The Napsterisation
of the movie business is here, and it's huge
And well they should be. As many as 400,000 movies (from clips and shorts to full-length features) are downloaded every day, two of the more popular being The Matrix and Mission: Impossible 2. True, that's small potatoes compared with the estimated 50 million music files that once switched hands daily on Napster alone. But when you consider that the average movie is perhaps 90 minutes long, compared with some four minutes for the average song, the time spent with so-called pirated movies may have already caught up with music. Hollywood executives have been bracing for the day when Cast Away is as available for free downloading as "The Real Slim Shady."
Their fears may soon be realised. The technology for sharing a movie is no different than for a song; Gnutella already allows for it, while the old Napster just needed an infusion of Wrapster (a free program that allowed it to share other files besides MP3s). The question was simply when processing power, bandwidth connections, and computer screens would all become big enough to make watching video on your desktop feasible.
A 90-minute movie can now be compressed to 500 megabytes. A high-speed connection can get you that movie in 30 minutes--not fast, but no more time than for downloading a big piece of software. And the screen is now irrelevant. DVD burners are the hot new gadget for 2001; Apple's G4 even comes with the device installed. Download, burn, then watch it on your big screen--you don't even need to keep the file. Suddenly your computer can become a pirate video factory, churning out an endless number of DVDs. Eventually, you may not even need a burner. A site called X10 already sells a gizmo that, by wireless transfer, turns your TV into a computer video monitor. No wonder Hollywood's nervous.
Of course, Hollywood was also nervous when television came out. And when cable popped up. And when VCRs invaded. Napster upended the music business, yet music sales have never been higher. "The music industry will always be the first line of defense," says Favreau. "They're the pawns, the fodder." But compared with the music industry, Hollywood maintains a key mental advantage. Music feels free. You get it on the radio; four hours every week in the car alone, if you're like most people. But you're used to paying for movies, whether in the theatre, at Blockbuster, or through premium cable.
Maybe that's why much of Hollywood is wising up and working with the new technology rather than against it. Miramax's Sundance-timed Internet release of Guinevere was the first of a dozen movies it will offer using encryption technology from SightSound.com, allowing users a timed, 24-hour viewing license for US$3.49. Jack Valenti, the president of the Motion Picture Association of America, predicted that same day that many of the major studios will follow suit this year. "You don't fight file-sharing technology," says Scott Sander, SightSound Technologies' cofounder. "You don't fight Microsoft. You don't fight the consumer. Otherwise, it's not going to be pretty."
Sander's proposition is simple: "Do you want to pay a few bucks to not break the law, get good quality, no virus, and not tie your line up at a file-sharing site?"
But even if everything works perfectly, piracy by people who want free movies will still be largely unstoppable. Just one store-bought DVD, one bootleg video, one hacked download, and the genie is out of the bottle. A big test comes this June, when a certain movie featuring a certain buxom video-game character hits screens. Tomb Raider, starring Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft, "will be the single most pirated movie in the history of the world," says one Digital Hollywood chief executive, who asked that his name be withheld for fear of infuriating Paramount. "The chatrooms are already flying. They're so ready for it." With that release, the Napsterisation of the movie business will have officially commenced.
The visionaries of film, video, and animation have already set up shop online -- is Hollywood about to take the plunge? Our annual
Hollywired report takes a look at where the industry is now and where it's headed.
Jon Favreau hails from Queens, but he's become the quintessential LA player. An actor-director-writer, he has enough hyphens for the town, and they're all legitimate. He wrote and starred with his pal Vince Vaughn in Swingers, the ultimate L.A. flick. He's at Skybar, the uber-hip joint on the Sunset Strip that boasts beautiful babies and a jaw-slacking view of the Southern California basin. He's in his adopted element, but he hasn't lost his New York bluntness: "What happened with Napster," Favreau says, his dark Sopranos sweatshirt dimming as lights pop on across the valley, "has everyone here scared out of their minds."
John Favreau and Vince Vaughn, seen here in Swingers, will appear together again in Favreau's highly wired Made, a gangster comedy.
