What if Hollywood had to use tech like we have to watch movies?

This is just sad, I get the impression from the comments and up votes that tech does not get Hollywood. Hollywood business only work because only Hollywood is willing to give Christopher Nolan 200+ million dollars to make Dark Knight, ditto with James Cameron's Avatar. When Google, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook or Yahoo decides to give a Christopher Nolan or James Cameron $200million+ to make a movie, things will be different. Then these multinationals can distribute to everyone who wants to buy the movie without DRM, without regional restriction and at a competitive price. Until then everything is just posturing, indie budgets will not change Hollywood. Tech world has competition, but only Hollywood is making these big budget productions.<p>edit: not sure why this is getting down voted, it would be interesting to see a counterpoint.

I think this is great, we should add a licensing clause for this, if you work for a subsidiary of an MPAA member you have to check a box to get the Hollywood edition else you are not entitled to use the software, perhaps even a Hollywood IP database for internet companies.<p>If Hollywood execs had to sit through 5 minutes of ads to use Google they'd soon get the message.<p>Anyone have any ideas on how to get the IP blocks of MPAA member companies? Is there anything better than just whois'ing every class A/B/C?<p>I'm thinking of a javascript that creates a black modal dialog with a youtube video queue of startup video ads. Use the chromeless video player, I'll even max the volume for them.<p>Simple one line addition to your site and voila your startup/site/blog is Hollywood Edition.

I love this article for its irony, intentional or no.<p>The author cites perfect examples of why the software industry is <i>exactly like</i> Hollywood with its products. Word? Need a license key. Can't open or save ODT files without annoying popups. Apple? Don't even try to partition the system or it will break, and don't use the software on non-Apple hardware. Certainly don't try jailbreaking it. Google? Can we talk about privacy policies?<p>Of course, the biggest problem is that none of those instances of software are even accessible (fully) by their users. The user can't change the software, they can't even use the software in every capacity.<p>So I guess the real question is, why are we still acting like Hollywood?

Most importantly, we should send them extortionate threats of law-suit based on easily fake-able evidence that claim they owe us thousands of dollars just to get us to not send them more letters.<p>And then when they stop using our service we'll say it must be because they're doing something illegal.

You, Mr. living in San Diego, are trying to get KWIK24, PBS Wikipedia LA, instead of KOSA13, PBS Wikipedia San Diego, aren't you?<p>Well, unfortunately we know that you can't get it over 3G or 4G because you're outside the reception area and we've encrypted KWIK24 to be received by people in LA only on Fibre or ADSL.<p>KOSA13 might have 30 second ads before each article, doesn't carry half of the most popular articles and re-compresses every image with a watermark, but that's not our problem.

Pure genius. You can, by the way, offer better licensing to specific companies and unaffiliated individuals -- leaving Hollywood with the unskippable ads, "premium tweets," and all the rest.<p>Good luck, however, winning in court to enforce your license.

Hollywood business aside, I think you just came up with Twitter's business model. I'm joking, but only somewhat.

pre-edit: nevermind, Aaron removed it. Better now :)<p>Whatever that black popdown thing is called is really, really obnoxious.<p>Here is what it looks like in my browser: <a href="http://imgur.com/cKiYN" rel="nofollow">http://imgur.com/cKiYN</a><p>Chrome 16.0.9 on Snow Leopard.<p>The problem is that it covers text as I'm scrolling through the page.<p>To recreate it: start scrolling down the page.

We're sorry, this tweet is not yet available in your country but we are working hard to make it possible !

It's mind boggling that people treat being able to consume (fettered or not) media as a god-given right. The suggestion here is that our best option is to 'be terrible' to old media until they understand what it's like to be treated poorly?<p>You want to know how to fix things?<p>Stop buying what they sell.

&#62; <i>Since they’re so persnickety about licensing agreements,</i><p>I'm not convinced that they are. I'm sure that an audit of Hollywood software licensing would find many unlicensed copied (their word "stolen") bits of software.

Hollywood are not in the business of offering a service, only a product. This is mostly why the two aren't compatible and why they aren't interested in developing it.<p>The thinking is that a product is far more profitable and has higher gains than a service which bleeds money by comparison due to it's constant maintenance costs, upkeep and customer care and that drop in profit would make their pyramid business model unsustainable.

That article is dumb in its examples, lets consider something more realistic.<p>Every developer from this point onward adds a licensing clause for holywood execs - if that product is showcased during the movie a certain amount is owed to the developer at this point. Start putting it in every single app they will start making mistakes.<p>The other day I saw Open Office 2.0 in Girl with Dragon Tattoo - Libre office could easily add this clause.

Humour.<p>To everyone taking this seriously, please remember, variously, "two wrongs don't make a right", the "golden rule" (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Rule" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Rule</a>), "don't stoop to their level", etc.

Thankfully we can use a user's ip adress to ensure this only effects Hollywood executives.

The Twitter one sounds good then you realize an entrepreneur will come in and create a Twitter for Hollywood types. Twitter would lose millions of users to this competitor, as following celebrities draws millions.

They probably do. I download movies and they probably download tech.

This is petty and immature.

I think Hollywood is just a facàde for the US government. A while ago, Hillary Clinton admitted the US government is losing the "information war"[1]. What could possibly be better for winning an information war, than to pass legislation like this, under the guise of "fighting piracy"? The government could not be seen as promoting this kind of legislation.. otherwise, they´d be on the same league as Iran or China..<p>Hollywood´s not the problem. Your government is.<p>[1] Hilary Clinton Admits US Is Losing The "Information War": <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMoeDaLV2WA" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMoeDaLV2WA</a>