Google's Fiber Makes MPAA Skittish.

I think the tech community thinks the MPAA is much more monolithic than they actually are. The individual companies are not going to agree on what content to offer at what rates in a new high-speed market, so the MPAA is going to talk about the one thing its members agree upon: piracy=bad.<p>I honestly have no idea why the MPAA spokesman decided to go on the record about Google Fiber. If it were me, I would have just managed expectations by pointing out that it's probably not in the interest of of MPAA member studios to remaster their content for gigabit rates, given such a small potential audience.<p>It's not like these studios just have uncompressed 4k files of every movie they've ever made just sitting on a hard drive somewhere, waiting for someone like Google to say "can you offer 500 Mbps versions and see what the residents of Kansas City are willing to pay for them?". Even if they did, every writer, director, etc. entitled to royalties from future releases would be up in arms saying they're not charging enough.

Just another example of how out of touch the MPAA is with reality. Any 10Mbit+ connection is perfectly adequate for downloading pirated material. It very possibly might take an individual less time to download a torrent than to navigate some archaic cable box UI to find the same program. Mandatory un-skippable movie trailers on DVDs or BluRays can take longer to watch than downloading a torrent. Why isn't the MPAA concerned about that?

Ars Technica had a similar article last week. They're probably worried that Google isn't a party to the "six strikes" copyright plan that's supposed to start up this summer, which is a private agreement among the large content owner/ISPs which control internet access for most Americans.<p>There are also rumors of some kind of video service being offered by Google, so they might worry about that, too.<p>EDIT: Link = <a href="http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/04/big-content-eyes-google-fiber-deployment-in-kansas-city-warily.ars" rel="nofollow">http://arstechnica.com/business/news/2012/04/big-content-eye...</a>

This does not surprise me at all. The existing media cartels have always opposed new technologies that make the transfer of information between individuals easier and faster. This is especially when the technology is dumb, that is, it does not and can not differentiate between content which requires a license to transfer and that which does not. When you think about it, since they're in the business of selling intangible 'licenses' for information -- things you don't need to enjoy the information itself -- their actions make perfect sense. What we need to do, instead of sneering at their perfectly justified self-interest is re-examine exactly how we grant these groups the artificial monopoly of copyright in order to ensure that the original purpose, that is promoting the sciences and the arts, is maintained and that the behaviour, which is now considered to be anti-social, of these groups is modified or eliminated.

I'd be curious how the MPAA would view a 25% increase in sales coupled with a 50% increase in piracy.

... to be fair, Hollywood does license a number of streaming and download services that will take advantage of good broadband, such as Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, VUDU, iTunes Store, etc.<p>Hollywood certainly will let you watch movies and TV shows at a variety of price points, even if it does reserve some control over what is available at what price and when.

I wish it were possible to have some sort of multi-channel funnel view of people who pirate content. Did they pirate a song and then proceed to buy the album? Did they pirate a the first movie of a series and then later legally purchase the rest of the series? Do they just pirate content and never purchase anything?<p>I think these are interesting questions. Who wants to build something to answer them?

Any innovation in technology presents a company with two options - adapt, or risk failure. The MPAA mitigates this by trying to stop innovation. It's a valid business strategy, albeit one that isn't very good for PR. Luckily more and more people are becoming aware of what's going on with all of this PIPA/SOPA/CISPA/ACTA/ETC-A stuff.

This article seems like pointless MPAA-baiting. We already knew they didn't like P2P and anything that enables it.

A butterfly flapping its wings in Sweden makes the MPAA skittish too, unfortunately.

How soon do you think, before Google's fiber begins to get accidentally severed in shared conduit spaces?