Is Hollywood Relying on the Government to Save Their Obsolete Business Model

[admin]

Techdirt has written an article suggesting that Hollywood's reliance on the government to protect the industry's "obsolete business model" may fail, and questions whether such protection is reasonable at all.

Referring to an recent operation in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, operating out of the Department of Homeland Security, took part in closing down websites alleged to have provided pirated content. And the announcement of the operation was actually made at Disney HQ, which Techdirt compares this kind of conflict of interest to say announcing an antitrust lawsuit against Google from the headquarters of AT&T.

Certainly, getting the federal government involved in what is normally a civil matter does seem strange. And that by taking certain actions in protecting the entertainment industry, governments around the world may actually be doing so at the expense of other industries, such as the Internet industry, when legislation like three-strikes are passed into law. This kind of protectionism appears to be what Hollywood is relying on in order to save their business.

Techdirt's article does finish off with some positive news, in that many filmmakers themselves don't agree with the industry's views, and feel that it is time to finally compete, instead of relying on the government to bail them out.

More:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101112/18222611836/hollywood-s-strategy-for-the-future-pretending-the-government-can-save-them.shtml

[doctorhardware]

That is a small step in the right direction, so hopefully the film makers will try to have Hollywood to back off.