Hollywood crony deals seem to fail like Madonna movies.
Tag Archives: movies
10 Great Capitalism Movies
Copyright is a government sanctioned monopoly, not a natural right.
There are very good arguments, both for and against copyright. Our founders thought that such rights were vital to encourage innovation and creative exploration.
Fix Copyright in the USA. It Was Never Meant to be a Way to Entrench the Already Powerful.
Copyright laws in this country are absurd and amount to little more than givaways to the entertainment industry.
The Carrot (anti-tax) Rebellion In Spain
More Crony Hollywood, This Time via Bollywood?
Dreamworks makes pretty good movies, at least Steven Spielberg does and he is part of Dreamworks. The problem is people want to see them less and less these days. As such the studio has money problems.
Spielberg’s production company is actually now part of Reliance Entertainment, out of India. And despite losing money on movie after movie over the last few years Reliance continues to let Dreamworks spend spend spend.
In 1982 the MPAA (The Guys behind SOPA and now CISPA) Sought to Outlaw the VCR
Disruptive technologies are just that – disruptive. Cars killed the buggy whip companies. But some of those companies probably started making auto accessories. I’ll bet even a few of them thrived. Change happens.
The point is disruption is a natural thing and one of the most important parts of a market economy. New technologies rise, and with them new leaders and new wealth, only to be replaced by newer technologies and newer leaders after that. The firms that can negotiate the transitions become legends. Those which do not become footnotes, for the most part.
American history is full of efforts by industry to protect itself from change, but dynamism in the economy need not be feared. With dynamism comes opportunity. The Motion Picture Association of America should remember this. The industry may have to change, sorry about that.
I wonder what the vaudeville lobby thought of movies back in the day? George Burns made it in both media. The geniuses in Hollywood should have no problem.
Crony Hollywood: Chris Dodd says that MPAA is Negotiating with White House on SOPA II
“Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” – Winston Churchill
These guys are not going to quit. Hollywood wants what essentially is a bailout in SOPA. Its model is old and tired. The Hollywood establishment has a vision of intellectual property (see Disney’s efforts to extend copyright to “life of the creator plus 70 years”) that makes absolutely no sense in the world as it is today. It makes even less sense in the world that is to come. The guys at the studios know they are in serious trouble and that is why they are working their friends in government while they still can. They get SOPA now and hang on for another decade and a half or they will see their bloated, union heavy, system collapse in the next few years. They saw what happened to music and they don’t want to end up like the recording industry.
What is particularly scary is that Chris Dodd, and the boys over at the MPAA are probably willing to do real damage to the 1st Amendment to preserve their way of life.
