There’s nothing better than being able to do the right thing and the politically savvy thing while simultaneously paying back a long-time abuser in spades.

And that’s just what the Republicans in Congress did to Hollywood when it abandoned the rush to pass SOPA and regulate the Internet for the benefit of Tinseltown. Astonishingly, considering its usual inability to perform competently at even the most basic level, the GOP not only managed to embrace good policy but drove a wedge into the Democratic coalition that may well have dramatic consequences down the road. And, best of all, it provided a bit of long overdue payback to the smug oligarchs of LA’s West Side who have spent the last couple decades treating Republicans like something you’d hasten to flush.

Hey, suckers, how do ya like us now?

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is only the latest attempt by Hollywood to breathe some life back into its dying business model. Enraged that online “pirates” are passing around bootleg copies of movies, shows, books, music, and all other manner of intellectual property, the industry did what it has done for years: ran to Congress for ever more burdensome and onerous laws designed to hold back the inevitable consequences of progress. 

But this time, it went too far. Perhaps it was Hollywood’s arrogance. Perhaps it was the provisions allowing Hollywood to use the United States government to shut down any website it pleased on the mere accusation of “piracy” without any due process, a power lefty–fascist bureaucrats would be only too eager to accept.

Not surprisingly, the people who make their living on the web were less than thrilled about giving Uncle Sam and the media conglomerates an off-switch.

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PIRATES DOWNLOAD FLOPS, IGNORE HITS

If Hollywood despised child rapists and terrorists as much as they do the 99%-ers who steal from movies and music from the 1%, the world would be a much better place.

PAGING ARMOND WHITE: ‘GROWN UPS’ SEQUEL PLANNED

This makes Armond White and me very happy. And if you’re looking for Armond these days, he’s writing over at City Arts. His “Week With Marilyn” review is a must-read: “A Giant Played By a Midget.”

[Michelle] Williams lacks the personality and lush physicality for successful prurience; she’s more Renée Zellweger than Monroe.

I don’t know what “prurience” means, but I sure wish I’d written that.

Anyway, “Grown Ups” made $271 million thanks to an amusing, easygoing story and a cast that blended together perfectly thanks to a chemistry that should serve a sequel quite well.

SO WHAT DOES DISNEY HAVE IN STORE FOR THE MUPPETS IN 2012?

Well, they’ve already attacked Big Oil and told us Newt Gingrich is “from the swamp,” so I’m guessing it will have something to do with helping to reelect President FailureTeleprompter.

THE 15 BEST SHOWS ON NETFLIX INSTANT

Doesn’t anyone write about popular culture anymore who was born before 1989? There are some perfectly fine choices on this list but the oldest listed is probably “Scrubs.” Where are “Gunsmoke,” “Columbo,” “Andy Griffith,” and “Mission: Impossible”? Where are “Wagon Train,” “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” and “Thriller”? One of the pleasures of writing about Hollywood is having the opportunity to introduce or re-introduce the classics. And I’m not that old. I’m only 45, and many of these shows that I’ve managed to discover were well before my time.

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QWIKSTER DUMPED, DVD RENTALS TO STAY AT NETFLIX

Netflix’s market value has dropped 60% since these debacles began, which just so happens to be the exact same percentage as their recent price increase (today’s announcement helped some).

This is a weak move on the company’s part, nothing more than a band-aid on a fatal mistake. Not having to deal with Qwikster might make things more convenient for customers, but Netflix has still, in effect, split their subscriptions into two distinct services–streaming and by-mail delivery–and therefore given their customer base yet another reason to stop renting DVDs.

Moreover, all they can do now to retain customer loyalty is to make the streaming service better with a stronger library, which also gives us another reason to cancel the by-mail service.

In just a few dumb moves, Netflix has hastened the end of DVD and the extinction of a large part of their own business.  Look no further for proof of this than the email I received this morning:

We’re constantly improving our streaming selection. We’ve recently added hundreds of movies from Paramount, Sony, Universal, Fox, Warner Bros., Lionsgate, MGM and Miramax. Plus, in the last couple of weeks alone, we’ve added over 3,500 TV episodes from ABC, NBC, FOX, CBS, USA, E!, Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, ABC Family, Discovery Channel, TLC, SyFy, A&E, History, and PBS.

Thanks again for confirming my decision to drop the by-mail service!

If I were Netflix, I would immediately combine streaming and by-mail again for somewhere around $10.99 and call it the “We’re So Damn Sorry We Could Die Of Embarrassmentz’ package.

BOX OFFICE ANALYSIS

1. Real Steel — $27.3M: This seems about right.

2. Ides of March — $10.4M: This got dropped into 2200 theatres and everything was done to make it not look “political” or “liberal,” which can mean only two things when analyzing the box office. Either George Clooney’s not the movie star All The Right People are telling us he is, or the American people don’t trust Hollywood when it comes to anything political.

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Ending the Unholy Alliance

An unholy alliance evolved over the last decade among search companies, ad serving companies, credit card companies and rogue websites.  People seeking illegal digital property use unfiltered search engines to find it, ad serving companies facilitate users by serving ads to these search pages and to rogue sites, and credit card companies facilitate the sale of illegal content subscriptions. 

The adservers and credit card companies split their revenue with the rogue sites.  Everyone makes money efficiently–except the people who create the stuff that’s being ripped off, whether its movies, music, high fashion or pharmaceuticals. This is hardly a level playing field.  But criticize the unholy alliance, and you’ll be demeaned as a shill or worse.

Missing from this cash machine?  Responsibility.  Like Sergeant Schultz, nobody sees nothing—nod nod wink wink—rogue sites are all someone else’s fault, and that someone always seems to be a couple steps outside the law in China, the Ukraine or somewhere from which they reach the valuable US market without the burden of US laws.  This unholy alliance is a serious economic attack—large commercial interests that are global, well funded and cagey.

Should online property rights be different that offline property rights?

Nobody likes the idea of the government seizing private property, but nobody likes having their property stolen, either.  The point is to help create a level playing field to encourage the launch of legitimate services which in turn support the jobs of those who produce the legitimate goods. 

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This week in the Daily Variety there was an article by Ted Johnson entitled “Biz Need Louder Voice to Fight Piracy.”  In that article Mr. Johnson makes a case that the entertainment industry needs to be stronger and more vocal in its fight on the piracy issue.  His point is made almost entirely based upon a speech given by President of the DGA Taylor Hackford at the “Content Protection Summit.”  To quote Mr. Hackford from the article:

Our industry doesn’t get it at all. And I am talking about top executives down to secretaries.  I am talking about directors to craft service people.  Unfortunately, this is our (DGA) No 1 priority…But within our own members, they just don’t quite understand how serious this is…Hollywood is filled with very famous and successful people…And, we are really famous for our causes.  We care about things.  We step out, and we have our pet causes…The point is when we care about things, we back it with our money and we speak out.  The problem is nobody in this community speaks out about the threat that is actually happening in our community.  And, if we let this threat continue, they will not have the money to contribute to these causes.

The remainder of the article is mostly dedicated to the proposition that the problem stems mostly from the internet.  Mr. Johnson states that government should control the internet to protect the business models of the content providers.  He feels that the bill passed in the Judiciary Committee giving the Justice Department new powers to shut down “rogue” web sites is a good thing. (more…)

There’s a reason Prince made it onto Time’s 100 Most Influential Celebrities list.  His musical legacy is easily apparent, and his opinions are still making headlines.  Recently, the purple-clad eccentric has endured great scorn for his statement, “The Internet’s completely over.”  Just so you know he’s serious, Prince has banned his music from YouTube and iTunes, shut down his own website, and announced his newest album 20TEN will only be distributed as a free CD inside the British paper the Daily Mirror (much to the chagrin of my wife and sis-in-law, huge fans).

After blasting online music distributors, Prince calls the technology itself a fad that’s on the way out:  “The Internet’s like MTV.  At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good.”  Obviously, he’s out of touch; MTV was a diversion, not a tool that expanded the potential accomplishments of virtually every business and individual in the world.   Nor were millions of people physically addicted to MTV and its content.

 Though his statement is demonstrably false, there’s something to the sentiment behind it.  I’ve rarely bought mp3s online that I could buy on a physical format for two reasons:  first, lower sound quality (to bring the file sizes down, they remove frequencies and decrease the audio’s resolution), and I prefer the limitation of having to choose and listen to one CD at a time.  Just browsing through a collection of mp3s ripped from the same CDs, I appall myself, getting so easily bored and skipping through music that I find exhilarating when I commit to it.  Despite an age difference of three decades, Prince and I find solidarity in this anachronism. (more…)

Word is getting around that the RIAA seems to be stepping away from lawsuits as a key strategy against piracy.  Lawsuits were never going to be the solution, as other major rights-holders, like those working together through Arts+Labs, will attest.

That’s not to say that we’ve all stopped believing in creators’ rights or that we no longer think piracy is a real problem.  On the contrary: the creative economy depends on creative rights.

We all understand the demand for easy access to inexpensive content, and the people who produce that content – artists, movie makers, journalists, musicians, songwriters and more – are eager to deliver it. But, as it turns out, they want their rights to be respected.

Unfortunately, some consumers get confused about the difference between demand and entitlement. A recent TechDirt screed illustrates this entitlement mentality.  Writing about Joel Tenenbaum, who was sued for pirating and distributing songs online (a jury found that he had willfully infringed copyrights and awarded a judgment far larger than had been asked), Mike Masnick wrote: (more…)

Director Steven Soderbergh blames piracy for the box office failure of ”Che,” which made less than half of its budget back:

“We got crushed in South America. We came out in Spain in September of last year and it was everywhere within a matter of days. It killed it.”

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Ask any corporate chieftain about the current economy and – unless they sell burgers for a dollar, canned goods, or alcohol – they’ll tell you about the tough conditions their companies face.  But within this economic crucible, the target is still moving:  Entertainment and consumer tech companies are facing an entirely different set of challenges, as consumers have changed their entertainment habits. 

As has been widely reported, the Hollywood studios have been hit particularly hard.  DVD sales are down 6% over the past year, and Disney and Sony have already cut hundreds of jobs in 2009. 

To be sure, some of this is a natural result of Hollywood’s insistence on churning out tedious, recycled narratives with the hopes that increased vulgarity and special effects will cover for their lack of creativity.  But aside from the obvious criticisms that I, as a conservative, might lodge against the movie industry — Hollywood is also plagued by a refusal to embrace the emerging demands of the marketplace. 

One emerging demand is the need for wholesome entertainment.  Quality films like “The Incredibles” and even the now-classic “Forrest Gump” consistently out-perform R-rated films, yet Hollywood continues to ignore consumer demands and produce more and more “Rotten Tomato” films.  (more…)