Killing Hollywood

Hollywood has never failed to thrill the world. With all the movies and TV series, not forgetting music and other works of art coming out the place; it is technically impossible for anyone not to find his/her impeccable tastes being satisfied. According to movie makers Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, this may not be the case in the near future.

The two veteran movie makers say that, the movie industry is set to implode amid various challenges it is facing. 

With humongous challenges facing Hollywood’s essence: and by challenges I mean soaring budgets, competition from cable TV, varying theatre pricing, piracy, etc. I have to agree with what the aforementioned movie makers are saying.

Piracy: Hollywood’s ‘greatest’ killer

New technologies like the Internet have brought about peer-to-peer sharing hence enhancing wide spread unfair; rather, illegal copying and downloading of copyrighted Hollywood masterpieces and frankly, the deed seems to be ‘forever’ on the increase.

In some parts of the world, a huge lot of people make a living out of this...and those selling and buying pirated work claim to have their reasons, which I’ll be looking into.

Buyers claim that legitimate Hollywood products are expensive! They also claim theatre prices are too high! Is this true? Well, I’ll try answering that by giving you the following info:

Buying a Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy + Ultra Violet of the ‘Fast and Furious 6’, on Amazon, compels you to part with US$23.99. Buying a digital copy or DVD of a pirated ‘Fast and Furious 6’, a Kenyan for instance will have to part with Ksh. 50. Ksh. 50 is less than US$1!

Buying a complete ‘Vampire Diaries Season 1’ Blu-ray on Amazon will cost a buyer US$23.83. Buying a complete ‘Vampire Diaries Season 1’ DVD from a Kenyan pirated movie shop, you’ll have to part with Ksh. 100, which is just over US$1!

When it comes to theatre, pricing vary but in order to make my point, I’ll use two examples once used by Steven Spielberg – though in a different context. A theatre ticket for the movie ‘Lincoln’ cost US$7, which is about Ksh. 600. A ticket for the movie ‘Iron Man 3’ cost around US$25, that’s just over Ksh. 2000! 

Can, for instance, an average Kenyan meet the expense of the above legit products? I’ll let you be the judge.

Copyright protection

Apart from the fact that copyright enforcement, particularly in most third world countries, faces a colossal lot of challenges, foreign works that do not enjoy copyright protection, in Kenya for instance, belong to public domain, therefore making a great bunch of Hollywood movies vulnerable to unfair reproduction and commercial use.

Conclusively, in my judgement, I think the biggest killer of the Hollywood industry is piracy...and that for Hollywood to survive, consumers ought to stop illegal and/or unfair reproduction and commercial use of Hollywood products. Whatever reason may be behind their illegal reproduction and commercial use of Hollywood products, consumers ought to consider and respect efforts put by Hollywood artists in order to complete their productions, although consideration here ought to be done by all sides – consumers and producers.

The Society Might Seem In Order But Anarchy On Social Media May Brew Anarchy In The Real World

During and after Kenya’s March 2013 historic elections, the social media has been buzzing with insults; hurled by some supporters of mainly the Coalition for Reform and Democracy (CORD) and their Jubilee counterparts.

With regard to this, supporters from the two sides literally have a field day, every day. I mean, they get to do whatever they so please without fear of being wrong or wish to be right. In some of these pro CORD and Jubilee pages on mainly Facebook, we who frequent those sites get to see all dimensions of negative ethnicity, coupled with puerile commentaries on the state of affairs in politics. These points to disorder in the Kenyan society.

NCIC tenets have hinted that hate speech brewed in the electronic media may incite hate crimes. I lament with great concern that no substantial actions have been taken by NCIC to fight the quickly budding disorder in our social media sites, despite having afore mentioned tenets.

In 2010, NCIC produced a document titled ‘guidelines for monitoring hate speech in electronic media…’ The document highlighted the raging debate about the role of the media in fuelling the 2008 post election violence. The document also described the media as an opinion shaper, with regard to elections. Since social sites are part of the electronic media, can they also shape opinion and incite, for instance, hate crimes? Yes! I believe they can. Social media has been effective in mobilizing crowds for demonstrations: c.f. Egyptian, Tunisian uprisings and our very own May 14^th #OccupyParliament demonstrations against MP salary hike. If so, how hard can it be to incite people into hate crimes and related wrongs!?

Having said that, it is crucial that NCIC and relevant authorities act on sods responsible for fuelling negative ethnicity on social media. If not, then the Kenyan nation should prepare for anarchy for it is inevitable. The spirit of nationhood is dying, and at a weirdly fast rate. There is complete lack of respect for authorities like the police, the president and even statesmen like Raila Odinga. Our constitution gives us the freedom of speech; every Kenyan is free to speak his/her mind but there are lines that shouldn’t be crossed. It’s about time someone did something to put us on the right path; a path to order, social responsibility and respect

This applies to politicos too; putting Kenya on a path to social responsibility shouldn't be an excuse to limit freedoms in the name of national security, etc because that would essentially mean politicos refusal to take responsibility and that is a prelude to authoritarianism akin to fascism