Inherently SOPA/PIPA is bad… but I am tired of the idiot …yes… idiot and arrogant arguments about people lecturing on an industry and a product that they know nothing about.

I left all those signatories because of because of the restrictions they inherently had and it may be that much of them were needed. Because I knew they would be impossible to make things under and not experiment with distribution. That does not mean I think it is okay for people to not recognize piracy effects all of those unions and people protected by their associations (even when they humanly over reach as does the web dev industry).

The model has to change. I have been arguing it for years…that BOTH the tech industry AND studios networks have to address. Millions of people and products and industry is dependent or heavily effected by the complex content industries of TV and Film.. they are very different than the music and publishing industries. Web dev and start-up VC’s industry as much as the studios have had a “it’s their problem” attitude for a decade. Small quibbling as they build structures that are heavily reliant on the other.

Content architecture and production/delivery systems of those industries have to change. But if you are going to argue that, you have to also fight the technical industries that have licensing restrictions (including the “open” ones), of their own… and build architectures that are lead by the know how of people who understand audiences as much as people who understand users. The numbers and studies on piracy have been biased on both sides but if you look at historical downturns and how we recovered..and what the film industry’s FULL REAL numbers are right now…they are not good with the landscape we have. As a country, film taxes actually helped us massively in the recovery of expenditures after the depression.

This bad argument about piracy “helps the entertainment industry” is bad because you do not understand the protections and risk of complex content production. Never mind the impossible task of actually making it good.

SOPA/PIPA are bad… Again the industry model needs to change to make the content cubic and layered as to create an opportunity for content to become a platform itself (without damaging the content) where the revenue model becomes viable to be a “push” industry instead of a “pull”. It also (by making content of film and tv …cubic, multi-platform, cross device integration and layered) makes piracy a thousand times more difficult.

Both extreme and ill informed sides of this debate should start to have some humility. Realize they have very little knowledge of the other side. And start to focus on mutually beneficial answers, and not reinforce the ones that protect their own interests or image for career and personal/political gain. Innovation, the internet, audiences, the general public, the world economy (which yes is heavily dependent on those evil studios and networks) will be hurt by these bad polarities that everyone is throwing out as if they are an expert on the opposite side which they really know enough knowledge to be very dangerous on. Only a handful of people are fighting to solve the problems…everyone else is sheep or power players trying to keep their power.

and it’s gross.

The dialectic is often only truly informed by period and structures of communication that are incredibly complex and artful in the convergence of a long singular form that has complex protective agreements in how they are delivered and channeled. If you are going to blindly protect the channels openness at the cost and reward of a better content you have failed.

…and Vice versa.

I am sick of the greed, ignorance and false statements in the self-serving and cheesy marketing hype of this debate.

Lots of people spouting about bad business models and piracy who do not have a single clue about signatory union contracts and responsibilities in an industry with not just one, but many, on most projects.  Some of these same individuals calling congress out as ignorant of their own expertise but don’t see their own ignorance on any of the distribution structures that go into creating a massively complex but commonly union signatory production.

We get crappy bills like SOPA and PIPA because extremes on both sides are loud and ignorant of half of what they are loud about… ..the other half.  They buy into Louis C.K. as an answer to how the studios are wrong…and they are… but not the way they all are arguing.  Louis C. K. ‘s project is not complex collaborative media on the level of most film and tv…with group creation… and with the struggle of an infrastructure that Louis C.K. likes to avoid acknowledging he has.  (The man is arguably the top buzzed/hyped comedian right now whose simple “concert” film will be supplemented by the marketing of his tours and sitcom etc. as well as the massive employed tribe he has working for & with him -from publicists to lawyers under the payroll of other initiatives).  There are so many issues that both sides choose to ignore.  Both sides are not helping anyone but themselves.

Traditional media has a leg up because they understand delivery of complex interface production.  As the laying in of retail and brands has to be in production..not delivery.  As the shift of power inherently shifts to placement as the first in/first out payment contracts by placement in actual production…during the actual reality of production..  & Those will be made by those building /producing/ designing, visual production/story architectures not simple list interface or curation.  The reward from curation alone …especially in a flat list interface will beeaten into significantly as the direct retail instigated by the right placement of cues in emotional, appetite and utility within story architecture will drive retail significantly more than a “two+ step away from purchase” ad placed near a list subject.

Another big misunderstanding of people who think traditional media would die because what they do is inherently easy.  It’s not.  Not even close.

A little like the mistake of Boxee.  An idea that was created without an understanding of a very clear future that it would become redundant.  As heroic of an attempt as it may have been.

Without content creation or a hand in higher level story architecture skills… all platforms will fall to the people actually building the stories and flow.

Anyone who thinks that the Saturday morning cartoons that 40 year olds watched as children didn’t mean anything, didn’t teach us anything… need to go back and watch the Superfriends, Schoolhouse Rock and the Babapapas. There was deep ethos in many of that silly, fluffy entertainment. A time between the violent slapstick of BugsBunny & Roadrunner (still love tho)..and the mind numbing of some games that don’t teach anything of good and bad… but physio-articulation and math.

Tasty with value is not a fairy tale in fiction, or cartoons… ..it’s just an endangered and rare species.

A few have stepped up and listened and since stuck by me… When they realized beyond all the detail confusion realized they did need to understand all sides of this much better than they did.

The showdown on IP laws (which as much as I fight the large evil corporate studio), protected the US’s (and other countries) 2nd largest export which had a lot to do with our democratic ideals leading and spreading, leads us into much of the ideas on innovation, and gets much credit for leading us out of the depression and giving us the lifestyle we are lucky enough to have. This showdown …in Congress could have been avoided. Still could.

The .hyv layering or any browser layering will remove many of the conflicts. Again more reasons why this specific focus / road of popcorn.js just keeps leading us down the wrong road. Why I often get annoyed by web development people who don’t understand the purpose and histories of mass& interpersonal communication architectures and industries in both public and private venues.

10 years ago I left NBC, studios etc.. To recreate a more open industry and market, 7 years ago as I was putting my life where my mouth is ..I started fighting for an open technical infrastructure. Putting my life where my mouth was…yet they still ignored that they may not understand industries that they were actually dependent on as much as vice-versa. Of course with the incursion of video media which is highly complex in production… That is going to get even tougher.

I wish all parties would listen. There is a way. Yet both sides arrogantly say the other is wrong. Well, I will say arrogantly to both… They both are.

Hirsch sent me this shot this morning (before the accident filming)…from the hypervideo mapping “the c.a.m.p.” …with the note “Can we mark a big `L` on his head in the hypervideo?’”. Me- “sure” Lovely shot (FYI character is drunk in this scene)

Get on the train or get out of our way.

… Making all of this.. which needs the expertise of independent long form production systems and budgeting…(studio knowledge alone is far too scaled and stuck in high $$$ to back down enough on budgets to take the risk yet)… a near impossible needle to thread and keep the quality of ethos, pathos, logos and commonality that you would need. Easier to teach indie filmmakers who understand all the elements of the layback and production processes how to handle integrated retail and stronger story development… than it is to make what presently is considered ground breaking on the internet actually successful in the wider tv and film market.

Content architecture is the real estate by which all advertising and integrated retail will exist. It’s design of ethos, pathos, and logos… (The emotion, appetite and utility of purchasing… The only reasons anyone purchases anything) matter more than a 10,ooo eyeballs…when dealing with “purchase”.

Again, that is a contract that has to come in prep… a “first in/first out” contract which has the power to step to the front of the payout line… and a safer bet.  And anyone who thinks attaching gimmicks (random additional platforms that were not in the inception of the story) to the outside of a story to widen the audience without a core quality structure that those are born with/extend out of organically… has a long way to go.  Anyone who thinks building a story around a brand will cut off 2/3 of a market and may damage a brand if the content seems like a giant commercial.  There is a way for brands to help build content with storytellers.  …but that is for us to keep secret. ; )