(2012-01-25) Internet And Hollywood

The whacking of SOPA/PIPA has triggered lots of Dialogue.

Paul Graham wants us to kill Hollywood. How do you kill the movie and TV industries? Or more precisely (since at this level, technological progress is probably predetermined) what is going to kill them? Mostly not what they like to believe is killing them, filesharing. What's going to kill movies and TV is what's already killing them: better ways to entertain people. So the best way to approach this problem is to ask yourself: what are people going to do for fun in 20 years instead of what they do now? There will be several answers, ranging from new ways to produce and distribute shows, through new media (e.g. games) that look a lot like shows but are more interactive, to things (e.g. social sites and apps) that have little in common with movies and TV except competing with them for finite audience attention.

Giles Bowkett thinks Graham's post is silly. He asked the startup and hacker communities what the predetermined answer to Hollywood will be; Steve Jobs would ask what future we want to create. That's just a much cooler question... If we're going to kill anything, let's kill the Lobbying industry and replace it with a morally defensible process we don't have to be ashamed of whenever we talk to people who live in functioning democracies.

Dave Winer has some ideas, mostly around the Movie Theater experience.