Of course Hollywood is dying! Ever since the emergence of new technologies, Hollywood began its slow and painful death. How so, you may ask? Well, ever since the World Wide Web became... worldwide and accessible to all, there has been a dramatic growth in opportunities, particularly within the film industry. Now we have specific websites that we can go to to upload videos - documentaries, short films, home videos, anything really. But then , of course, this leads to piracy and illegal downloading. Many people upload snippets of unreleased films which is fraudulent behaviour, it is completely unacceptable! Yet, it is still done. So this could only mean bad news for Hollywood, right? Not quite, I think we all forget that "there is always a light at the end of a tunnel".
We could consider the shift from Hollywood cinema to Hollywood cinema: Online. It would be a great change, as many people are recently becoming more dependant on their computers and the Web. Maybe, we could look at airing new releases online instead of restricted to the cinemas? Of course there is a higher risk of piracy, but if an industry can offer several other benefits in exchange for the single price of a film, this could bring great exposure and attract more... lackadaisical (that's a nice word for lazy) people who prefer to sit at home and enjoy the company of themselves. I believe that "file sharing over the internet has considerable commercial promise for all copyright owners, including the Hollywood studios." (Currah, 2006, p 441) I think the online experience would be an amazing opportunity for Hollywood, if only they realised!
Currah, A 2006, Journal of Economic Geography, 'Hollywood versus the Internet: the media and entertainment industries in a digital and networked economy', vol. 6, pp. 439-468, viewed 2nd September 2011, via Griffith University Database, DOI: 10.1093/jeg/lbl006
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