The CEO of Sony Pictures, Michael Lynton, has really been the target of some intense Internet discussion lately. It all started when he attended a panel regarding the future of film making and oddly stated that he “doesn’t see anything good having come from the Internet. Period.” He complained the Internet has “created this notion that anyone can have whatever they want at any given time. It’s as if the stores on Madison Avenue were open 24 hours a day. They feel entitled. They say, ‘Give it to me now,’ and if you don’t give it to them for free, they’ll steal it.” These comments circulated quickly amongst blogs and news websites, and even Sony Insider was left wondering what the real deal is. How could someone from Sony say that?
I won’t be ignorant here and say that he’s wrong; Lynton is right in a certain sense. There is immense value in the Internet, but he speaks the truth about being able to steal content. I can use a file sharing program such as uTorrent and download any modern software I want, crack it, and use it very quickly. Using the same program, I can also download just about any song, album, or movie released in the last ten to twenty years with relative ease. Some older, more obscure content is a little harder to come by but just about everything is out there. However, Lynton stating that there isn’t “anything good having come from the Internet” is simply inescapable and will probably haunt him till the end of his career. People have attacked him incessantly regarding this statement since it was revealed last week, and with such intense scrutiny he offered further explanation at the Internet-only publication Huffington News.
While Lynton’s 10+ paragraph rebuttal is too long for us to repost, we seriously recommend you read it to understand the mindset of a person who runs one of the largest movie companies in the entire world. While there are several great points, I got this notion halfway through that Lynton is standing up for the way things used to be, before the Internet, before file sharing, before everything was nearly free. However, you can’t send society back in a time machine and forget what we have now. Lynton implies the Internet needs guardrails. There have been plenty of guardrails that have tried to curb illegal piracy – services, such as the first version of Napster, Morpheus, Kazaa have been shut down only to be replaced by the more efficient BitTorrent. Until the Internet is somehow turned off, people will find new ways to distribute content and the system to do so will become stronger and more efficient than before.
I would guess that all of the people who already are singing, writing, and filming creative content with little or nothing in the way of monetary compensation will keep on doing it. Small-budget films that were never about making a living in the first place will keep popping up – and keep being clever, creative, and redefine their genre. What may become untenable is the multi-million dollar special effects blockbuster, which makes up a huge chunk of film as an industry but often falls flat in terms of the creativity that the Lynton’s point would defend. That also applies to fiction, poetry, and music.
The pricing of the product was mostly due to the delivery medium, which is becoming irrelevant. People are stealing because its too expensive for most people to enjoy new content. I gained this perspective very quickly while on vacation visiting my father near Tallahassee (Wakulla County, Florida USA). The second edition of Wakulla News 2009 deliquent tax list is printed in a font size that is probably about 9, and is 24 pages long. These economic woes are probably a common situation in many counties in the United States. It will take time for the industry to realize that the pay scales in the entertainment business is going to be corrected by the Internet. Those millions to the actors will reduce invariably, and the profits will have to come down to accommodate customers.
The internet will not be changed by copyright, although certain countries may blast their legal minds out before they learn the lesson, copyright will change for the technology. The rational for the imposition of monopoly copyright was capital intensive industrial copy technology. With the internet, the rational has fallen, and simply asserting, as Lynton’s post does in a round about way, that copyright is a natural right or that it is responsible itself for artistic expression or that artistic expression is stymied if “other owners of copyrights” lose their monopolies, is exactly like saying the audience won’t like talkies.
It would be a great mistake to believe that the death of an industry necessarily heralds the death of an art. Will piracy mean there’s going to be less? Certainly, to some extent, but it’s not going to kill jam poets, writers’ circles, or local bands – it’s going to mean less Rambo and Britney Spears to go around, and that’s honestly kind of okay with us.
