Ars has a stirring eulogy for the untimely demise of the creative industry in America. It was taken from us far too soon, but it lasted longer than any of us expected. Set upon by digital pirates, the USS Creation was no match for a broadside of broadband bootlegging. Now, we are left only with a smoking pile of debris where the new Michael Bay movie, “Hot Chicks in a Smoking Pile of Debris” would have stood.
Alas and alack, my countrymen. Mister Technica, please go ahead:
Battered by a decade of digital piracy and facing even more of it thanks to cheap computers, fast Internet, P2P file-sharing, and online file lockers, the US creative industries teeter on the verge of collapse. You can tell because the industry:
- Pays better than most American jobs
- Has outperformed the US economy through a horrific recession
- Sells record-setting amounts of product overseas, earning more foreign revenue than the entire US food sector or US pharmaceutical companies
Things are going so “badly” that a major new report commissioned by copyright holders says that these “consistently positive trends solidify the status of the copyright industries as a key engine of growth for the US economy as a whole.”
DAMN YOU, PIRATE SCUM! DAAAAAAMN YOU!
Oh, seriously, does anyone buy the line that these guys are in dire straits because some kids who wouldn’t buy music just download songs instead? The IP titans are rolling in the money, and all they can muster is “yeah, but we’d be making more of it if it weren’t for you damn kids.”
I’d like to amend that statement. “We’d be making more of it if we had a product offering that was anywhere near as convenient as piracy. People are gagging for something like iTunes for TV shows, but we’re too concerned with maintaining our old revenue models to innovate or imagine anything but choking the life out of digital media. Herp derp derp.”