Sony Pictures boss Michael Lynton caused a stir a couple weeks ago when, during a panel discussion in New York, he came out as an unapologetic Web-hater: "I am a guy who hasn't seen any good come out of the Internet. It seems to have done damage to every (part) of the entertainment business." He's since come to wave a white flag amid the hail of drive-by blogging bullets that followed, taking his impassioned defense to -- where else? -- the Internet.
Writing at the Huffington Post, Lynton backtracks only a bit from his original comments, which he alludes were taken out of context. To wit, he repeats his clarification that "the major content businesses of the world and the most talented creators of that content -- music, newspapers, movies and books -- have all been seriously harmed by the Internet." His chief example: the workprint leak of Wolverine, downloaded more than 4 million times (and yet still, at $310 million globally, the summer's top-grossing film to date, but whatever) in a signature display of the Web's appeal to pirates and consumers alike.
Which, Lynton allows, is a separate issue from obsolete business models -- say, Craigslist's decimation of newspaper advertising revenues or iTunes' transformation of how music is heard, bought, sold. "I am no luddite," he argues, though his primary metaphor for regulating the Web seems pretty stunningly analog (and in the newfound spirit of context and responsibility, I cite the whole long passage):
Contrast the expansion of the Internet with what happened a half century ago. In the 1950's, the Eisenhower Administration undertook one of the most massive infrastructure projects in our nation's history -- the creation of the Interstate Highway System. It completely transformed how we did business, traveled, and conducted our daily lives. But unlike the Internet, the highways were built and operated with a set of rational guidelines. Guard rails went along dangerous sections of the road. Speed and weight limits saved lives and maintenance costs. And officers of the law made sure that these rules were obeyed. As a result, as interstates flourished, so did the economy. According to one study, over the course of its first four decades of existence, the Interstate Highway System was responsible for fully one-quarter of America's productivity growth.
Let's think about this. On one hand, Sony has hit cruising speed in the slow lane of that highway, corralled its own new-media machine with Crackle and a mutually beneficial output deal with YouTube. On the other hand, this is the slippery studio slope that WGA, SAG and other unions have been attempting to climb since late '07: If there's regulation (which, at least with YouTube, there already is) and quantifiable economic growth, shouldn't there be more transparency on the studio side to assure everyone else is getting their cuts as well? Screw the highway -- in the end, this is a two-way street.
ยท Guardrails for the Internet: Preserving Creativity Online [HuffPo via The Big Picture]