A Bailout for Hollywood

Hurray for Hollywood. The Golden Globes. The Kardashians. Rap Noise, er, we mean music. 60 Minutes promoting books published by a sister company. Locked up movie distribution deals. $15.00 for a box of popcorn and two soft drinks. Comcast now owns NBC. Gee, can’t think of any reason why this Hollywood gang would want to lay low and not draw attention to their situation, huh? Remember the good old days when you got to buy an album full of really good music just to get one song? What changed that situation? Can you imagine (thanks John Lennon) a time when you might just pay the cable company for the shows you watch and not have to buy an expensive package of crap programming that is also commercially sponsored?

It’s a funny thing how the Hollywood media (movies, TV, news shows, magazines, newspapers, network debates) goes after Wall Street and banks and other successful companies but they never focus on themselves. Why is that? Why does Hollywood get all this protection – first amendment; virtual monopolistic distribution schemes; shared ownership of all forms of entertainment and news and opinion forming techniques? Why are they not being regulated? After all they are calling for the regulation of the Internet aren’t they?

You may have gotten a little taste this week of how to play by the rules in the information age. Particularly if you believe that it is better to feed certain information to the public and deny certain information to the public (networks and newspapers.) Or at least feed certain information to the public with a certain version of facts or the right person presenting certain facts or some large breasted nubile actress doing something in the background when an uncomfortable piece of information is being presented. Or some bonehead like Bill Maher or John Stewart making money off failed sophomoric humor to sycophantic audiences. That crap needs protection? We think it needs a good flushing.

Hollywood thinks their crap, their product, their content, their productions; their artistic accomplishments are something really special and should be protected by the federal government. After all it is their property right? And their first amendment right; you know, that freedom of speech business.

Who else gets to use their property exactly as they please and then gets to ask the government to guarantee their ongoing right for self control use of their property ad infinitum? Do you? Most people we know own property (real) but they have to seek government approval if they want to do anything on it. They have to pay for this approval too and then, after all this is tended to, they gets to wait for a government employee to come and tell them if they did it right. If you buy a car it comes with all sorts of government rules and features and mandatory add-ons. True of almost anything one buys. It is all controlled by the government; somewhere, maybe locally; maybe in Washington.

Isn’t it time for Hollywood to get the same treatment of their property? Hollywood has a free hand to distort more facts and play on more emotions than a busload of progressive politicians could ever even conceive in their wet dreams. They produce crap and feed nonsense to children and place weird ideas in the young minds of a world without discipline and without responsibility as long as it feels good and it gets a laugh or two. Why isn’t government licensing Hollywood property? Adding some add-ons? You know, some measures for the public good?

Hollywood is promoting legislation that will prevent search engines from even mentioning a web site that is deemed to be a violator of any Hollywood content. Do you want government screening the search results produced by Google and telling them which sites they can present to the user? Our position: absolutely NOT. If government wants to get into the information control business we suggest they start with Hollywood and start regulating what Hollywood produces and the “art” that fills our TV screens, our radio programming; our movie screens and our library book shelves. Let’s start with a simple truthfulness test and let government regulate them. If it’s truthful it can be distributed. If it’s not it must stay in the can. Hollywood is a blight on the fundamentals of a free society. It dominates the media world. It constantly spins, distorts and distributes propaganda all under the freedoms of the first amendment. But when another form of information distribution comes along, Hollywood hires the lawyers and the lobbyists and former senators and says “shut them down.”

Here is the skinny on the crap laws Hollywood is promoting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more

Here’s the defense as published in the Wall Street Journal which supports this government regulation crap. (Interesting isn’t it how the WSJournal wants freedom in all other businesses except its own and there it supports federal intervention in the information business. Can you say “hypocrite?”)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203471004577142893718069820.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Here is the Heritage Foundation’s well presented position on these topics:

http://blog.heritage.org/2012/01/18/morning-bell-an-internet-blackout-over-sopa-and-pipa/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Morning%2BBell

Last point. Here is the position of TheFundamentals. If you can go to a library and check it out it should be available free on the Internet. If you don’t want people accessing your content then don’t sell it/make it available to a public library. After all a lot of poor people can’t afford $15.00 for a box of popcorn and two soft drinks on top of paying for the crappy movie.