me shaking my fist up at the sky screaming "WHY!? Why couldn't you take me instead of Sony Pictures!?"
This guy should talk to his own people more often--Sony's CEO and chairman Howard Stringer said in a recent interview [nikkeibp.co.jp]:
Customers will refuse to accept it unless the technology is open. Youth in particular really dislikes closed technologies, closed systems and the like. I think the failure of AOL LLC of the US is good evidence of this. When the Internet was just beginning to spread, AOL boosted its subscriber base by providing special services only to its customers. After a while, though, customers began rebelling, complaining that they weren't children. Because AOL wanted to keep them locked up in a narrow portion of the immense Internet cosmos, open technology was created. Sony hasn't taken open technology very seriously in the past. Its CONNECT music download service was a failure. It was based on OpenMG, a proprietary digital rights management (DRM) technology. At the time, we thought we would make more money that way than with open technology, because we could manage the customers and their downloads. This approach, however, created a problem: customers couldn't download music from any Websites except those that contracted with Sony. If we had gone with open technology from the start, I think we probably would have beaten Apple Inc of the US.
Instead of that kind of level headed talk we get to hear from Mr. All-My-Customers-Are-Criminals.
Ride that ship to the bottom of the sea, Michael Lynton.
Re:1. Reject Technology 2. Criminalize Customer 3. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:1. Reject Technology 2. Criminalize Customer 3. (Score:5, Insightful)
You sound really naive. You think things used to be different? The same thing happened with the tape recorder, with the VCR, with the printing press. Capitalist companies have always been a small group of conspirators who view the population as sheep to be fleeced for their own benefit. That is the entirety of their motive. If they had a different motive, they would have chosen a different organizational structure. If they claim to have a different motive, but they didn't choose a structure that is more suited to a different motive, then they are lying.
The Internet is doing something quite useful. It's slowly and painfully eroding our cultural of naivety, and that's a good thing. Unless you've got your hand in the cookie jar.
Would you like a free rootkit with that CD? No? Tough shit.
Parent
Re:1. Reject Technology 2. Criminalize Customer 3. (Score:5, Funny)
Period isn't a sentence? Curses.
Parent
Re:1. Reject Technology 2. Criminalize Customer 3. (Score:5, Insightful)
"But there's DVR!" you say. DVR doesn't help you when you're stuck in JFK because your flight was delayed for 3 hours, and all you have is your notebook. DVR doesn't help you when you want to watch a show that's no longer in syndication, and hasn't been released on DVD (of which there are many), etc etc. Add to this that they're working on an iphone app and will likely have an Android app in the works as well and Hulu is a perfect example of how to properly take advantage of the internet's abilities. Is it perfect? Not yet. I personally would still like to see the ability to download the episodes so you can view them offline, but what it is now is certainly a great start.
So with all of this, why would people bother downloading rips? Hulu is more ubiquitous, requires no hard drive space, no messing with codec converters, no dealing with potentially virus laden downloads, etc etc etc. Do people still download? Yes, but mostly because you can get a tvrip quicker than Hulu will put it up (often within 30 minutes rather than a few hours), and Hulu doesn't have everything yet, doesn't retain everything yet, and isn't available outside of the US due to legal reasons. The important thing, though, is that it's moving in the right direction.
Sony Pictures, however, is so stuck in its "1. Release in theaters, 2. Release on DVD several months later, 3. Release on TV several years later" that they think nothing else will work, while Paramount, 20th Century Fox, MGM, Universal, and others have already begun adding some of their titles to Hulu. Is it an exhaustive collection? No, not yet at least, but again, it's a start.
I wish you luck Sony, given your recently posted losses this year, you're gonna fucking need it if you keep acting this way.
Parent
You're doing it wrong (Score:5, Funny)
You're only supposed to use the ??? when the next step isn't obvious. Since 'Buy off legislatures to support your failing business model' has been their tactic for years, it's not a very secret step.
Parent
Re:1. Reject Technology 2. Criminalize Customer 3. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:1. Reject Technology 2. Criminalize Customer 3. (Score:5, Insightful)
' Why? Because people 'feel entitled' to have what they want when they want it, and if they can't get it for free, 'they'll steal it.'
I do think there's an entitlement problem. I just think it's the other way around. You have these old dinosaurs of the industry who've been the gate keepers of media production for so long, they don't know how to react to a little competition. Think about it; some guys are probably out there running a torrent site at a loss, while using ad revenue to stay afloat. Meanwhile, these guys are sitting on the actual copies to the media don't even bother because 1) it will compete with their existing revenue model and 2) it's probably harder to justify 20-30$ to resell movie when your marginal costs are ~0$. Thing is, these guys will either have to take control of the distribution and make a profit of it, or someone else will.
Parent
Re:1. Reject Technology 2. Criminalize Customer 3. (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of that kind of level headed talk we get to hear from Mr. All-My-Customers-Are-Criminals.
Ride that ship to the bottom of the sea, Michael Lynton.
Media distribution is essentially an oligopoly/cartel and 'shrinkage' used to be small and manageable.
It used to be that theft = theft. Now theft = infringement.
He's really just unhappy that the old distribution model is fucked because:
1. the internet lowers the threshold for infringement and
2. their distribution model (even with all the internet stuff they do) only partially meets consumer demands
Parent
Re:1. Reject Technology 2. Criminalize Customer 3. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:1. Reject Technology 2. Criminalize Customer 3. (Score:5, Insightful)
So they weren't left to suffer the consequences of their poor business decisions, they were propped up with public money instead.
Parent
Copyright infringement != Theft; Theft != Piracy (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright was never about preventing anybody from using another person's work for their own profit. There are in fact plenty of provisions for doing just that in Copyright law.
Copyright is about preventing people from copying another person's work and distributing it for their own gain. It's a specific method of profiting from a work that is restricted. It's no accident that it happens to be the most direct and (usually) most profitable method of using a work, and it makes a lot of sense.
It's built into the name, for one thing, but also it is very well established that copyright law grants the creator a (theoretically) limited monopoly on the distribution of their work. That's it. Once it has been legally distributed, copyright grants no control over the copy which was distributed. The person who recieved the copy can cross out parts, re-write parts, even make dozens of copies for themselves and then poop on them if they want. It's up to them as far as copyright law is concerned.*
What they can't do is distribute their copies of the work without either having the copyright holder's express permission or making sufficient changes in the content to warrant an exception under the copyright code.
Not one bit of that has to do with any kind of Piracy**, and the only way it should be called such is if the original copy was, in fact, stolen. If it was purchased legally, then you are dealing with copyright infringement, which is a crime (note that it is become more well established that recieving the illegal copy is not a crime, only the distribution of the copy is a crime). It is not, however, theft. The property was more than likely legally purchased originally, and then copied and distributed illegaly. Copyright infringement, not theft.
You're off on your criminal analogy as well. There is nothing illegal about sharing a DVD with all your buddies. It's illegal to shoplift the initial DVD, but that isn't normally how things spread. Usually the DVD rips you find are from legally purchased copies, they are simply illegally distributed**. That's not theft, and it's a far cry from piracy.
A real, honest to goodness analogy of what happens in the digital world with DVD rips and their distribution, would be sheet music. Often times sheet music is purchased legally, and then copied (via a copy machine) and distributed dozens of times. This happens a lot in school music programs, and most music teachers who do this don't realize that when they give little Johnny a photo-copy of Little Drummer Boy to take home and practice, they are committing a crime.
It's -still- not theft. You don't go to jail for stealing the photocopied music, because you didn't steal anything. You copied it. You get sued for copyright infringement and have to pay shittons of money. And probably lose your job. But guess what? Such cases, where the works are illegaly distributed but not for direct profit, are hard to track down and usually aren't worth it. Sound at all familiar?
We don't call clueless music teachers thieves or pirates, why the hell should we call DVD rippers thieves or pirates? They do break one more law than infringing music teachers, but it's still not theft in any way, shape, or form, and it sure as hell isn't any kind of piracy.
I'm starting to get really sick of people calling copyright infringement, which has nothing to do with theft or piracy, theft and piracy. It's like calling a money launderer an arsonist. It doesn't make sense (unless that specific money launderer is in fact an arsonist as well, but that's different). The whole idea of it is buying into big media corporation bull shit to make their case sound more legitimate and scary. It's legit enough already, they just don't like how limited their rights are, and want more rights to control the content they distribute.
Damn this rant went long.
*There are other laws, like the DMCA, which DO dictate the use of a copy after it has been distributed, but that is not copyright,
Parent
Re:1. Reject Technology 2. Criminalize Customer 3. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, if you had a device that could duplicate any device you used it on, without affecting the original in any way, would people be trying to say, "You wouldn't duplicate a car, would you?" It would sound completely absurd. And this time is going to be here sooner than many people realize, I think. With 3D printers being at the point laser printers were when I was a kid, before long we could easily have one in nearly every house. Just think about what that will do to the manufacturing industry? Sure, they don't do everything actual manufacturing does right now (durability for example) but they likely will eventually. People are already working on making them able to embed circuitry into the designs.
I think this could make the copyright disputes we are having right now look downright enjoyable, because this will affect a whole lot more people than copyright.
Parent
Re:1. Reject Technology 2. Criminalize Customer 3. (Score:5, Interesting)
This guy should talk to his own people more often--Sony's CEO and chairman Howard Stringer said in a recent interview [nikkeibp.co.jp]:
Customers will refuse to accept it unless the technology is open. Youth in particular really dislikes closed technologies, closed systems and the like. I think the failure of AOL LLC of the US is good evidence of this. When the Internet was just beginning to spread, AOL boosted its subscriber base by providing special services only to its customers. After a while, though, customers began rebelling, complaining that they weren't children. Because AOL wanted to keep them locked up in a narrow portion of the immense Internet cosmos
Instead of that kind of level headed talk we get to hear from Mr. All-My-Customers-Are-Criminals.
Ride that ship to the bottom of the sea, Michael Lynton.
Previously, Lynton had worked extensively on internet related matters. He was President, AOL International [wikipedia.org], and CEO, AOL Europe starting in 2000, where he was responsible for AOL Europe as well as for AOL operations in Asia and Latin America.
Can't decide if this is hilarious or depressing :)
Parent
Say hello to the new economy, Mikey. (Score:5, Insightful)
This, presumably, from a free market wonk who thinks the law of supply and demand are best for everyone. Go ahead and meet the demands of your consumers, damn it!
Exactly. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Oooh, I don't understand how this newfangled Internets works, so let's just say it's eeeeeevil!"
When will they stop these dinosaurs from running the industry?
Parent
Re:Exactly. (Score:5, Insightful)
"When will they stop these dinosaurs from running the industry?"
Aside from the generational die-off you young'uns out there need to thin your own herd to stop these shitbags from respawning.
The kids tripping on acid during the Summer of Love mostly turned into fear-freaks who relentlessly elected NeoCon Evangeliban to office.
If you want something different, be something different and don't sell out. Take the ideological fight to the enemy. It ain't just about downloading mass-produced pop culture shit you shouldn't want anyway... :)
Parent
Re:Say hello to the new economy, Mikey. (Score:5, Interesting)
As someone who makes a living selling things online I have to think the Internet is pretty good. Of course competitors and even some manufacturers don't like the Internet because it cuts margins and makes it hard to maintain dealer areas.
Parent
Oh? (Score:5, Funny)
,'I'm a guy who doesn't see anything good having come from the Internet, period.'
I say we spam him with goatse until he repents.
Talking about entitlements (Score:5, Insightful)
I know how he feels about entitlements, really.
Some people have unbelievable ideas about what they're entitled to. When I find an artist who actually believes he's deserves to be paid until death + 70 years, then I get that same feeling, like nothing worthwhile ever came out of that artist. At least nothing without a rancid aftertaste.
Re:Talking about entitlements (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Talking about entitlements (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep. Disney's the one pushing the hardest for extensions in the US. Every time Mickey's about to go public, they get another 20 years tacked on.
Talk about your mickey mouse laws...
Parent
Re:Talking about entitlements (Score:5, Interesting)
Not exactly true. Artists such as Ian Anderson and Cliff Richard wanted to extend copyright to 95 years in the UK.
I stopped listening to Jethro Tull when I heard Ian Anderson talk about copyright. I have quite a few albums, but I feel sick whenever I think of this millionaire crying how he's being robbed, not by pirates, but by copyright laws.
I'm happy he's made a lot of money from his talent (better than making money by fraudulent banking), but trying to extend his copyright while stealing Bach's Bourree in E minor is a bit hypocritical (and I'm sure that wasn't the only piece for which he needed some "inspiration", just like any other artist - be it a writer, a poet, a painter or a composer).
Parent
Re:Talking about entitlements (Score:5, Insightful)
And what did those artists give to the descendants of people who wrote the stories and music upon which just about all modern literature and music derives?
Those artists benefited from the public domain without paying for it. Why should artists in the future not be able to benefit from what is being produced now without having to pay for it just like today's artists?
In any case, payment is only one issue -- perhaps the bigger issue is art that is locked up and unavailable to be used because the copyright holder cannot be found or is unwilling to allow his art to be reused, recycled, improved, altered, etc.?
Parent
Re:Talking about entitlements (Score:5, Insightful)
Artists don't believe they're entitled to be paid until death + 70 years. They believe they and their children ought to be paid if their work continues to be valued.
If it isn't valued, then are entitle to nothing and they get nothing.
But if it is valued, then why can't those that value it give something back in return?
So if I want to perform this little piece [gutenberg.org] should I pay Haydn's estate? In 300 years will our children be able to freely perform and share our music the way I can Mussorgsky or Vivaldi or any of the other pre-RIAA artists I enjoy and value? The way things are going it doesn't seem so.
If I create a popular composition should my descendants in 300 years each get a check for a penny every time someone wants to play it? Copyright has no business lasting longer than the average life expectancy: anything more just leads to absurdity. It may even not be a bad idea to limit it to 20 years, maybe 50 at most.
Disclaimer: Most of the music I like was made before 1980.
Disclaimer for the disclaimer: I actually prefer to purchase quality CDs and create my own FLAC rips rather than bittorrent everything.
Disclaimer for the disclaimer for the disclaimer: I wouldn't have found interesting things like ELP's Pictures at an Exhibition (which I bought two weeks ago) if not for bittorrents/Gnutella/Napster/etc, and ELP's "remix" may not even exist if there were a Mussorgsky Estate. Who knows whether the original Pictures at an Exhibition would have just gone down in obscurity if our current copyright laws existed in 1874. YMMV
Parent
Sony Loosing Ground (Score:5, Informative)
Given that Sony recently posted its first loss in 14 years [bbc.co.uk], I think perhaps it is time for them to get with the new modes of media distribution instead of keeping its head in the sand and decrying them.
Ironic (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it quite ironic that this was said by a CEO in Sony, a company that came to its riches and fortunes by facilitating copying. Sonitape was the sneakernet of the 50s.
Re:Ironic (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
What have the Romans ever done for us? (Score:5, Funny)
Someone should really update this for the internet. And immortalize this idiot's name as the dunce who asked the question...
I have given up on Sony (Score:5, Informative)
They used to make quality products, not so much anymore. My latest experience is the last straw. Last year, I purchased a Sony navigation unit. I soon found that the maps were outdated, and missing major landmarks, and even an Interstate highway that had opened the year before. Support assured me that the next update would solve these problems. Well, after many months, an update has finally been released for the mere price of $99. So, in other words, Sony wants me to pay another $99 to fix what was broken from the time they built the unit. I consider it a lesson learned, and will not longer purchase Sony products.
Re:I have given up on Sony (Score:5, Interesting)
I stopped buying sony about 2 or 3 years ago. around the time the rootkit stuff came out, the bad oem batteries, the sony vs sony vs the rest of the world (is sony making cd recorders AND music? which sony are we to listen to, then?)
their bd is a DRM nightmare that I won't ever fund (blanks, burners, readers, etc - I want NO part of any of it).
about 10 yrs ago, sony was 'the shit' to have. now its the shit NOT to have; or rather, its the company NOT to fund.
they don't get it, they haven't 'gotton it' for a long time. sony has chosen sides and its not the side I'm not, so I boycott them. until they change their tunes, so to speak.
Parent
Re:I have given up on Sony (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:I have given up on Sony (Score:5, Interesting)
I know I've given up on Sony laptops at least. I purchased a Sony Vaio SZ right as it was released, hoping it would be a good lightweight laptop that also delivered some power so that I could play at least some Windows games (when I was booted into Windows and not Linux, of course, which doesn't happen very often).
As soon as we ordered it, the warranty started ticking. If they had shipped the laptop as soon as we ordered it, that would not have been that bad. But they didn't. For about a month we waited for it to ship, because one part was consistently out of stock. Please, make sure you have the parts for your laptop in stock when you release it, okay Sony?
Well. Finally, it shipped. Okay, so now I have one month less on my warranty than I should. No. This is not the end of my story. Yes, it continues. When it arrived, with its brand new Core Duo processor, I popped open the task manager in Windows because it was acting funny and laggy. Wouldn't you know it, one of the cores was constantly being consumed by some unknown process. It hadn't been shipped with a virus--rather, the motherboard was defective on arrival. Yet more time I have to go without this laptop! So we shipped it back, and they eventually got back to us with a working motherboard. All was good, right?
Yeah, my story still isn't over. Come February of the next year, my battery just stops working. It's no longer recognized by the OS. At all. Well, okay, we have an extended warranty. But it's still under warranty. Right? Wrong. The battery was under a different warranty, which had just expired. Fine, okay, this is getting absurd, but I'll buy another outrageously priced battery. I have a laptop, after all? Come 362 days later, the battery dies AGAIN. Fortunately, this time around, I had a warranty on the battery (for three more days). Well, okay. This is getting suspicious.
Wouldn't you know it. The next year (this year), the battery died again. Very little research told me that this happens to EVERYONE. Right after the warranty expires (hopefully for Sony)...
Well yeah, in the mean time, I'd bought a new laptop from Apple and had no problems with it, so I didn't bother to replace the $200 battery again. I'm never buying a Sony laptop again. I think I had more problems that I've forgotten in the 3 years since I got the laptop, so this rant may be incomplete.
Parent
Well, it all makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
I dunno... (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously the idea that nothing good has come from the internet is total nonsense. But I have a hard time disagreeing with this:
because that's exactly the attitude I hear. Maybe that's just the way things are going to be from now on, but it does bother me that so many people consider not getting a product to be an unacceptable response to terms they don't like. I guess *I* must be getting old...
It's the wrong issue (Score:5, Insightful)
It's really about entertainment in digital form. Record companies and movie studios have made tremendous profits from the transition from analog to digital.
In particular, music companies were able to sell CDs that cost less to manufacture than vinyl disks and charge significantly more for them. They were also able to release CDs of older music that otherwise would not be repurchased.
In recent years they've suffered from the other consequences of digital media (e.g. the ease of copying). Yet on balance, digitization has been a net positive for their bottom line.
Re:It's the wrong issue (Score:5, Informative)
they have run out of 'product'.
the music today sucks. and cd audio is good enough for 99% of the people out there - yet the industry invented new forms of audio, 'rich' in drm (true-hd and dts master crapola). there is NOTHING sonically better that MATTERS for movies yet we are told we have to re-buy things all over again.
blatant money grab. don't fall for it. boycott bd, hd-dvd and any new audio formats that aren't open.
and dont' EVER mix audio and video. keep your hdmi 'clean' of audio and use regular spdif for audio (its open and drm-free).
don't re-buy your 5.1 stereo - DD5.1 will be here for decades and won't be going away any time soon. resist the 'urge' to fill the bank accounts of music execs (and equipment makers!) trying to get you to re-re-buy things time and time again.
yes, the cost of making cd's (even 10 yrs ago) was a fraction of pressing a vinyl album yet they charge MORE for cd.
the industry has taken us for a ride for a long time. payback time - boycott their stuff and have them feel financial pain.
Parent
Re:It's the wrong issue (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes. What's really come to an end is the format treadmill.
People already have works legally in their position that are of sufficient
quality. Those works can be transformed into any new format by the end user.
The media industry is no longer required for this.
Sure, there might still be some things you want to get on Bluray but there
is hardly the compelling need there.
Sony's sh*tting their pants not over the fact that I can copy their movie
and give it to my friends but that I can copy their movie and own a copy
of it in perpetuity and play that on my 60" TV.
Soon, you will be able to have multiple copies of hundreds of DVD's scattered
about the house as casually as you might for a similar sized Music collection.
You will have built in redundancy. Even if your house burns down, you will
very likely never need to buy your stuff over again.
Paul McCartney will never make any money from me ever again not because I am
a pirate but because I am a paying customer with a really big RAID array.
Parent
His gripe is new required customer service? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's right, the net has increased competition.. the customers feel "entitled" to companies catering to them by providing product to them in the form and price they want, and will find what they want through black marets should we refuse to provide it.
"the customers feel "entitled" to the product they want at the price they want, and now have a way to get it when we don't want to provide it, and we don't like that" - Sony Pictures.
There are certain things capitalism can't produce (Score:5, Interesting)
Capitalism can't produce common goods. Internet would've never had existed if it weren't for the US government. It was created in an academic environment, by passionate people that cared about the advance of technolog (indirectly: of mankind). Internet advanced quickly, different protocols appeared, once replacing the other (Gopher, SMTP, HTTP, POP, IMAP, NNTP, etc.).
Then the companies came. Those set of protocols froze, some began to fade. Companies didn't care about "what's right". They didn't care about advance the network. The HTTP/1.0 -> 1.1 transition took years, and still hasn't finished (e.g. http pipelining). IMAP mail stalled, and got replaced by webmail. Multicast was never deployed at large. Newsgroups got replaced by phpbb.
These companies hate Internet. If they praise it, it's only when they realize they can't afford to ignore it (or destroy it).
We Must Stop the Customer Before It's Too Late (Score:5, Funny)
Why? Because people 'feel entitled' to have what they want when they want it, and if they can't get it for free, 'they'll steal it.'
*A panting Michael Lynton enters his boardroom with Sony's Chairmembers* ... is that a Blu-Ray copy of Spiderman? ... it had it in its hand as it was leaving the store. ... ... ... you're all cu ... customers! How could I have been so blind? No wonder we are losing this war! SECURITY!
Michael Lynton: *gasping for breath* I'm sorry I'm late. But I was just down in the store and I had to confiscate this.
Chairman One: Is that
Michael Lynton: Yes, I had to confiscate it from a "customer"
Chairman One: The customer stole it? We have the finest security in place
Michael Lynton: No, far worse than that. The customer held up the product and said to me, 'Hey, Mr. Lynton, it's bullshit I have to pay $30 for this after paying $15 to see it in the theater.' At which point I realized that it intended to give this away through the internet to all of his friends.
*pauses for seriousness*
Michael Lynton: Then I tackled him and I just saved us one trillion dollars in lost profits.
Chairman Two: Mr. Lynton, we might have a problem if that person paid for this copy of Spiderman.
Michael Lynton: No, you don't understand, he had a shirt indicating he used the internet. If that isn't a red flag, I don't know what is. All of them are criminals just looking at us with their beady little eyes trying to figure out how to steal from us.
Chairman Three: Sir, are you feeling alright?
Michael Lynton: I'm feeling great, I just saved us money. You know, I saw someone on the street the other day and they were fat and pasty white and I knew then that they used the internet. So I drove them down with my car.
Chairman Four: That was you on Channel Nine News last night
Michael Lynton: Oh please, grow up, this is business and business means war. Now, I think that if we act quickly we can hit the customer with viruses in the rootkit no one's found on our Blu-Ray media. The time is upon us to put an end to the customer once and for all, people. Think of your children! Wait a second, why do you all look confuse? Oh my god, you're all them
Get rid of that guy SONY, NOW! (Score:5, Insightful)
He's mostly right (Score:5, Insightful)
He's mostly right, except for the bit about free.
Honestly, I'd pay somewhere between $1.00 and $2.50 for a movie, if it were HQ-5.1 and instant play, like youtube.
Because it's more convenient to download a movie, and play it on my media player than aquire and load a DVD, so I choose that medium.
The movie producers leave me little option than to download illegally.
Yes, I've seen the stores, their selection sucks.
No Wonder.... (Score:5, Funny)
hurting aristocracy always bad. (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is a technology that absolutely redistributed wealth away from the lazy. Persons that can innovate today love it. People who are living off innovations two and three generations old will hate it. The hard working want to let it progress to revitalize the world. The entitled want to regulate it and make it benefit only those selected by the elite.
Short List of Unimportant Aspects of the Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's a short list of things he doesn't think are important:
Yeah, I guess he's right. The internet is useless.
Right, Wrong, and Clueless (Score:5, Insightful)
He's Right that:
I do feel entitled to download everything I've already paid for. I will not pay for the e-version of a book I own or that is out of print. I will not pay again for a record/tape/CD I already own. And I will not pay full hardcover price for an ebook, full price for a CD with only one or two desired songs, nor hesitate to view/obtain a movie for free to avoid escalating cinema costs.
He's Wrong about the Internet:
The Internet galvanized the public, academia, and industry into pushing the bounds of technology. It has precipitated a technological growth from which the entertainment industry has benefited handsomely. Production quality has increased while its costs have decreased. Dissemination of entertainment has, thanks to the internet (and peripheral technologies), been able to greatly expand markets, enhance product marketing, tune the delivery of content, and all for a lower cost. And I still buy DVD's and CD's and go to cinemas when I think they are worth the price.
He Doesn't get that:
The audience aren't inherently criminals, they simply want a fair price for a product. And until the entertainment industry accepts that, then the audience will seek fairness by any means possible.
What a coincidence. (Score:5, Funny)
It happens that the Net thinks Sony Pictures wasn't worth it too.
So the feeling is mutual.
It takes a special breed of idiot (Score:5, Insightful)
to call humanity's second greatest invention since Mathematics(*) itself useless. We're talking about a technology that allows Joe Average in the US to send a message to Juan Promedio in Spain in less time it took you to read this paragraph for a total cost of less than a cent. Think about that for a minute, and realize all the possibilities this opens up for humanity as a whole.
It may have some problems, yes, but anyone who says that nothing good has ever come out of it is either a complete idiot, someone with an agenda or as is probably the case here, both.
(*)If you're wondering what's on first place, you're reading this post on one.
Re:-1 Flamebait (Score:5, Informative)
No. Sony isn't just a "media company". It's one of the big technology companies. And it's relevant that one of the biggest technology companies hate Internet.
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