Hollywood still doesn’t get it. They have never embraced technology and never will based off leaked emails caused by the Sony hack.
In the emails, lawyers from the MPAA and several major studios blame Google for creating problems with piracy. They don’t specifically say Google but instead use the name “Goliath” which just about everyone understands is in fact Google. Blaming Google is nothing new for Hollywood in general. For years now, we have heard the MPAA and others blame just about everyone else other than themselves for piracy’s growth around the world.
Over the last few years, one of the biggest complains continues to be why consumers are forced to wait so long to stream films after they are done being shown in the theaters. The answer was and continues to be that the movie studios want people to buy the DVD’s and think that forcing Netflix and others to delay a film’s streaming release would somehow help the movie’s DVD sales. The strategy failed then and fails today as people are simply turning towards illegal means to get their hands on a copy of the film.
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In fact, the movie industry recently applauded themselves for a story written by KPMG, which showed that 94% of films (out of 808 films looked at by the research firm) were available on at least one service. Except, as TorrentFreak (tip DSLReports) noted, just 16% of the top films were available on actual streaming platforms like Netflix. Many of the other platforms were ones run by the studios themselves, run by cable companies or run on other scattered platforms with high prices and heavy DRM.
Now, in emails obtained by The Verge, Hollywood’s new plan of attack includes working with several state attorneys generalsand major ISP’s to block web-sites from the reach of the public. In fact, Comcast (who owns Universal Studios) was working with the MPAA to “develop techniques for blocking or identifying illegally shared files in transit.” As Business Insider notes, it also is rather amazing to see all of the studios working together against one unified company. It also is quite astonishing to see just how scared and clueless they are as to how to actually stop Google.
This isn’t the first time that the MPAA came up with one stupid plan after the next to combat piracy. The MPAA is still facing backlash for their idiotic stance against Google Glass which they banned from movie theaters due to piracy fears. When one person went to a theater wearing his Google Glass, the theater notified Homeland Security. Yes, you read that correctly.
On Jan. 18, special agents with ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations and local authorities briefly interviewed a man suspected of using an electronic recording device to record a film at an AMC theater in Columbus. The man, who voluntarily answered questions, confirmed to authorities that the suspected recording device was also a pair of prescription eye glasses in which the recording function had been inactive. No further action was taken. – TechDirt
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Then there is the MPAA”s stance of the VCR in the early 80’s. The former head of the MPAA, Jack Valenti, testifying before a House Judiciary Subcommittee in 1982 that the VCR was “to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.”
The fact that it is 2014-2015 and the MPAA still believes that the way to stop piracy is to take down a few web sites shows how utterly clueless they continue to be in the face of today’s technology. How many different studies need to be done showing that those pirating media also spend more money on legal entertainment?