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.

Initially, the Republicans once again fell into Hollywood’s trap. When Hollywood needs something from Congress, it dons the mask of “business” and enlists the GOP ideologically. After all, the Republicans are supposed to love “business.” Until now, they have been blind to the fact that many of the “businesses” that plead for special breaks before them are about as capitalist as your typical Occupy Wall Street mutant – the only difference is nicer suits and better drugs.

They aren’t capitalists; they’re cronyists, either relying on government handouts directly or basking in the protection of special favors. And that’s precisely the opposite of what we conservatives are about.

Businesses compete; “businesses” like the entertainment industry use the government to enact rules and regulations that make it so they don’t have to compete.

So, like Pavlov’s dogs hearing the dinner bell, the GOP started drooling when Hollywood started playing the business card. In fact, Republican Lamar Smith of Texas was only too eager to carry water for it – as were several other normally solid Republicans who should have known better.

Of course, Hollywood laughed. It laughed because it holds Republicans in contempt. For decades, Hollywood has endeavored to depict conservative Americans are weirdos, losers, petty tyrants, religious nuts, baby killing fanatics, and idiots. And, once again, the GOP was falling into its trap and dancing to its tune. “What a bunch of suckers!” snickered the Hollywood big shots.

Oh, and the Democrats? Not an issue. Not only are Hollywood and the liberals in ideological lockstep, but Hollywood represents buckets of money and bushels of glamor. The Dems are always on board for whatever Hollywood wants. They know where their locally-sourced, whole wheat artisan bread in non-dairy buttered.

But something funny happened on the way to the fascism.

There was a backlash. The peasants revolted! Tech savvy Americans, both right and left, saw that the Internet that they had grown up with and embraced was in grave danger of being bound by regulations for the sole purpose of ensuring that the dying Hollywood business model would last a bit longer – at the price of stifling everyone else.

No dice.

The rebellion came as a shock to the GOP congresscreatures, who in reality probably had not given much thought to the contents of SOPA – that is, until all hell broke loose. Suddenly, they became VERY interested in intellectual property and telecommunications law.

The Republicans, pushed by a groundswell of opposition from conservative new media types, bailed. SOPA was a non-starter, and now everyone will be looking the next time Hollywood tries to play them. Hey, Hollywood, there’s a new paradigm in Tinseltown.

And the Democrats who supported SOPA  – and who could not back out no matter how outraged the nutroots got – ended up looking both foolish and like tools of the corporate power structure.  And that’s just what they are.

But it gets better.

It gets better because this was a great object lesson all around. To those in Republicans in Congress, it brought attention to a subject that had been sadly ignored but is vital to a huge number of influential voters. It gave them an issue – Internet freedom – that is truly congruent with conservative values, unlike the past political payoffs to connected Hollywood cronies. We conservatives can run on this.

It was also a lesson to young, tech-savvy people who see themselves as culturally liberal and just kind of voted that way, mostly out of habit.  The group that really shares their values – creativity, enterprise, freedom – is the conservativees. The liberals they counted themselves among wanted to shut down websites, not the conservatives. SOPA opened a lot of eyes.

Everything they thought they knew was a lie. Here was Kevin Bacon, and he was telling John Lithgow not to dance.

Can you say “Wedge issue?”

Internet freedom, besides being the right thing to do, is a powerful banner to carry aloft into the battle for the next generation’s hearts and minds. The young, affluent, educated voters the Democrat Party is counting on for the future have to choose between the stolid, limited, controlled world of the Democrat’s corporate owners or the free market of the conservatives where their only limits are those they impose upon themselves.

The Democrats can’t flex on this – they are bound to Hollywood for money and what’s left of its fading aura. But the GOP? It won’t miss what it never had.

In fact, Hollywood’s history of trashing conservatives only make it sweeter when its emissaries come to us for help and we laugh in their botoxed faces.

With its crappy product, promotion of (mostly) non-stellar “stars” and sneering contempt for the majority of its customers, Hollywood seems desperately committed to failure. That’s why when is asks us for a life preserver, we should be only too happy to hand it an anvil.

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.

As a teenager, I used to get up at six a.m. every Sunday morning because a local PBS station aired a two-hour block of “George Burns and Gracie Allen,” “Jack Benny,” “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” and “Our Miss Brooks.” I remember all the tin foil I wasted trying to get “The Honeymooners” off of WGN in Chicago. What attracted me to these shows is what attracted audiences decades earlier. They were and are marvelously entertaining, well acted, and clever. That hasn’t changed.

This isn’t a knock in any way on modern television. As I’ve said many times, television is currently enjoying a new golden age. But one of the glories of the age in which we currently live is access to almost everything.

Everything’s so hip, so cool, so now… Which is fine, but there still needs to be a sense and knowledge of history. I see this same problem in those who complain about the lack of content on Netflix Streaming. What in the world are they talking about? You could lose yourself in that library for a decade… if you can manage to live without season 29 of “The Simpsons” or “The Hangover II.”

And now I need all of you need to get off my lawn.

RIDLEY SCOTT SAYS BLU-RAY HERE TO STAY

Not sure I buy this:

Short of that, the technically sophisticated Blu-ray disc, of which I’ve been a supporter since its inception, is the closest we’ve come to replicating the best theatrical viewing experience I’ve ever seen. It allows us to present in a person’s living room films in their original form with proper colors, aspect ratio, sound quality, and, perhaps most importantly, startling clarity.

Which is why it has never made sense to me that those preoccupied with how movies are delivered have for years written off “physical media” (i.e., movies on discs) as “dead” even though the evidence shows it isn’t happening and won’t for years to come. Technology will need to make many more huge leaps before one can ever view films with the level of picture and sound quality many film lovers demand without having to slide a disc into a player, especially with the technical requirements of today’s 3D movies.

It’s been three decades since the CD was first introduced and you can still buy vinyl, so there’s no doubt that Blu-ray is likely to always be with us in some form, especially for those who obsess over “proper colors” and packaging and the like. But the picture delivered through streaming is pretty damn good, as is the sound, and I think Scott is under-estimating how enamored most of us are with the miracle of having a library of movies and television shows just a click away. And then there’s the cost.

And is 3D really going to become such a big deal at home that it will save Blu-ray? According to the box office, 3D  is far from the savior it was predicted to be there.

20 NEVER-SEEN PHOTOS OF STEVE MCQUEEN

Fantastic.

For years I’ve called McQueen the last true movie star, and as you’ll see from the photographs, he was no skinny-jeaned, pierced, pasty-white metrosexual.

McQueen was also a rock-ribbed Republican.

If I make it to Heaven, one of the top one hundred things I’m going to is thank the Good Lord for is DVD. Can you imagine living in a world where your only choices were George Clooney, Ashton Kutcher and Nicole Kidman? I’d have to kill myself or get a life.

ANGELINA JOLIE ON BEING SUED, ‘IT ALWAYS HAPPENS’

Jolie’s correct. One of the pitfalls of the film business is that a copyright suit against a high-profile film is more likely to happen than not. Someone’s going to claim the idea was their idea first or that years ago they pitched the story. Sometimes someone really does get cheated, but most of these suits are frivolous.

GARY OLDMAN ON ‘DARK KNIGHT RISES’

Den of Geek:

So where, then, do things pick up for Gordon this time around? Well, “when we meet him, things are calmer in Gotham. It’s reminiscent of the Gordon that we met in the first one”, says Oldman, adding that “even though things on the surface are now calmer, he’s cleaned up Gotham with the Harvey Dent Act, it’s seething underneath”.

Appreciating that there’s only so much he could say about the film, Oldman did note that “It’s a terrific conclusion to the trilogy. Nolan rounds if off: he brings in a bit of the first one, from Batman Begins, and he does some really surprising things with it”.

Promising “the fans won’t be disappointed”, he said there’s “a relief and it’s mixed with [some sadness]” that his Batman adventures have come to an end.

Not many sequels have so much to live up to. We expect most sequels to suck, especially the third, but since Christopher Nolan is apparently incapable of making a bad film, expectations couldn’t be higher.

More here.

IS KHAN ‘STAR TREK 2′S VILLAIN?

Vulture thinks so, but would Benicio Del Toro be your first choice in casting that role? Maybe.

On Friday, the site Latino Review claimed to have confirmed that choice of villain, though Abrams promptly replied to Hitfix that the report was “not true.” Still, the famously secretive director was probably trying to keep the cat in the interstellar bag for a little while longer, as Vulture hears from a highly placed source that Khan is indeed the film’s baddie.

Another sequel much is riding on. Let’s hope there are more lens flares.

TOP 10 MEMORABLE BLAXPLOITATION FILMS

Not a single flick anchored by Pam Grier. Blasphemy.

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LAST NIGHT’S SCREENING

Hoping to review this later today. 

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SCOTTDS’ EPIC LINKTACULAR

DEAL OF THE DAY: 35 EASTWOOD FILMS FOR $77

MARTIN SCORSESE TO DIRECT ‘SILENCE’, BASED ON THE BOOK BY SHUSAKU ENDO

THE NEXT STEP FOR THE ‘EVIL DEAD’ REMAKE

MICHAEL BAY WANTS MARK WAHLBERG AND DWAYNE JOHNSON FOR HIS NEXT FILM, ‘PAIN AND GAIN‘

NEW PICTURES FROM ‘SHERLOCK’ SERIES 2

TEASER TRAILER FOR SCI-FI THRILLER ‘LOCKOUT,’ PRODUCED BY LUC BESSON

BOND 23 SET PHOTOS

R.I.P. LEGENDARY CASTING DIRECTOR MARION DOUGHERTY

EW’S ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR IS…

SETH GREEN LAUNCHES A NEW STOP-MOTION ANIMATION STUDIO

‘MYTHBUSTERS’ MISHAP SENDS A CANNONBALL FLYING… THROUGH A HOUSE

10 HORROR CLICHES IN ‘AMERICAN HORROR STORY‘

BRADLEY COOPER TALKS ‘PARADISE LOST’ & WHY HE LEFT ‘THE CROW’ REMAKE

PANAVISION CAMERA USED TO SHOOT ‘STAR WARS’ SELLS FOR $625,000 AT AUCTION

‘AMERICAN CHOPPER: THE BUILD-OFF’ WINNER REVEALED!

RUMOR: UNIVERSAL ORLANDO’S ‘JAWS’ RIDE BEING SCRAPPED FOR HARRY POTTER EXPANSION?

A. O. SCOTT ON ‘THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE’

9 NERDY FILM LOCATIONS YOU MUST VISIT IN YOUR LIFETIME

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CLASSIC PICK FOR THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8

11:30 PM  EST: My Man Godfrey (1936) –  A zany heiress tries to help a tramp by making him the family butler. Dir: Gregory La Cava Cast:  William Powell, Carole Lombard, Alice Brady. BW-94 mins, TV-G, CC.

Depression-era classic. Hopefully TCM’s print is better than the public domain DVDs we’ve been saddled with for years.

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.

Methinks it’s both. Unless he’s surrounded by Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts, Clooney couldn’t open a supermarket. His whole schtick–and the people see through it–is “playing” a movie star. All that’s missing, though, is what truly makes someone a movie star, and that’s audience goodwill and, you know, box office muscle.

It’s just a fact that when people see Clooney in a political flick, they want no part of it. And it’s not just a red state thing. If not a single Bitter Clinger purchases a single ticket, there are more than enough liberals in America to turn any movie into a box office smash.

Clooney’s last attempt at a mainstream crowd-pleaser was the embarrassingly bad “Leatherheads,” which also flopped. But once again, you had the actor playing the role of a movie star, this time with a self-conscious attempt to cast himself as Cary Grant in a Howard Hawks film.

There’s no question Clooney’s a much better actor today, especially when compared to when he first made the leap to film in the mid-nineties. But he made better movies then. “The Peacemaker” and “Perfect Storm” are still his best, even though he’s pretty awful in them.  My guess is that he’s leery of top-lining another big-budget blockbuster for fear that if a no-brainer flopped it would knock even more of the shine off him.

Clooney should’ve grabbed the Jack Ryan franchise. It would’ve been good for him to jump onto a series that, with the right actor and scripts, could’ve had the staying power of James Bond.

3. Dolphin Tale — $9.1M: So far this has taken in a total of $49M in three weeks.

4. Moneyball — $7.5M: A total take of $49M in three weeks. Can it hit $100M?

5. 50/50 — $5.5M: — $17.3 in two weeks in 2500 theatres. Obviously all involved hoped for more from Seth Rogen.

6. Courageous $4.6M — $15.9M in two weeks in 1200 theatres. It probably won’t do “Fireproof” numbers, but without a single star or even a familiar face and a $2M budget, this is pretty impressive.

7. Lion King — $4.6M: Last week’s DVD release probably accounts for some of the 57% drop, but $86M in four weeks for a flick everyone’s seen and has on DVD is extraordinary.

SEASON FINALE OF ‘BREAKING BAD’ AIRS TONIGHT

My cable package doesn’t include AMC, so with great anticipation I await the DVD release. The idea of paying another $30 for 60 channels that suck just so that I can watch AMC makes me feel manipulated, so there’s no way I’m doing it. Besides, I love devouring a season of this MAGNIFICENT show over the course of a weekend. The days of this wait-a-week-for-the-next-episode nonsense are long over.

“24,” “Lost,” and “The Wire” were all watched in binges (and memorable ones, at that).

All I know is that at the end of “Breaking Bad” last season, our “heroes” had finally crossed the line with the killing of an innocent man. “Breaking Bad” might not be a religious drama, but it is all about the soul. The questions and quandaries it presents are so much more intelligent and moving than the crash-bang-boom, lights-flashing, shaky-cam spectacle that now passes for storytelling on the big screen.

SILVER LINING OF PIRACY

Essentially the idea is that you start with an illegal operation like Napster, turn it into a subscription service, and then sell your customer base to a legitimate outlet like Best Buy.

This is exactly the point of my upcoming moonshine operation.  

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SCOTTDS’ EPIC LINK-TACULAR

ANDREW KLAVAN’S INTERVIEW WITH THE CHRISTIAN SITE “LIVING LIGHT NEWS”

KEITH CARRADINE TO STAR IN TNT WESTERN SERIES “GATEWAY”

WILL NETFLIX PRODUCE NEW EPISODES OF “RENO 911?”

DIRECTOR OF “TUCKER & DALE VS. EVIL” REVEALS HIS SEQUEL IDEA

IS THE NEW JUDGE DREDD FILM ALREADY IN TROUBLE?

COOL VIDEO: A 1995 INTERVIEW WITH STEVE JOBS AND JOHN LASSETER

A LOOK BACK AT THE TITLE SEQUENCE FOR “DELICATESSEN”

40 MOVIE SEQUELS THAT NEVER HAPPENED

DOOMED HORROR FLICKS YOU’LL PROBABLY NEVER SEE

“SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS” TURNS 50

WHY 45 YEARS LATER, “STAR TREK” IS STILL AMAZING

EVER WONDER WHAT HAPPENED TO ALEX P. KEATON?

AMC’S SCARIEST MOVIE MOMENTS

SHOCKER: THE NEW “FOOTLOOSE” SUCKS

BACKLASH AGAINST “MARILYN” BEGINS

OSCAR BUZZ BEGINS ON MOVIES MOST OF US HAVE NO INTEREST IN SEEING

PROOF THE YOUNGEST OLSEN HASN’T LEARNED TO SUCK IN HER CHEEKS YET

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LAST NIGHT’S SCREENING

After three-plus months of getting ready to move, moving, and fixing up the house, this weekend was the closest we’ve had to a normal weekend since June. We’re still “moving in” and there’s still a lot of work that needs to be done on the outside of the house and the basement, but the living area awaits only the carpeting and windows that are currently on order and so the urgency to “just get it done” is finally gone.

So it was nice to putter in the yard some, wash the cars, chat up the neighbors and get to bed before midnight. But not before a Blu-ray screening of the original “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three” (1974).

What an underrated masterpiece.

And age only makes it better.

“Pelham” is a movie “about” New York in the mid-seventies when the politics, decay, crime, attitude and people made it the most fascinating place on earth. You can practically smell the city, and the cast of characters who make every scene so vital are endlessly interesting–terminal New Yawkers. There was just nothing like the city that never sleeps pre-1980. I wouldn’t have wanted to live there, but in films like “Pelham,” “The French Connection,” and “Midnight Cowboy,” it is as important to the story as the actors and script.

Tony Scott’s 2009  remake completely missed the point of all this. It was a “thriller” ramped up with hyper-editing and John Travolta’s tired, over-the-top villain pose, which contrasts Robert Shaw’s buttoned-down evil in the worst way possible. Talk about forgettable.

The original, though, is anything but because it is a character study of a fascinating character:  The City of New York.

And how about David Shire’s score. Epic.

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CLASSIC PICK FOR TUESDAY,  OCTOBER 11

TCM:

4:15 PM  EST: Set-Up, The (1949) —   An aging boxer defies the gangsters who’ve ordered him to throw his last fight. Dir: Robert Wise Cast:  Robert Ryan, Audrey Totter, George Tobias. BW-73 mins, TV-PG, CC.

More human drama in 73 minutes than you can possibly imagine.

Fantastic character study, fantastic central performance from Robert Ryan–all of it backed with the kind of black and white photography we will never see again.

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--Please send tips/suggestions/requests/complaints to jnolte@breitbart.com

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. 

I’ve worked with many technology companies and creators who struggle to play by the rules.  Some gain a toehold. But if entrepreneurs can’t enforce their rights effectively, that’s not market failure, that’s anarchy.   Many give up in despair and will not launch another business in the space or finance another independent movie.  The police investigate organized theft in the physical world, why not online?  How can this happen in America’s free market?

There is No Market Failure if There’s No Market

Creating a new market is difficult–government has largely stayed out of the Internet which is a good thing, assuming the basic legal system provides a reasonably level playing field.    

The current state of massive online theft is often referred to as a “market failure”—but it is more than a mere inefficient allocation of resources.  It is a serious indicator that property rights are under attack.  There can be no market failure without a market, and there can be no market without enforceable property rights. 

The online story is not entirely dire, but nowhere near a level playing field.  Where entrepreneurs choose to respect property rights, some firms attract investment and customers for legitimate business that pays everyone in the value chain—examples being iTunes Music Store, Amazon, Drugstore.com, and Netflix. Imagine if these entrepreneurs did not have to compete with stolen? 

Somebody Call the Cops

Unsurprisingly, Chairman Leahy and Senator Hatch introduced the Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act (“COICA”) in the last Congress.  The legislation was a bipartisan effort to bring common sense to the Internet madhouse.  COICA had broad support, many co-authors and passed the Senate Judiciary Committee on a 19-0 vote. Senators Leahy and Hatch intend to reintroduce the bill in the 112th Congress, and the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold hearings this week for the new bill.

ICE stepped up enforcement actions with court-ordered seizure orders of rogue sites whose illicit activities have exceeded the scope of the DMCA takedown notice.  ICE is not a private prosecutor for Hollywood studios as it has been portrayed in some writings–ICE Director Morton confirmed that ICE and the courts sought a court ordered seizure of about 50% of the private sector referrals–seizures subject to full due process protections for defendants.

Rogue sites—who earn revenue for themselves and adserving companies selling all manner of stolen goods–receive thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of DMCA takedown notices.  It is unrealistic to think that entrepreneurs, especially independent creators, can fight this alliance with DMCA notices alone.  The DMCA is not an alibi.

Without the help of legislation like COICA and law enforcement, this “catch me if you can” game requires 24/7 monitoring for illegal copies of everything from movies to pharmaceuticals.  Entrepreneurs and small business cannot afford 24/7 policing.

Protecting Property Rights

Not only is rampant piracy a fundamental attack on the rights of American entrepreneurs and workers, it undermines our cherished system of private property.  This problem is not just about “Hollywood” or Prada handbags—it concerns the value of many industries, small businesses and jobs to be protected by COICA and ICE, as well as our bedrock economic principles.

Both Senate action on COICA last year and the ICE seizures have already created positive effects.  On December 2, Google announced voluntary changes to its Adsense policy–to determine if Google’s Adsense partners are “bad apples.”   So it seems that carrot and stick are starting to have the desired market effect, although the final breakup of the unholy alliance has yet to be achieved.

If all government has to do to attract more entrepreneurs, investments and jobs to the online market is enforce the law against the “bad apples”, it should be done—carefully, but done.  That is, after all, one of the main reasons we have government in the first place.

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.

I beg to differ.  Controlling the internet is not the answer.  The internet should be used for the free expression of ideas and for the free sale of goods and services.  It should not be used for the illegal spread of copyrighted material.  Everyone agrees with this.  But, shutting down sites without due process of law is a bad thing.  It is one more step towards government control of the media and the creating of a de facto communist state.

What should actually be done is what was done to turn Napster into a legal entity.  The court system should be used in the manner for which it was created.  Criminal actions should be brought against illegal web sites.  Civil actions should be brought against those that sell and those that buy copyrighted material illegally.  It worked against Napster in the past and it has worked against numerous other web sites as well.

Under no circumstances should anyone’s property be taken whether it be a web site or more traditional forms of property upon the whims of the Justice Department; especially one under the control of the leftist Eric Holder.  (I wouldn’t even want someone on the right to have that power either.)  The 14th Amendment to the Constitution guarantees everyone due process of the law.  This is not archaic law.  This is law that makes sense.  Let’s not chip away at our Constitutional right just because a problem exists.

And, to emphasize piracy is definitely a problem.  According to the International Motion Picture Association, $6.1 billion was lost by the major motion picture companies to piracy in 2005.  If you include the worldwide motion picture industry which includes independents, the number rises to $18.2 billion.  Mr. Hackford is correct about one thing: if this is not stopped, there will be no motion picture industry left and no more rich Hollywood elites to support their various causes.

However, according to the same study, only 38 percent of that piracy, although a big number, is from Internet sales.  The remainder is from the sale of hard items such as DVDs.  The biggest offenders are:  China where 90%, Russia where 79%, and Thailand where 79% of all estimated sales are lost because of piracy.  I can confirm this about Thailand personally as any movie can be bought on Thanon Sukhumvit, a main street in Bangkok, usually one week or more before it is theatrically released in the United States.  And, to make matters worse, the quality of these pirated DVDs, is not bad.  In some cases, it is as good as commercially available legal DVDs.

But, that’s not the whole problem.  It is not limited to developing nations.  Twenty percent of all piracy according to the above study was directly from the United States.  Again, it is not difficult to find pirated DVDs in downtown Los Angeles or on Canal Street in Manhattan.  And, again, the quality is usually pretty good.  The days of the video being captured by some pirate in a movie theatre with a handheld camera appear to be gone.  The piracy is going on in the labs.  And, I’m sure, for the most part, it is the labs in the United States and probably Los Angeles; the same labs that we entrust with our intellectual property.

And, let’s even take it one step further; here are some additional facts according to the same study:

• $5.5 billion in lost annual earnings among U.S workers
• 141,030 jobs lost
• $837 million in lost annual tax revenue
• $20.5 billion in lost annual output to all U.S. industries

And, this was all in 2005 when Facebook was merely a year old and most of us had not even heard of it.  If Facebook now has over 500 million members, imagine how these numbers may have grown in five years.  Please note that I am not stating that Facebook has anything to do with piracy.  I am only stating that if Facebook has grown by the numbers it has, imagine how much the potential reach of piracy, both internet and otherwise has grown during the same period.

I can state for a fact that it has affected the way we do business in the independent world.  Watermarking delivery items to specific buyers is now common place.  Screeners are not sent out to the media without careful protections in place.  Day and date releases worldwide are now commonplace not only for the major studios but for the independents as well.  This alone increases costs geometrically as you can no longer ship used prints overseas when the American release is finished.  You must now make prints for delivery all over the world even to the smallest countries.  In return, licensing fees have gone down in smaller countries because more of the capital expenditures must go to the cost of making prints than to the copyright holder.

So, in conclusion, the problem is very prevalent.  It may eventually lead to the end of the motion picture industry as we know it.  Mr. Hackford, the director of many great films, may have become a soothsayer.  But, regardless, more government control is not the answer.  Due process and the Constitution must not be ignored.  Let the court system handle the problem.  Keep our freedoms as the Founders intended.

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.

But aside from personal taste, the problem with online mp3s is that the music industry has long been plagued by piracy– much more than TV or film due to smaller file sizes.  Despite the option of cheap, convenient, buffet-style digital music stores, pirates are still ubiquitous, and they cost record labels serious money.

For those conservatives not familiar with the concept of receiving a good or service without paying for it, online piracy is the unholy union of the West’s appalling entitlement mentality, anti-corporate zealotry, and a warped sense of economic progress.  For the uninitiated, here is a list of what I’ve dubbed the Six Levels of Piracy:

Level 1:   Listening to burned CDs from friends (technically illegal, but akin to the virtuous Before Christ residents of Dante’s Inferno)

Level 2:  Downloading mp3s from music blogs which host songs without permission from artists

Level 3:  Paying for a Rapidshare Premium account but not paying for music

Level 4:  Downloading torrents

Level 5:  Leaking content onto torrent sites

Level 6:  Openly promoting piracy

What online pirates (generally anti-corporation leftists) fail to realize is that music distribution, like any business, has costs that need to be made up when selling its product:  payroll for songwriters, artists, producers, and recording engineers who actually make the music; manufacturing, packaging, and shipping CDs; promotion, marketing, and expensive ads called music videos; plus administrative and legal costs and taxes (most labels are international and have to pay European VAT taxes).  Then, retailers buy the music and have to sell it at a higher price to cover their own costs and make a profit (profit is how these people stay in business and make sure we can still have music in the future).

Artists such as 9 Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor have fueled pirates’ costless fantasy world, lamenting,

“Wait – you sell [CDs] for $18.98 and I make 80 cents? And I have to pay you back the money you lent me to make it and then you own it? Who the f**k made that rule? Oh! The record labels made it because artists are dumb and they’ll sign anything.”  

In response, let’s think up a little analogy that progressives like Mr. Reznor can understand.  If the benevolent feds charge NASA with building a new shuttle that will collect tons of pure gold on a distant planet, the astronaut who pilots the shuttle will not receive the majority of the gold.  Congress funded the building of the ship. They authorized the mission. They took the financial risk, so they will reap the majority of the financial reward. The astronaut will still get copious amounts of money; it’s just that most will be from the speaking tour after the mission. 

Regardless, Reznor and fellow ‘90s sensations Radiohead have tried a novel idea—allowing customers to set their own price for albums. In 2007, Radiohead released a self-produced album, In Rainbows, and before it hit stores, anyone could log onto their website and type in how much they would pay for the twelve tracks.  I’ll admit that I paid nothing, mostly because I find Radiohead disgustingly overrated.  The band hasn’t released any sales figures for the experiment, but they’ve said they won’t do it again. 

For bands such as Radiohead, their established fan base (which exists largely because of the evil music industry corporations) can potentially make this donation-based distribution work.  It may also work for smaller indie bands that have low production costs.  But for developing artists trying to go national, a small core of rabid, paying fans likely won’t be able to cover the costs of ambitious, professional recordings, so I doubt that many will adopt In Rainbows’ strategy.  Sites with free song streaming plus ads, such as Grooveshark.com, show potential also, but between the Wall Street Journal, Hulu, and (allegedly) MySpace deciding to adopt subscription-based services for online content, this business model might only yield the results of Keynesianism in time.

Therefore, what Prince says may be true to a point.  Digital distribution of music could end up a bust; that may be the reason that sales of vinyl records are on the rise.  It’s certainly a much more credible assertion than Radiohead’s Thom Yorke predicting that the entire music industry will collapse within “months” (he gets a pass from the press, cuz he’s a courageous crusader against climate change).  Regardless, it’s good to see such a bizarre, entertaining character—read the whole interview; you’ll thank me—retain some semblance of free thought instead of slipping into leftist orthodoxy after so many years in the music business.

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:

“Tenenbaum’s actions robbed no one. No one has a “right to be paid for their work.” You have a right to try to convince people to buy, and the RIAA and its labels FAILED in convincing Tenenbaum to do that. But that’s the market at work. Today for lunch I may pick the deli rather than the pizza shop next door. Based on the RIAA’s logic here, I have just “robbed” the pizza place of its “right to be paid” for its work. There is no right to be paid. Only a right to try to convince people to buy.”

Of course, Tenenbaum did choose not to buy the music.  But that didn’t seem to stop him from taking it anyway.  He just chose to take it without paying for it.  And then he let other people take it, too. To most of us, a marketplace gives the consumer the chance to buy a product or not.   But, apparently, in the pirate’s world, the way the “market” works is that you get a choice between buying and stealing, as if the two are equally valid options.

Let’s cut the nonsense out of his analogy: Tenenbaum didn’t choose the “deli.”  He wasn’t even interested in the free samples that the “pizza shop” offers.  He wanted a bunch of full slices of pizza, and when he thought no one was looking, he took them.  The way Masnick tells it, if you don’t create something that people want to buy more than they want to take for free, it’s your own fault:

“Deserving to be paid for your work and a nickel gets you five damn cents. You earn money by offering something in the marketplace that people want to buy. You didn’t do that.”

So, apparently, Joel Tenenbaum is simultaneously a “consumer” and somebody who rejected what the music industry offered.  And yet…

“You made the conscious decision to declare war on your best customers.”

I’m not sure in what regard Tenenbaum could be considered one of their “best customers.”  It was my understanding that customers paid for things.  That puts a fat asterisk on statements like this:

“The idea that not giving money to the RIAA somehow means less music will be brought to the public is laughable. It’s not a fact, it’s pure propaganda. Thanks to these same new technologies that the RIAA has tried to kill off, it’s easier than ever for bands to create, promote and distribute music. And because of that, there’s more new music out there than ever before.”

It’s true, now that the technological barriers have dropped so far, musicians are giving away tons of songs for free!  And yet, Joel Tenenbaum didn’t choose to download one of those songs.  He wanted something that was more valuable to him… though, apparently, not so valuable that he would pay for it.

Musicians often give away their content for free, most of them with the expectation that they’ll be repaid in other ways.  Some of those models – for instance, giving the music away for free and making it up with concerts or merchandise – do well for some artists (though, it’s hard to see how a songwriter makes money in that model).  That’s their right, and creators should be free to choose their business model.

But for those creators who don’t want to give tracks away for free, it’s high time for pirates and their enablers to stop rationalizing theft by imagining that they’re somehow doing their victims a favor.

Creators have a right to be paid in exchange for their work, if they make it a condition of using their work, just as pizza makers can require you to pay them before they give you their pizza, and just as car rental agencies can require you to only use their cars in specific ways while in your care.

Lawsuits may not be the solution to getting broader respect for these intellectual property rights. That solution really is going to be found in new technologies and new business models.

But let’s be honest in the meantime: Piracy is not just another consumer choice.  It is theft.

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.”

More here.

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. 

Unlike some of the collapsing industries in this country, new opportunities are being created for Hollywood all the time.  To capitalize on these opportunities, the movie industry must adjust to changing consumer demands.  Yet, they seem to never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity to satisfy consumers. 

In this regard, Hollywood is also missing the boat by resisting emerging consumer demands regarding technology and intellectual property rights. 

A prime example is a new software program called RealDVD, which allows consumers to take any DVD they own and save one copy to their computer or laptop hard-drive (imagine that, owning the DVD’s you own!). 

With a hard-drive library of DVDs, consumers wouldn’t have to worry about damaging or losing their original disks, nor do business travelers have to pack an extra bag of discs for long flights or vacation.  And the inevitable children’s DVD your kids watch over and over that gets scratched or misplaced?  A thing of the past: RealDVD gives consumers the freedom and flexibility to watch the movies they’ve already purchased anywhere, anytime – without hassle. (Of course, this is really nothing new.  Consumers are already allowed to make personal copies of cassette tapes, CD’s, and VHS tapes — just not DVD’s.) 

The Hollywood studios, however, see it differently.  Rather than working to better monetize and reinvigorate the struggling DVD sector, six studios filed a lawsuit to stop the public sale of RealDVD (the case is set to begin today).  These studios don’t think embracing RealDVD is in their interest, but they’re wrong. 

This technology benefits Hollywood studios in significant ways.  Primarily, RealDVD provides a tool to help the studios better deliver content to consumers and fight piracy – as it renders a copied DVD file non-transferable to other computers or users.  The majority of consumers who want this technology also don’t want to break the law, and the technology available provides them with the only legal way to save their own property to their computers and laptops.  Isn’t that outcome in-line with the major studios anti-piracy efforts? 

Secondarily, this technology helps Hollywood studios maintain the DVD revenue stream.  How?  In order to use the software, consumers must have the original DVD to copy. This new technology wouldn’t replace traditional DVDs – it optimizes them to fit with consumer preferences that aren’t legally being met today.  Additionally, this new technology would offer new ideas to consumers for other DVDs they may be interested in, based on the director, actor, or genre of the film they’re watching.  This kind of targeted marketing could lead to more DVD purchases and more revenue for studios.  For example, how many new songs have you purchased on iTunes because they were suggested for you?  My point exactly. 

Hollywood studios could – and should – embrace technologies that could bring new life to the home DVD market.  At the moment, we are just scraping the surface of how consumers can interact with the DVDs they’ve already purchased and what new consumer purchasing opportunities are available to the industry if there was a partnership.  Everyone wins if we can collaborate and innovate, but Hollywood’s lawsuit must be resolved before that can happen. 

Hollywood studios should examine the changes in consumer trends that taught the music industry a painful lesson earlier this decade.  Had the music industry embraced and developed new revenue streams while maintaining anti-piracy safeguards earlier in their fight, their business model might look a little better these days. 

In this economy, with changing consumer habits, inherent time constraints and financial pressures, the movie studios don’t have the luxury of delaying the inevitable. 

Hollywood should try to actually produce more quality films that people will want to pay $10 to go see.  They also ought to pay attention to the fact that consumer’s demand freedom and flexibility to do what they want – when they want – with the entertainment content they’ve already purchased.