[NTLUG:Discuss] DeCSS -- losing the limelight
Steve Baker
sjbaker1 at airmail.net
Fri May 12 17:54:31 CDT 2000
Brian Koontz wrote:
>
> Which do you think is now the larger threat to the MPAA: DeCSS or DivX?
They *should* be more concerned with DivX - but it doesn't infringe
and anti-reverse engineering/patent/whatever rules - so it would be
pretty hard to kill.
The actual large threat is the COMBINATION of DeCSS and DivX.
Either one by itself isn't really going to kill them...but
put them together and toss in some of the new broadband net
technologies...it won't be long before you can download
600Mb faster than you can drive to Blockbusters (twice).
The sheer inevitability of all of this leads me to wonder
what happens when sound and video is easily copied and
transmitted over the web.
Assuming this trend continues - as it inevitably will -
how does anyone make enough money from sales to cover their
creative costs?
* Advertising? I hope not - adverts every couple of
minutes throughout a movie would NOT be good - and in
any case, it'll be easy to skip over them and edit them
out when it's all digital...and it's only a matter of
time until some AI guru figures out how to skip them
automatically by looking at the content.
* Taxation? In England, the BBC is covered by taxation
giving free (and advertising-free) TV and radio. Perhaps
Hollywood should be funded that way and all movies
given away for free. A really up-market movie costs
maybe $1 per head of US population - so a $50 per head
movie tax would fund a brand new movie every week
distributed free to everyone who wanted it via the web.
* Voluntary contributions? Like channel 13 TV and KERA
radio? Where would you hold the pledge drive?
* Tee shirt sales?
* Perhaps improving technology makes movies so cheap
to produce that 'freeware' movies take over from
commercial offerings. Realistic 3D rendered actors
with fancy AI behaviour could do that for you in
due time. It could be just like OpenSource software
where the actions of hundreds of volunteer script
writers, directors and 3D renderers would add up to
a product on a par to something that big business
could produce.
* Perhaps the movie companies realise that releasing
the movie on DVD/whatever ultimately brings in
so little revenue (because of piracy) that they
might as well only show it in movie theatres where
they can keep control of their valuable data.
They'd lose a ton of money from DVD/VHS sales
but movie seats would be fuller - think of the
number of people who say "Nah - I'm not going to
the movie theater - I'll wait for it to come out
on video."
I think something like this has got to happen if
we still want to see movies ten years from now.
--
Steve Baker http://web2.airmail.net/sjbaker1
sjbaker1 at airmail.net (home) http://www.woodsoup.org/~sbaker
sjbaker at hti.com (work)
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