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.