Loss of Privacy

As great a tool as the internet is for learning, research, and mass communication, it is also one of the most insidious devices ever created. With today’s tabloid mentality and a society that embraces invasions of privacy and the pervasive spreading of inaccuracies, rumor, innuendo, lies, and gossip, in my opinion the damaging and slanderous aspects of the internet should be regulated, just as laws govern these infractions in the real world. Fringe online spies and bloggers have become parts of mainstream society, and now even studios kowtow to them. Tabloids have jumped into our living rooms with network and cable television shows that harass and exploit celebrities, causing considerable distress to real human beings, not movie characters. The paparazzi stalk, bully, invade, and endanger those in the public eye, yet the government does little to limit this plague that has infested our society under the guise of news or entertainment.

Lewis Lapham, best known as the longtime editor of Harper’s Magazine, has been quoted as saying that what gets lost in the Digital Age is context; and, often, it’s history that provides context. He suggests, “Without context, you have no cause and effect. The Renaissance, for example, comes out of the rediscovery of classical antiquity. You can’t know or appreciate where you’re going if you don’t understand and appreciate where you’ve been. We change our tools and our tools change us.” We suffer when we lose historical context, even in filmmaking.

Wikipedia

In the ever-expanding internet world, the “hive mind” (also called collective consciousness) is becoming ever more pervasive. With wiki sites (collaborative websites whose content can be edited by anyone who has access to it) like Wikipedia and user-fueled databases like the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), history (and the information that constitutes it) is becoming more about what the collective world thinks and less about facts.

Sites such as Wikipedia do not allow the sources of real and valid information about the individual subjects they list to correct misinformation, since facts from the actual sources seem contrary to their philosophy. I once lost a deal because an “unnamed source” had posted untrue information about me on my Wikipedia biography. I rectified the errors when I discovered this, but soon my corrections were removed and replaced with more inaccuracies by another “unnamed source”. I learned, to my horror, that anyone at any time can make changes and “contributions” to the information in any profile which the world assumes are facts. However, when my assistant tried to correct my biography again, he was banned from contributing to Wikipedia.

Sometimes what is posted is not only inaccurate but subversive or defamatory. Victims are forced to monitor dozens of sites on a continual basis in order to keep their reputations intact, as people naively still tend to believe most of what they read online. However, I was recently buoyed somewhat by a fourth-grade girl who was doing research for a school project. “Don’t use Wikipedia,” she said. “It’s a lie.”

Clearly, there are good and bad sides to the “anyone can contribute” philosophy. Since multiple people contribute to wiki entries and articles, they are constantly updated. The more popular a topic is, the more people contribute to it, and the more often it is updated. But this is no guarantee that what appears is accurate. Since anybody can edit wiki information, people who know little or nothing about a topic can spread inaccuracies or untruths. Supporters of the wiki sites claim that such misinformation is corrected quickly by other users, but that is an absurd argument, since it would take tremendous vigilance and manpower to monitor and correct every entry constantly. Consequently, incorrect or incomplete information is especially prevalent in wiki entries about topics that aren’t very popular or mainstream.

IMDb

The problems that plague wikis also affect other databases that rely mainly on user input, such as IMDb. IMDb users submit information for inclusion on the database; “moderators” then supposedly verify the new material before allowing it to appear on the website. However, users contribute so much information (a surprising amount of which is grossly inaccurate) that the moderators are frequently overloaded. Consequently, it seems that they either don’t have the time to verify new entries at all or they are insufficiently thorough in their research. Entries for popular and current titles tend to be much more accurate than those for older, obscure, or non-mainstream films (i.e., the bulk of independent movies).

I have personally submitted corrections and an accurate filmography to IMDb countless times, and my attorney has written several letters, yet the administrators have consistently refused to make any changes or correct my information. At the time of writing, my profile was missing forty-three of my producer credits while crediting me with several projects with which I had no involvement. I have resorted to publishing the correct information on my own website (www.andrewstevens.info) and illuminating the fallacies that appear on so much of the internet. Yet most people around the world rely on online databases like IMDb for their information, so we must all continue the fight to correct the egregious inaccuracies that ignorant or malicious contributors post on them.

Google Maintenance

Factions of the internet operate like digital tabloids, hence the rise of “reputation managers”—tech-savvy and skilled people who scour the internet to correct and guard against negative, slanderous, defamatory, and inaccurate postings, or at least push them from the first few Google search pages. It is a sad aspect of modern life that individuals are so vulnerable to online attack that they have to employ reputation managers just to set the record straight.

New Media

When people talk about new media, they are generally referring to the internet, which offers global distribution of audiovisual product, virtually instantly, and allows almost limitless streaming and downloading opportunities for viewers. It’s still very much a media “Wild West,” although studios and networks are desperately trying to find more effective ways to monetize it. In other words, maximizing profits from distributing filmed entertainment product online.

The internet has already changed conventional distribution and marketing models for ever. Hopefully, our government won’t allow the majors and conglomerates to monopolize the internet and new and emerging media, as they have all other forms of distribution. If that happens, it will be a tragic day for free trade and free enterprise. By contrast, if the internet remains free, independent filmmakers will still have access to a global self-distribution mechanism.

Piracy in Music and Film

The internet has been a major source of piracy that has robbed film and music distributors of billions of dollars’ worth of revenues, to such an extent that it has virtually destroyed the music business. People still and always will listen to music and desire new sounds, new artists, new songs, but with the exception of major artists, when your favorite tracks can be downloaded for as little as ninety-nine cents or streamed for free, why would the majority of consumers pay an inflated price for an entire album?

In the old days of analog tape, every copy made from a copy was a generation removed from the master, suffered from reduced resolution and quality, and was, by its very nature, a deterrent to piracy. By the fifth or sixth generation, picture and sound quality were so poor that the copy was worthless, so the copying would stop there. However, with the advent of digital technology, limitless copies could be made from a digital master with no loss of quality. Then, along came the internet, so all of those illegal copies could be “shared.” Studios and independents alike are now in a perpetual fight to curtail piracy and preserve the industry. Once a movie or a song is encoded digitally and uploaded to the internet, chances are it will stay there for ever. It is nearly impossible to stop the spread of a movie or an album, especially if it is in high demand. Presumably, the average music or film pirate’s mentality is: “Why pay a large amount of money for something when it can be obtained free, with little or no chance of being caught and penalized?”

Meanwhile, the FBI and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)—the trade group that claims to represent the U.S. recording industry—have proved almost powerless to stop the raging epidemic of online piracy. The sheer number of pirate downloads is simply too great to curtail, and the technologies have become so advanced that it is all but impossible to track who is downloading what, and where they are located. These two organizations have focused on busting large pirate rings and illegal distributors. Meanwhile, copyright holders and artists have been hit hard, as their work floats along the information superhighway, out of their control and generating zero revenue.

On many occasions I have made lucrative sales in foreign territories, only for the distributor to cancel, renegotiate, or simply refuse to pay for the film due to piracy. An Italian distributor shared with me that every time he released a theatrical film into the cinemas, people on the streets would be selling pirated DVDs that were cheaper than the price of admission to the cinema in which his movie was playing. He combated this in a unique way, by “pirating” his own movie! He hired street vendors to sell “bootleg” DVDs and collected the “illicit” revenues.

Imagine that you invested your unique creativity, hard work, and money into a film that was then stolen by online pirates. The internet could—and should—be the most profitable distribution medium the entertainment industries have ever known, so fighting piracy and enforcing copyrights online are vital for the security of our business in the future.