MPAA Threatens To Disconnect Google From Internet 468
An anonymous reader writes "Over the last few months, Google has received more than 100 copyright infringement warnings from MPAA-affiliated movies studios. Most are directed at users of Google's public Wi-Fi service, but others are meant for Google employees. The MPAA is thus warning the search giant that it might get disconnected from the Internet. Although the copyright holders use strong language, these notices are simply warnings, and typically do not lead to legal action."
I think it's time (Score:3, Insightful)
That Google disconnects the MPAA from existence.
I will be very honest (Score:5, Insightful)
I won't be sad the day the movie industry goes out of business. I've found other ways to find entertainment which does not involve them. Everything does not have to last forever.
Re:I will be very honest (Score:0, Insightful)
A hope you're not American. A complete collapse of the movie industry would be devastating to the US economy, likely as much as if the auto industry had collapsed. Not only are the studios enormous and employ thousands of people, but the trickle down effect (all movie theaters, any store that sells DVDs) would be epic. Granted you're also an idiot if you honestly believe any of this has a realistic chance of happening.
They're serious? They can't be serious. (Score:4, Insightful)
Bring it on (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I will be very honest (Score:5, Insightful)
a complete collapse of the movie industry wouldn't even be devastating to the music industry itself, it would only be devastating to the MPAA.
where do you come up with this crap?
The MPAA and hopeuflly, IFPI is the only part that will fail. The rest of movie industry, music industry, etc are doing just dandy and well with filesharing the entire time. The overall market has expanded greatly.
Re:I think it's time (Score:5, Insightful)
Can't happen. Google can't delist swaths of multi-billion dollar entertainment companies responsible for generating the bulk of popular culture. They'd sink their own battleship.
Google is strong because their search engine is strong. Take that away and they're not the Google we know today.
That's not to say it wouldn't be awesome to see, though. :)
Re:Don't make me laugh! (Score:3, Insightful)
It's like a chihuahua barking at a tiger.
It doesn't accomplish much, but boy can that yipping drive you crazy!
Re:I think it's time (Score:5, Insightful)
Google is several times larger than Hollywood.
Remember, Hollywood is the land of hype. It makes itself look more profitable and important than it is, because that helps it sell itself and its products.
The entire annual gross revenue of movies from the MPAA member studios (about $10 billion) is only a little bigger than Google's annual profit (about $7 billion).
I'll say that again: Google's PROFIT is almost as big as Hollywood's REVENUE.
Now, that doesn't include TV, home-video, and merchandising. But it should indicate that Google has a lot more say in how a head-to-head fight would go.
Think of it this way. If Hollywood decided to start a software company and search engine and ad reseller and hire away Google's talent to do it, how would it do? And if Google decided to start a movie studio and hire away Hollywood's talent to do it, how would it do? Google's people are all salaried and sinecured. Hollywood's are a ravenous band of nomadic, mercenary contractors who go to the highest bidder without any concern for loyalty or decorum. And, once you've got the talent in place, good movies make themselves better without corporate involvement, since they make money by pulling in small but distinct segments of the overall market. But a Google-alike has to be able to please the entire planet all at once, something no Hollywood suit has ever accomplished and never will.
Google would win, and end up owning both industries.
By what authority? (Score:5, Insightful)
By what authority does the MPAA have the power to disconnect ANYONE from the internet?
Re:Next week: DHS siezes Google domain name (Score:5, Insightful)
If, all of the sudden, Americans woke up one day and found Google (mind you, Amazon, Facebook, and a few other web presences would have a similar effect) gone, they would go into a frothing mad rage. As soon as one person pointed a finger at Hollywood or the DHS, you'd have a God damned holy war on your hands. We Americans are certainly passive little government lap dogs as long as we have a steady soma dose of useless crap pumped into our veins via T.V. and the internet. But if you cut off that IV, you will learn really quick like just how much rage a bunch of pissed off house wives that can no longer access their lolcats pictures can generate.
"Let me tell you something about Hew-mons, nephew. They're a wonderful, friendly people – as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working. But take away their creature comforts... deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers... put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time... and those same friendly, intelligent, wonderful people will become as nasty and violent as the most bloodthirsty Klingon. You don't believe me? Look at those faces, look at their eyes..." - Quark [memory-alpha.org]
Re:By what authority? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't make me laugh! (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately... probably not. As much as I'd like to see Google launch an "the end justifies the means" campaign and crush MPAA, after some thought I got pessimistic about the prospect. Though theoretically Google could maybe buy all MPAA members one by one, Google is "new money" compared to it and the battle would be far, far from easy and predictable. After some amount of $$ it matters who you know, not how much you have.
Re:I think it's time (Score:5, Insightful)
I love how you blithely limit the MPAA-members' financial clout to just their movie revnenue.
We're talking about Sony, Disney, GE, NBC Universal, Viacom, NewsCorp, and Time Warner here. They've got a lot more money than just the movie business, if they are so inclined to throw it around.
Re:Whoopee (Score:4, Insightful)
*I don't think GE's a member anymore, but it's impossible to know for certain how much of their revenue came just from NBC-Universal
Really? [lmgtfy.com]
Page 34 of GE's 2009 earnings report: Revenues, NBC Universal, $15,436,000,000; Segment Profit, NBC Universal, $2,264,000,000.
Yeah, it's impossible to know for certain that NBC-Universal made $2 billion in profit last year. Sony Pictures, by the way, collected ¥705,237,000,000 (~ $8 billion) in revenue for FY 2010, and only ¥42,814,000,000 (~ $519 million) in profit; Sony Pictures includes not only MPAA-relevant stuff but TV shows just like NBC-Universal. That's from SONY's annual earnings report, which is admittedly not the first Google result, but whatever, it wasn't that hard to find. (http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/ar/2010/index.html [sony.net])
When you consider how little of Sony or GE's total revenues have to do with their movie-making divisions, and how much Google's revenues are based on Internet services supposedly threatened by these letters (practically all of Google's revenue) I think you can easily realize how much more money Google would be willing to spend on a fight than the MPAA. That is, if these angry letters Google received had any real meaning other than to try to scare the individuals who usually receive them.
Re:Don't make me laugh! (Score:5, Insightful)
And while the MPAA collapses, Microsoft and Yahoo form a partnership and launche an aggressive "We don't censor your search results!" campaign, and lots of people just start using Bing and Yahoo, rather than get embroiled in a pissing contest between two big drunks who are both upwind. Meanwhile, MPAA and their lackeys all stop using and dealing with people who advertise via Google (the movie & recording industries generally have pretty big marketing budgets, in case you didn't notice). Ad revenues plummet just as Google has to begin spending lots of money on developing automated methods to scrub search results of any "MPAA-backed" materials. Net result: Google has also committed "suicide by Google!"
The government steps in, declares the movie studios AND Google to both be "too big to fail," and bails them out at taxpayer expense.
Yeah, that would be an awesome scenario. Seriously, I can't wait to see them come to blows, rather than work out their issues like fucking adults.
Re:I think it's time (Score:4, Insightful)
Which, chances are, they won't. The best thing about large multinationals such as Sony and Disney is the whole "left hand, right hand" business they've got going on internally.
Sony's music and movie divisions have long complained about the ease of playing "pirated" music and movies on the PS3, PSP and portable media players, but the electronic division's response? fuck off, it's your problem not ours. I can't see the guys in charge of History Channel or ESPN reacting any different to the latest Hannah Montana album being copied online, either.
So, unless they manage to convince the *real* head honchos of their respective corporations to throw the weight of the entire business group just to help a single division (ha!), their respective movie and music income is all they're gonna get for their little turf war.