Enny, Meeny, Myni, mo catch a tiger by the toe- or download X-Men Origins: Wolverine onto your home computer. Forget about going to the dirty, expensive, pesticide-laden movie theater. Why not enjoy a film on the studio while wearing your sockies?
For one thing, Hollywood is not the recording industry. The music industry crams down derivitive, over-hyped,
meglomaniacs down the throats of society and wonders why their sales are down. Get a clue. We're tired of over-sexed, crappy, untalented, and just plain stupid "artists." When we all know the music is contrived.Like many people, I've shut out the radio. It's selling garbage. I've turned off music videos. It's almost-naked women grinding next to some ugly guy. No one cares if you can rhyme. Anyone can do that anytime. So sit back and relax. We've got this covered with symantics. Watch:
Give listeners real artists and we will come back to buying albums. It's simple. It's not a downloading issue. It's a quality issue.
Think I'm wrong? Countless people downloaded Wolverine. Let's just put that fact out there. You can scream copyright all you want. Yet, the movie has made over $150 million and we aren't even to DVD sales and rentals. Hugh Jackman has another few weeks to catapult Wolverine into Dark Knight territory. And he might get close- adjusting for a recession, of course.
Another funny thing is that the only one fired was a reporter from Fix, I mean, Fox News. A reporter who investigated the downloading issue and conspiracy theory was the one who got the ax. So it's true, Fox News doesn't understand that their network needs to investigate and report the news instead of only repeating conservative talking points. Boring.
Everybody knows the download was for 20th Century Fox to receive some attention. For unknown reasons, the film studio cannot get enough good press on its own sister station. Therefore, the executives came to the web. Do we see a double-standard? Use and abuse the geeks when it serves the industry the best?
So what's the harm then with the underground? The industries will say copyright, money, blah, blah, blah. What the industries don't want to realize is that the underground has been going on since the dawn of commerce and actually creates a buying niche. How many times has someone got you to listen to music or see a movie and you loved it? A consumer is born. Then industries walk in with their lawyers and lobbyists on capitol hill and point fingers at the "criminals." You're the jerks. You change copyright laws every other year until no one understands the laws anymore and end up criminalizing your own customers!
So that's the jist. A provider can do one of two things: make it so hard on customers that you lose them forever or let a little slide for a bigger profit margin in the end.
I'm sure the web has perpetuated the underground movement, but it's also increased viability for industries. Artists that would never get a recording contract or movie deal all of a sudden do because of the viral nature of the web.
Cracking down or crying boo hoo isn't going to stop the signal. It'll just drive the trade further underground where institutions cannot find the sources. At least in the open, industries have some control over what is available for download. The question is: will the industries add more quality so their audience will return to, let's say, buying music like people flocked to Wolverine?
It's your choice, but if you want customers, then give us something we want to buy and downloading, as you will see, has never been the issue.
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