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“I’m going to piss a lot of people off,” Ari Emanuel told the AllThingsD conference tonight. And in a room of tech execs, the WME boss kept his word. “Where Google decides to play in this piracy issue, plus Verizon, AT&T, is very crucial for our industry and I’m concerned they’re going to wait it out,” Emanuel to told AllThingsD co-founders Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher in front of a packed house. “If they don’t stop the stealing of content I think it is going to be a problem.” Emanuel, who promised not to swear or hit anyone, was very clear to name names and point out where in the “pipes” he sees the theft of his clients’ and Hollywood’s content coming from. “We need Northern California to figure out how to keep our intellectual property from being stolen. If Google was in China, and their stuff was being stolen, they would leave China, right?” Emanuel didn’t miss the opportunity to chastise Silicon Valley and their industry for allowing the stealing of content and the scuttling of antipiracy legislation. “Ask Google, ask Verizon why they haven’t come to the table?”
Asked in the Q&A what exactly he’d like Google to do, Emanuel said “I’d like them to start filtering when people are stealing our product internationally, that’s their responsibility.” In a heated exchange with one questioner, Emanuel made his point emphatically, telling the guy to sit down to wide applause. “Stealing is a bad thing,” bellowed Emanuel to the crowd’s sudden approval.
Inevitably the question of WME’s recent deal to bring Silver Lake Partners onboard with a 31% non-controlling minority interest in the company came up. Emanuel said that WME has “been increasingly interested in tech.” Sitting on the same stage as Apple CEO Tim Cook the day before, Emanuel added, that “we’ve been buying and investing in startups. When we merged a couple years ago, we kind of shifted the whole focus in terms of where things were going, and we’ve spent a lot of time up in Silicon Valley, trying to figure it out.” All that effort “got Silver Lake interested” and that’s what started them and WME talking.
Piracy and content might have been the heart of Emanuel’s sometimes pugilistic appearance at AllThingsD, but it wasn’t they weren’t the only topics of discussion. Mossberg and Swisher drew Emanuel out of on what he thought was going right in the entertainment industry. When you think about the entertainment business, you can’t just think about movies,” the WME co-CEO cautioned the audience, “we’re in the music business with concerts, the author business, we have 230 shows on TV.” And TV got Emanuel going. “The television businesses’ economics are better than its ever been,” Emanuel said. “I think this is the best business in the world and I’m betting heavily on it.” Asked by Mossberg and Swisher if he was strictly traditional in his approach, Emanuel responded he knew the audiences are there because of the success of YouTube and other new platforms. “I’m OK with them watching it on Nexflix as long as we figure out the economics and I believe premium content is more valuable than two dogs on a couch.”
The 10th annual AllThingsD conference runs through tomorrow.
Related: Aaron Sorkin Says Writing About Steve Jobs Like Writing About Beatles: AllThingsD
Deadline's Dominic Patten - tip him here.
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Ari,if stealing is such a bad thing why do you constantly try and steal other people’s clients?
Clients aren’t slaves. They aren’t owned by their agents.
Ari is like Loki from Avengers and Google is the Hulk. You know what happens next.
I just got a great idea for a Google Doodle!
Who would’ve thought an agent would stand up to stealing. But bravo, Ari, about time someone in our industry start protecting the content creators.
As a content creator and a reader of the studies showing piracy’s effect is negligible, I’m good with Ari not speaking for me.
Negligible today… but not in five to tens years if it is allowed to persist, unchecked and with no repercussions.
But the fact is, it’s not going “unchecked” and unpenalized. Do your research.
^Agreed.
The above is unquestionably true and the fact is that people like Ari who are using bully tactics and glib rhetoric to try and position themselves as “fighting for content creators” is absolutely ridiculous. The fact that he told him to basically sit down and shut up is ridiculous. If he is trying to defend the anti-piracy bills then he clearly did not read them very carefully or follow the public’s reaction either.
The consumers are being increasingly marginalized and are responding in turn. If they feel mistreated by the content providers they are supposed to use then I don’t blame them for utilizing readily available alternatives. HBO sees streaming as a “passing fad” for instance and refuses to evolve to meet the needs of consumers who don’t wish to be locked into a contract that requires they pay the same premium cost regardless of what amount of content they watch is simply unfair. I don’t listen to all of Sony BMG’s artists and if they asked me to pay a monthly all encompassing price to allow me to legally listen to what I do want to hear, then I would be on The Pirate Bay that very day finding my fix.
And the tired argument of “the economics dont work” is just a sad and lazy excuse to avoid putting in the work to make the model work. It’s a process. Just because it isnt there now doesn’t mean it simply “doesn’t work”, it means that it needs to be carefully and meticulously analyzed. Every major content provider has great analytics teams meant to figure these things out, how about they use them?
Hulu was nearly an epic disaster and now here we sit with a great content provider that is producing original content and offering a subscription service that is pretty solid. It’s not perfect but hey, “the economics work”.
“And the tired argument of “the economics dont work” is just a sad and lazy excuse to avoid putting in the work to make the model work.”
Absolutely! Piracy reveals that there is a market out there that wants to be served, but on its own terms. It IS possible to get consumers to pay some money, for the advantages of a legit method of streaming content: better interface, more safeguards, and why not build a community around it (better than the lame attempts at community building that Netflix and YouTube have done).
What consumers won’t go for is a confused situation where they have to get various studios’ content at various different sites. Too expensive, but worse, too inconvenient and time consuming for people who don’t have time to live on the internet.
When you see a movie at the multiplex, do you expect to see Universal movies at one location, Paramount at another? Of course not. Nobody wants to bother thinking about that. Maybe Netflix won’t be the streaming service that wins in the end, but the one that does – and it will be ONE – will be the multiplex one, that doesn’t care where the content comes from, just as the consumer doesn’t care.
He may not be user-friendly…but he’s right. Good for Ari.
I can’t help but find this hysterical. Sergio and Larry won’t give a flying fuck what Ari thinks or wants. Hollywood makes entertainment. Google makes products that influence the world. Hell, they could buy out WME in a moments notice. Hollywood loves money and Google has a shit load of it. Fuck Ari.
Coming from a guy who lies and steals in and out of the office all day and he can’t even read. What a joke.
This. Google could buy and sell WME hundred times over and Ari would happily cash out.
exactly, i can’t believe people are standing up for him. keep believing ari, he’s definitely got ur best interests in mind.
He has no idea what he’s talking about. He’s whining about a problem without providing any sort of real solution.
Great words, sir!
I agree, stealing is wrong, and companies like Google should do the best they can to stop it.
Piracy is NOT the way of the future. It is wrong and it should be dealt with.
Mr. Emanuel is so right about this! Where is Google in all of this? They need to step up and get on the same page with Hollywood~
Thanks for doing what you are doing Mr. Emanuel~ My Hat is off to you sir!
Google does not work for Hollywood. They are a company just like Sony, Nike, and WME.
And for that I’m downloading torrents of all of Ari’s top clients. Thanks!
Stealing is wrong, but this is not about stealing. It’s about selectively blocking information based on someone’s criteria. Who’s going to be the person to determine what’s stealing and what isn’t? If I bookmark a YouTube video uploaded by a record label and record an mp3 using Audacity, am I stealing?
Ari and his people don’t want to protect content creators; they want to protect content rights holders. Do you think WB or Disney care who creates their IPs? No, they just want to ensure they can be paid for owning them forever.
Yes
Stealing is wrong…but Google does not OWN the internet. You cannot blame Google for EVERYTHING BAD that happens on the internet!
Besides, people who are stealing content are not using the web to do it, they use torrents and other apps like that which operate outside search engines.
People who keep repeating this crap are people who do not understand how the internet works!
Intellectual property issues are not simple, any IP lawyer would agree. But the judge ruled for google in the you tube/viacom case. Ari is wrong that it’s google’s responsibility to patrol their site for illegally copyrighted video. Anyway with any tertiary knowledge of the DMCA would know that. Sorry Ari, understand the law before you start spouting off on it.
Piracy is a reaction to Hollywood putting out the same tired formula movies over and over. Every other movie is a sequel. Every third movie is a reboot. Each time they make a tired 3D conversion they are slapping an “idiot” sticker on the forehead of their customer.
If Holllywood can’t be creative anymore, people will no longer buy their shit. Piracy is not the illness, its the symptom.
Ari Gold knows hes betting on a tired pony, which is why he is diversifying into other markets.
That makes as much sense as saying that piracy is a reaction to jock itch. If I say I’m not interested in buying a movie ticket, that’s my prerogative. But if I say I’m not interested in it and then I download it, that’s like saying I’m not interested in twinkies before stealing some from the convenience store. Rationalizing theft as an answer to shitty content doesn’t make the theft right.
I agree that theft is wrong, but to clarify, if I choose not to buy a movie ticket, it’s because the marketing I saw and the current movie-going experience I pay for is not worth the money that is being asked for it. That (as well as two young children taking all of my free time) is why I go to the movies 8 times a year now instead of 20 times.
If, instead of purchasing the video through a streaming service or DVD, I were to download the film from BitTorrent or whatever, then I have stolen money from the content owner.
My understanding is that’s about half of the total revenue for the film. Hollywood could at least continue improving the movie going experience (for me) by:
1) Keep building stadium seating with comfortable seats, improved sound systems, use bright projector bulbs, and clean floors. That’s what separates movies from home theaters.
2) Stop showing commercials at full volume before the previews. How am I going to talk to my wife/date/friend before the show when it’s blaring Coke videos?
3) Enforce the cell phone/texting bans with ushers, like in the good ‘ol days.
4) IMHO, the less 3D, the better.
As far as home DVD/streaming…I’m pretty sure accessibility is half the reason people download torrents. For example, I’ve been waiting months for the artist to show on iTunes. I don’t know the content contract situation in detail, but the longer the studios hold out for content deals, the more likely that product won’t be wanted when a slew of new ones show up. Also look at the pricing/usage models. Why do I pay 4.99 for a movie and I have to watch in in 24 hours (iTunes) when I used to be able to rent it for three days?
Obviously there is stealing going on, but just as locks keep honest people honest, make the product available and more people will pay the relatively small amount of money for the entertainment.
Jared Wynn is right, did you not read what he said??
Most of those people are saying “I won’t buy a ticket” because — they will go home and DOWNLOAD it or know someone who can get it for them for FREE. THAT is the problem. Has nothing to do with lame content…that’s a whole other issue.
This is a BS argument. People do not pirate movies to “punish” Hollywood for making crap. People who think a movie is crap, do not watch that movie (are they masochists?)
The movies and TV shows that are most pirated tend to be the popular ones that get big ratings and BO anyway. So pirates just reflect popular tastes. They are same as everyone else, they just want stuff for free.
Intellectual property is property, and property rights must be protected in a free and creative country.
A free and creative country wouldn’t allow business interests to continue to expand copyright terms in an effort to keep things out of the public domain in direct opposition to what the framers of the Constitution intended.
Agreed. But we need to address copyright issues through legal avenues, not theft.
Property rights should be protected, no doubt.
But is it Google’s job to control what everyone does on the internet?
Should Google, Verizon and Facebook face penalties when they fail to patrol every action from every user?
That’s unreasonable.
In what way does “intellectual property” equate to real, physical property to you? I’m a musician, and I have no problem with “piracy” — which is really just sharing. It’s not theft.
This whole debate is moot; copying and stealing are not the same thing.
I don’t think it’s little people ‘stealing’ shit camcorder filmed copies of The Avengers that’s killing Hollywood, it’s a tired system that been gutted by greed, over saturation and a slow effort to build a new system around the internet that has. So quit scapegoating piracy as the problem. Top dogs have to start spreading their own money around instead of hoarding it and adapting their product – film/tv/music – to this little ol’ medium called THE INTERNET. It’s only the 20th century’s most revolutionary tool. It took Hollywood 20 years to even everything out with TV, things should have been solved by now. Scapegoating piracy is only proof that higher ups are quite unwilling to depart from their old, redundant methods. The only thing I can really see being hurt by piracy is DVD sales, but that is an obsolete technology that should have begun to be phased out years ago. Google probably doesn’t give a shit because they are shaping the future while Hollywood stubbornly wants to stay in the past.
Surely does appear like Ari’s all riled up that folks with real money ain’t a-bending to his will. YEEEHAW, now THAT’S what I call moxie!
THIS. If Ari and his ilk knew what they were talking about, they’d push for MORE distribution channels instead of restricting access. The consumer should be able to decide how to consume the product. The movie theater is dying with the exception of blockbusters, so shift big movies there while making smaller movies available sooner to the public.
Also, cable a la carte would keep people from pirating tv shows. Why should I pay for 300 channels when I only want to watch 20? If you give more control to the consumer, they’ll pay for it. You’ll get less piracy if content is available in every possible way sooner.
Please do not pretend to speak for our firm. We had nothing to do with Mr. McCourt. We focus on fare more serious types of corruption.
Llllllloooooyyyyyyd!!
^^ what about THAT movie? Ever happen?
I would pirate that movie in a heartbeat!
…as long as it didn’t suck the way the show has for the last few seasons.
It’s interesting that the entire Hollywood System seems to be created such that there is no profit and yet Ari and others can define the amount of money they are losing to Piracy.
The finances are so completely hidden that the only thing above the table is the money that isn’t made because the pirates kept the studios from making a profit. Of course that permits the studios to not pay enough so people are happy to work there. I believe that if they can show the loss to piracy, then there is no reason to pay anyone from “First dollar gross.” But if there is a reason that the talent doesn’t trust the studios, and they are lying to their employees, then they are lying about the pirates too.
Ari’s statements about piracy and technology are inherently contradictory. Every new development, since the advent of the reality TV show in the 90s, to come out of Hollywood has been a reaction to either Silicon Valley or Madison Avenue. When the former develops a new technology Hollywood reacts by either figuring out how to harmonize content and new technology or attempting to cripple its use.
But the truth is that those in Silicon Valley are smarter than those in Hollywood and they will continue to develop technological workarounds to Hollywood’s broken business model. And by being stubborn and reactive the entertainment industry misses out on so many opportunities. The truth of the matter is that the best they can hope to do is prevail in court after years of costly litigation in which only true victors are the lawyers who each bill $700-$1,200 per hour. So even when they win, they lose (particularly in the court of public opinion).
Piracy as we know it is not, in my opinion, an issue of people’s unwillingness to pay, it’s a workaround to a system so adverse to change. Music markets from Apple and Amazon have proven that people will pay for content but the music industry’s inability to adapt to digital distribution gave people wanting to download music no choice but to go the pirated route. The result: the death of the music business as we knew it.
The bottom line is that stealing is wrong, but Hollywood, with its attitude towards new technology and unwillingness to evolve, has nobody to blame but itself. This is not Google’s fault. This is not Verizon’s fault. This is not Dish Network’s fault. It’s like the saying goes, “guns don’t kill people, people with guns kill people” – there will always be people who misuse tools to others’ detriment but who does it and why they do it and how to stop them don’t boil down to “stop making those tools available”.
I think Ari is misguided in his statements; his goal should be to find ways for his clients to circumvent the traditional Hollywood “system” to allow for much more of a free market approach to content consumption. Consumers are no longer beholden to a television set with limited numbers of networks or cinemas showing movies at particular times in particular locations so why should the creatives WME represents be either?
Feel free to take your content production or move elsewhere then Ari.
The rules in place that have allowed for the revolutionary advancement of the Internet is one thousand times more important to protect then your content.
Where exactly does he think everyone is going to move? It still astounds me that content creators don’t adapt and win instead of fighting a ridiculous battle that is a complete waste of resources and more importantly a threat to the future of the Internet. The future of the Internet is much more crucial then maintaining the Hollywood status quo.
What is this future of the internet that needs to be protected?
The future he’s referring to is keeping the internet open, unregulated, democratic and free from hang ups, controllers, or governmental agencies deciding what should and shouldn’t be censored. Terrible bills like CISPA, SOPA, and PIPA are great examples of current legislation, paid for mostly by entertainment lobbies, that are attempts at restricting your freedoms and clamping down on the greatest invention of our generation, and what will be the backbone of our future. Protect the Net.
I don’t like the word ‘unregulated’, lack of regulation has brought enough problems to the world.
Piracy is a seriously complex issue. But it’s a good problem for any industry to have. It means people want your stuff. I’m with the industry on the need to find a more effective way of monetizing this surplus demand, and blocking the leakage of free use. But I do find it a bit rich when Hollywood tries to get onto some kind of moral high horse. Cos let’s please not forget – Hollywood was founded on piracy. The early studios set up shop in California to be as far away as possible from the technological patents on the East Coast that they planned to infringe. It’s a classic historical pattern – people steal the land, put a fence around it, build a castle, call themselves lords, and set about making laws to prevent anyone else doing the same.
THANK YOU ARI!
Ari is fighting a losing battle and he knows it, hence his impotent anger
If I was a client of this guy’s I’d be worried.
Instead of talking about empowering clients to own their own content and destinies (the Louis CK example is recent but not isolated — Radiohead also fits this model nicely), this guy is spouting the SAME. DECADE-OLD. TIRED. RAP. about how he needs the ISPs and Google to “filter pirates.”
Keep in mind his client/best pal Peter Berg’s movie is likely taking a bath on the torrents but if Ari doesn’t understand who’s fault that is (hint: not Google’s) he’s really gotta get out of the movie biz entirely. “Stealing” hurts Battleship because it’s a shitty movie that people would just as soon skip buying a ticket to. The issue is ownership and quality control, not “filtering.”
He sounds so ignorant and old fashioned here.
Ah-ha, so you are saying that people only steal BAD movies. So, if Hollywood only makes GOOD movies, then people will pay to see them in the theatre?
Honest question: have you ever heard ANYONE of any esteem in the industry talking about technology, and mainly the internet, that didn’t sound “ignorant and old fashioned”?
These are the types of people that need their assistants to teach them how to use their iPads, and yet we’re supposed to listen and laud what they say and feel about the ‘interwebs’. Please. You’re out of your element Ari.
Piracy is a complex issue, but the lazy defense of, “Hollywood makes a bad and tired product, thereby encouraging people to steal it,” or “It’s just the evil rights holders, not the content creators, who are being hurt,” certainly don’t add anything to the conversation. Content creators are increasingly exploring online, self-distribution strategies, for self-financed content, at much smaller scale, with much smaller margins. Will the creeping institutionalizing of the idea, by the Googles of the world, that entertainment is free for the taking make it easier, or harder, for creatives to take those kinds of risks to displace the Hollywood model? America has always had a soft spot for bank robbers, those that attack the big, rich institutions (Google’s avoiding being seen as one of those is a spin masterpiece) but despises the thief who robs the little guy. I just wonder whether a generation of kids raised to believe they are entitled to free media product will have any more reservation about knocking off the little lemonade stand than they do about taking down Citibank. The fear of a society that simply doesn’t value the creators of content is likely what drives those who wouldn’t ordinarily support legislation like SOPA right back into the arms of the Hollywood machine.
A lot of people on here are talking about Hollywood “adapting?” What would that be?
Adapting to a future where they make less money per viewing of content (digital pennies rather than analog dollars) but can distribute that content far more efficiently to a global audience. Basically, piracy, but official and paid.
Which means a lot of the middlemen in the business (on a global scale) are going to get cut out of the new system. The entertainment business will end up serving more customers but employing far fewer people.
People IN the business now obviously look upon the coming crunch with fear. Even if their jobs aren’t threatened, their power is. (And that’s assuming they even understand the freight train bearing down on them.)
Consumers will pay for “official piracy” because they are willing to pay for things other than content, such as safety, convenience and community. Different consumers value different things so there will need to be market segmentation. There are probably other things they would pay for as well. But they’re not going to pay much.
I think Ari’s comments are pretty salient, and they are reflected in the ongoing Viacom/YouTube lawsuit. I would argue that content owners ARE evolving, but Silicon Valley is evolving too: it’s taken a while, but the tech co’s are finally waking up to the fact that tubes aren’t sexy, but content is. Why do you think Google and Amazon are diving so deeply into the content business themselves? And what steps are they going to take when all that stuff they think they “own” starts getting ripped off? After all, as Google knows, clickable ads will only get you so far. The topic of piracy is just the first foray into what’s going to be a long, lively battle.
Ari’s on his high-horse about ‘protecting content’ because artists are finding ways to distribute and sell directly to consumers through the Internet thus cutting out middle men like studios and agencies. Look at what Louis CK did. Look at what Amazon self-publishing has done. Look at what iTunes does. It’s ridiculous to claim that this is about stopping the piracy of content. The fact of the matter is that studios / producers / agents have become greedier and greedier with there takes and completely unoriginal in their ideas (yay for a summer of sequels! are we shocked that things are going poorly? I mean, seriously, c’mon!). And it’s that lack of creativity and higher prices (and bad economy) that are driving people to the Internet to not only get their content but produce it as well. Treat consumers poorly and they will take matters into their own hands. This is a servicing issue. Make the content available (Hulu / NetFlix / etc.,) throw ads in there and people will watch it at their leisure. Why do you think Game of Thrones is the most pirated show? Because it’s not readily available and HBO is moronic for not addressing that. If piracy is so horrible, people would stop creating artistic content and that would be that. But the reality is, and I think you see it best in publishing and music right now, being able to distribue freely through the Internet has actually benefited the artists. Touring is WAY up for musicians. Books can now be published without the insane hoops that publishing used to limit entry. And Comedians are starting to utilize this medium (Funny or Die / College Humor / etc.,). This piracy issue is bullshit because studios (and agents), basically, middlemen realize that it makes them irrelevant — realize the $$$ they’re seeking to protect here are their own, not the artists.
Netflix is not ad ad-supported system – it’s subscription. And it works, it’s just that the studios have realized that Netflix is undercutting them and they’re trying to squelch it and starve it of content, which is why their streaming selection is so pathetic.
In the end, Netflix or something like it will prevail, because it has two unbeatable forces on its side: it represents what consumers actually want (convenience, low price, massive selection – if the studios would cooperate) and technology (which always wins in the end, as we have all seen).
As for ad-supported systems like Hulu, the jury is out. Online advertising is still very unproven in comparison with traditional TV advertising. Hulu iself shows far fewer ads than the same show on traditional TV. Advertisers are buying online as part of traditional-TV packages.