Comments on: MPAA's number two admits industry "not comfortable" with the Internet

By: Bjorn

Bjorn — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:07:00 +0000

“As the article makes clear, he means Google”. Are you sure he doesn’t mean iTunes? Because Apple most definitely dominates the online music space.

By: Avram Grumer

Avram Grumer — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:08:00 +0000

Ticket sales are down from ten years ago, but not by half. In 2002, there were 1.58 billion movie tickets sold, for total revenues of $9.35 billion. Last year, it was 1.21 billion tickets sold (a 25% drop) for revenues of $9.61 billion (a 3% increase). (Source) Keep in mind that those figures do not include DVD sales, Netflix views, and other forms of legitimate movie-watching that earn money for the studios. There were 611 movies produced by US movie studios in 2001. (Source) There were 754 movies produced by US movie studios in 2010. (Source) Those are the MPAA's own figures, from their own official reports.

By: Guest

Guest — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:04:00 +0000

if you judge by the comments here you deserve to be so misinformed.

By: jtmon

jtmon — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:56:00 +0000

Haha!

By: Guest

Guest — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 02:14:00 +0000

they’re marks, obviously.

By: teapot

teapot — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 02:03:00 +0000

Thanks that was awesome, though I did shudder at the mention of “The New Generation” around 1:30.

Effective way to sully your nerd credibility: misquote the title of a Star Trek series in an overly simplistic news piece about the internet.

By: mark harrison

mark harrison — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 01:16:00 +0000

Good! we were saved from twice as much twilight and transformers and other utter crap lowest common denominator “blockbusters”

By: Teto85

Teto85 — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 22:26:00 +0000

So, they want regulation? How about V for Violence? QTB for Quarts of Blood?

By: Shane Simmons

Shane Simmons — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:23:00 +0000

They’ve had 17 years to prepare. This is one of the few times I wish we had a a government full of libertarians, who would tell the movie industry to piss up a rope, go back to Hollywood, and adapt or die. Adapt to the free market, or it will trample you.

By: toyg

toyg — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 16:11:00 +0000

I think the overwhelming anti-Hollywood sentiment here and on the Internet is partly a case of “you can’t love a troll”. Trolling behaviour from Hollywood lawyers has probably cut 1/2 the number of internet fan-sites dedicated to Hollywood properties in the last 10 years – there would be a lot more fan sites out there right now if not for that, spreading free publicity and loyalty for Hollywood products and making money for them. But everyone in Hollywood seems so sure, so whatever.

By: Guido

Guido — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 15:14:00 +0000

AFAIK, BoingBoing commenters are a tiny part of the Internet. Most people just gets Netflix.

By: elondaits

elondaits — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 12:14:00 +0000

Google? I honestly thought they meant youth.

By: futnuh

futnuh — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 10:11:00 +0000

Don’t underestimate these bastards. I suspect they know full well that Google and other tech heavies didn’t lead the anti-SOPA campaign. This is the narrative though they want to promote: vested interests, not grass-roots democracy, thwarted the legislation. I’ve seen a number of op-eds recently with this spin – one in today’s National Post (Canada). (And yes, I get the irony in the use of “vested interests”. )

By: hadlockk

hadlockk — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 07:26:00 +0000

They’re falling fast behind in languages besides English. I bet you’ve never even heard of QQ messenger.

By: Hanglyman

Hanglyman — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 05:40:00 +0000

I really, really wish these dinosaurs would hurry up and go extinct. If they’re as ancient as their attitudes suggest, it should be happening any day now.

By: Joseph Dawson

Joseph Dawson — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 23:31:00 +0000

“We don’t understand the internet, despite the fact that it’s been around for over 20 years, and yet we feel compelled to introduce legislation that would completely change it forever.”

GENIUSES.

By: Matthew Stone

Matthew Stone — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 23:17:00 +0000

If I may “pirate” a quote from Michael J. Nelson, one of the best film critics of our time:

“There’s a force sweeping through this great nation of ours; you can see it in the heroin-dilated eyes of our youth as they raise Cosmopolitans to their Vandyke-fringed mouths in wan and shallow tribute to our cocktail forefathers; you can smell it in the rich, hand-rubbed leather interiors of the sport-utility vehicles that conquer Blockbuster Videos and Boston Markets alike; and, yes, you can taste it in our Frappaccinos. It’s called excess. And it’s available now at all participating Subway stores.”

“Lately, the movie industry has been supersizing things for us with Big Gulp-style films. Big, bad movies with lots of stuff in ‘em. As bad as most movies, only bigger. Huge, out-of-control budgets, big as the GNP of Chile or Scandinavia. Enough money to afford flying cows and huge, dumb Bill Paxtons. Order up a gross more aliens ships and buy me a Will Smith! They’re Must-See movies. Not to see them is to risk revocation of citizenship and eventual deportation.”

By: James

James — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 22:47:00 +0000

” fat, glistening tentacles grasping blindly”

I’ve seen enough hentai to know where this is going…

By: Andres Hetzel

Andres Hetzel — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 22:24:00 +0000

I looked at the Internet. I tried to pretend it looked like a spreading tree, telecoms pooled beneath it, but it didn’t. It looked more like an octopus, the fat, glistening tentacles grasping blindly at my IP, squirming over each other, with Google at the center. But even that is avoiding the real horror. The horror is this: In the end, it is simply a bunch of end-to-end connections. There is nothing controlling it.

By: travtastic

travtastic — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 22:08:00 +0000

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r00IjBdp-ZA

By: Rob

Rob — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 21:40:00 +0000

I don’t think Empire Strikes Back has made a profit either.

By: Rob

Rob — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 21:39:00 +0000

What, you expecting hugging and kissing from someone you take the first swing at?

By: claytantor

claytantor — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 21:27:00 +0000

Have you actually seen a good movie out of any of the big studios like in forever? I am seriously wondering when the “boycott hollywood” campaign is going to start so that I can sign up. Oh well I guess I have been boycotting their crappy products for months and didn’t really know it. These fools “arent comfortable with the internet”, well I am not comfortable with your 100 million dollar three stooges remakes. burn hollywood burn. http://youtu.be/k6MlwT1lBk0

By: That_Anonymous_Coward

That_Anonymous_Coward — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 21:25:00 +0000

It would be so much more believable if not for Hollywood Accounting practices. Afterall they showed a Harry Potter film to be a loser.

By: KBert

KBert — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 21:20:00 +0000

Wait, Google doesn’t control the internet?…
it seems they’re aiming to.
Just a matter of time, eh?

By: Rob

Rob — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 21:08:00 +0000

Oh bs. They’ve been weathering the recession better than most industries.

By: Daniel Smith

Daniel Smith — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 21:05:00 +0000

citation needed…1/2 of hollywoods revenue? I think you overstate.

By: Paul232

Paul232 — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:59:00 +0000

I think the overwhelming anti-Hollywood sentiment here and on the Internet is partly a case of “you can’t miss what you never had” (or viewed, or heard). Piracy has probably cut 1/2 the revenue out of Hollywood in last 10 years- there would be a lot more movies and music out there right now if not for that. But everyone here seems sure, so whatever.

By: Daniel Smith

Daniel Smith — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:57:00 +0000

Various iterations of folk who think this way have been trying to control the ability to make a recording since the advent of our ability to record anything. They see the internet as just another phonograph, cassette tape or CD and fundamentally do not understand how much of a game changer the internet and the digital age are. They are the modern day equivalent of buggy whip makers arguing how important buggy whips are in a world that no longer needs them.

By: Paul232

Paul232 — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:55:00 +0000

Judging by the comments here they are right to consider the internet customer base an opponent.