As the US dollar continues to be challenged as the world’s reserve currency many sacred US institutions are also being knocked from their perch. Hollywood and America’s huge intellectual property export market, one of America’s biggest exports after military hardware and state subsidized (read: communist) corn, will sink just like the US dollar.
In reference to PirateMyFilm, my new micro-payment indie film finance site, the effect of this site on Hollywood will be interesting. Anyone who’s been involved in the movie business in Los Angeles knows, the business adheres to a strict hierarchical model with the three main talent agencies at the top controlling the ‘A’ list stars whose bankability or ‘star power’ is monopolized to drive prices higher.
When I showed up in LA in 1995 with my idea for the Hollywood Stock Exchange the locals didn’t ‘get it’ at first, but this changed after agencies like CAA started quoting prices from HSX when packaging their movie projects. Eventually, sensing a competitive threat, HSX was euthanized by unscrupulous board members, but that’s another story. The point is, Hollywood has been resistant to change for 100 years. It’s America’s most enduring monopoly, so I was not surprised when I got an email yesterday from someone in LA who has been calling me every month for ten years begging to get in on the ground floor of my next ‘big idea.’ Instead of being excited about the great response PirateMyFilm has already gotten during it’s first week of pre-beta existence, he was crestfallen. The email read like this:
Max – In your POV, what is my involvement here? I don’t want to be involved in a piracy-related business.
That’s LA for you.
User-generated content has completely transformed the media and software space. The music industry has been, as Joseph Schumpter might say, ‘creatively destroyed.’ Bandwidth speeds and storage costs are dropping down the asympotic curve toward zero and the film industry as it’s existed for 100 years is about to go belly up. But please don’t tell the gang at The Ivy, let them enjoy their palm tree and ‘A’ list monopoly fed delusions while PMF and others in the crowd-sourcing and micro-finance space reinvent the industry.
Of course this problem I have with Hollywood Luddites isn’t new. I call your attention to this Variety article from nearly ten years ago, “For Some, Internet Offers Free Ride,” in which you can see that Hollywood has been resistant to disruption:
“Everything is inescapably going to a price point called free,” [Keiser] said. “Your competition will always have something up for free.”
Keiser’s comment drew the ire of just about every other person on the panel, including Kevin Tsujihara, exec veepee of new media at Warner Bros., who railed against the notion that “Piracy.com” will be the victor if superior content is available on sites supported by advertisements.
But it was the concluding comment from Sandy Climan (a former CAA agent, then head of Media Entertainment Ventures) that now draws my attention:
“I look at this as not a debate over piracy,” he said. “The big challenge is whether the old aggregators can create new models before new companies come in.“
(note: I corrected an error in the Variety article in which instead of ‘piracy’ they wrote ‘privacy’)
I’m betting that the ‘old aggregators’ are losing that challenge.
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Max,
I heard you talk about this on Jasons show. I really like the Idea. People financing films!
Reminds me of Prosper.com, people financing loans and getting the banks out of the middle!
Would some one like myself who has no movie making experience be able to get financing? I have a script, story boards and concept art done.
Thanks
Rob
Oops
Sorry about the double post. Computer was acting funny, first message disappeared…, and now has reappeared. Weird.
I think the Digital Conversion issue is a much bigger deal than most think. One of the first things Obama did was postpone the implementation date 6 months here in the US. Citing the fact they were out of “coupons” for poor folk as the reason for the new delay. I see the new delay, as a stall to benefit Burbank.
Once viewers can be tracked to the appliance address, the current paradigm for Hollywood is over. The typical TV-Netflix couch potato does not spend the money anymore….people using alternatives do. Once advertisers can see where to put their ad dollars clearly, why would they spend money pitching their wares to people in trailers?
Max
Read on PressTv that sales of ’Romance Novels’ are setting records. Perhaps in addition to ‘PirateMyFilm.com’ there could be something like ‘PirateMyRomanceNovel.com’, and so on and so on. I hope that when the PMF website is up and running it is dumbed down and self-explanatory enough so that even a heavy duty fluoride-drinker like myself can understand and participate in your scheme to pull the short hairs of the Oligarchs.
Max
Quick ~ make a documentary film on your idea about ‘PirateMyFilm.com’, and dumb it down so that all the fluoride-drinkers will have a clue (including myself unfortunately). I’ll invest money in the project, and promote the film at the local off-Broadway cinemas…, whatever it takes. This could be like a practice run, and it would give you a chance to really explain in (dumbed down) detail what your vision is, and what your goals are. Count me in, but I’ll need to take a couple of baby steps before I can be sprinting beside you.
Hey Max is there a white paper for PMF so I can see the flow of money and so on?
I hope that PMF is successful enough to knock Hollywood down a couple notches. (There’s only one person in Hollywood whose success I cheer for, and that’s Philip Seymour Hoffman–just because he graduated high school with my fiance, and it sounds like Phil has always been a decent guy.) I’d love to see little guys (and gals) have a shot at putting together films to compete with the Hollywood model.
Will definitely keep tabls on this project of yours and help spread the word online.
I think it’s a very good idea from Max to find a way around the mainstream stakeholders who have to much influence and roam all the profits from the real creative personal.
These dudes from Finland from Iron Sky are a very good example of how this can be done with the use of Internet to raise money and promote your own production(s).
Iron Sky teaser – Space Nazis attack!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KEueJnsu80
Main Iron Sky Website
http://www.ironsky.net/site/
BUY WAR BONDS
And kick the space hun where it hurts!
http://www.ironsky.net/site/?page_id=12
Iron Sky Signal E04 – Berlinale 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8YZH6_DlWc
What these guys did was a lot of promotion work and they had a lot of patients before they could start their real production work.
Maybe this initiative from Max Keiser can shorten these time lines and save a lot of pre-promotional effords.
Max,
It’s good to see you’re available for interaction (and Stacy too). Comments on your last website seemed to be one way, it wasn’t even clear you guys were reading them.
My take is all copyrights, patents and intellectual property laws ought to be scrapped completely. Enforcing them causes far worse damage to human advancement than taking an anything-goes attitude.
The concept that creativity will stop if there is no copyright or patent law is ridiculous. Look at Linux, the free open source operating system. Copyright played no role in its development. Humans have an unstoppable creative urge. Deriving an income from that creativity is secondary to doing it for its own sake.
I see a future where movies will be done as collaborative projects, and the end result is freely distributable. Remember the old days before record players? Everyone knew how to sing and play an instrument. With the advent of prerecorded media, “professionals” were able to get so good at performing, people lost the incentive to do it anymore, and for the most part became passive consumers of music.
Perhaps wiping out the monopoly profit motive will return society to a better time when people entertained themselves.
I see a future where technology has advances so much human labor is basically irrelevant. What is the currency in that future? Fame. People compete for recognition and fame. I think that’s a currency that cannot be manipulated.
How to get there? I think this piratemyfilm is a good stepping stone. It’s similiar to the business concept of giving away video games for free, and the profit comes from product placement within the game itself. Like “The Truman Show” also.
Keep up the good work guys!
Hey Max;
Your the best. You have the balls to take on all of these fat cats. I love it. We have seen the likes of mindless movies for far too long. It is time for the people to rise up and take back their lives. Rise up Amerika! Tell them all you’re mad as hell and you aren’t going to take it anymore. This is the beginning of the real new world order. Where the fat cats are no longer in charge of our minds and bodies . The crack has formed the Matrix has been exposed. Are we going to take the red pill or the blue pill? I’m taking the one that frees me of the oppression. I want freedom. I am tried of being controlled at every step of my life. I am tired of seeing endless commercials selling me shit I do not need or want. Drugs I do not need or want. People in my face I do not need or want. William Wallace said it best…”Do you want to die a free man or do you want to die a slave?” RISE UP. I feel better already Max. Thank you.
========
The US film industry will die off or survive based on this one simple principal:
Is the content it produces in the best interest of the intended US audiences?
As the US has no national film culture like Canada or Australia or India — the ‘best interest’ principal will prevail.
=========
Recommended way to reach Australian audiences with the largest immediate demographic impact:
ABC Newsradio
http://www.abc.net.au/newsradio/
http://www.abc.net.au/newsradio/schedule/onair.htm
– No UTC offsets for On Air schedules!
– NZT = UTC but flipped 12 hrs. AEST is NZT -1 (I think)
Students & teachers at film schools will love this, as well as all types connected to short film festivals…
Prospective sponsor? Targeted marketing?
Or are you going to essentially rely on word of mouth?
Seems like too many people are addicted to smelling social bullshit and ego farts.
As for hollyweird weeding out bad ideas, have you recently seen the state of that once great film industry. It seems like a giant conveyor belt of low quality shoot outs/serial killers and comic book adaptations…
Keep on sayin’ it as you see it Max,And try to see it as it is Y’All.
OK Bye
Students & teachers at film schools will love this, as well as all types connected to short film festivals (prospective sponsor?); are you going to do any concrete marketing in these areas or essentially rely on word of mouth? Hmm…
Mep
YouPorn has done to the porn industry what p2p has done to the music industry and PMF will do to the film industry.
Copyright laws as they currently exist have effectively lobotomized America’s collective imagination by blocking off parts of our cerebral heritage; our birthrights as thinking ‘free’ people, with toll booths installed in our minds by the copyright cartel.
Think Microsoft. Had their copyright monopoly position been broken up twenty years ago the internet would be a lot safer with a lot less security gaps plaguing the system caused by an absence of competition wrought by the pernicious, politically connected copy’wrong’ Bill and Co.
I think Pirate Myfilm is a great idea. To be honest, I’ve never thought too much about copyright laws, because, well, I’ve always had other things to think about. But since I like to learn about new things, I’ve been sitting here reading up on the issue and watching some of Lessig’s lectures.
About user-generated content, there was an article up on HuffPost months ago about the introduction of YouPorn. If I’m remembering correctly, the adult film industry was starting to get hurt by it. Of course, it could be that the industry is hurting in general because of the economy, but that will be interesting to keep track of too: how much revenue is lost due to YouPorn.
Thomas
micro-payments is not the main focus. The weeding out process will be via a Prediction Market piece. This should be clearer once we get more of the functionality up and running. Also important is the angle I’m pursuing to offer up a competitor to the copyright and star cartel model by leveraging economies of scale available on the net for finance and distribution. Finance and distribution for films in Hollywood is strictly monopolistic and ripe for ‘disintermediation.’
I really like the idea of micro-payments but so far it hasn’t really taken off (think Flooz.com).
I think that Apple with iTunes and the iPhone App Store is definitely a step in the right direction.
So how is PirateMyFilm going to weed out all the bad ideas? Hollywood is very effective in doing this because they carry all the Risk.
And, why invest in a film on PMF if I can just download it from ThePirateBay?
…i didn’t know that you were the brains behind the hollywood stock exchange. i recall it well, having worked in the eye of the storm during those days.