Impossible! What Does That Mean?

People need to understand that when someone says that something is “impossible” what they are really saying is that “they give up and they don’t have a clue on how to do whatever it is that they say is impossible”. These people are dangerous, since they still expect to be considered an authority or expert in whatever field they are talking about.
In the movie industry, there are too many so called “anti-piracy experts” who assert that they are experts in security in general, as well as more specifically in security over Intellectual Property, when it’s obvious from their actions and behavior that they are severely deficient in this field. And yet they have convinced the studio CEO’s that they are the best advisors available. These people are dangerous, since not only have they given up, but they actively encourage others to give up as well, and they use their position to prevent the studio CEO’s from knowing about anyone who can prove that stopping movie piracy is possible.
We can easily excuse a child that says that something is impossible, since we know that they are young, naive and frustrated. However what excuse is there when an educated adult of some prominence advises others that something is impossible, and also doesn’t disclose when they get into a conflict of interest.
As far as any notion regarding the impossibility of stopping movie piracy, is downright false. The studio CEO’s should consider better advise from other much more knowledgeable and successful people (living or dead).
It is said that Thomas Edison had unsuccessfully tried over 1,000 ways to make a light bulb. People would ask him, when he was going to give up and acknowledge that what he was trying to do was impossible. His reply was – nonsense – I’ve only found 1,000 ways that don’t work. Now, he was an expert at inventions! He didn’t easily give up! And he did what others thought was impossible!
Consider reading an interesting news article in Forbes by Greg Satell (June 20, 2015) entitled “How the Impossible becomes Possible”. Even some of the greatest scientific minds like Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, had differences of opinions, and yet the very debate about their differences is what encouraged more research into solving questions about the universe.
Consider Larry Page, CEO and co-founder of Google. That’s right – Google (aka – Goliath) – which has been labeled as the so called enemy of the MPAA and the movie studios. Mr. Page has said “Happiness is a healthy disregard for the impossible” (2012 Update from the CEO).
“It’s amazing what you can achieve with a small dedicated team when you start from, first principles that aren’t encumbered by the established way of doing things. Yet I’ve learned over time that it’s surprisingly difficult to get teams to be super ambitious because most people haven’t been educated in this kind of moonshot thinking. They tend to assume that things are impossible, or get frightened of failure. It’s why we’ve put so much energy into hiring independent thinkers at Google, and setting big goals. Because if you hire the right people and have bold enough dreams, you’ll usually get there. And even if you fail, you’ll probably learn something important. It’s also true that over time many companies get comfortable doing what they have always done, with a few incremental changes. This kind of incrementalism leads to irrelevance over time, especially in technology, because change tends to be revolutionary, not evolutionary.” Larry Page, CEO and co-founder of Google (2013 Founder’s Letter).

The movie studio CEO’s should, instead of fighting Google, should consider adopting a similar approach to solving movie pirating problems.

Conclusion:
To be clear: there is a solution to movie piracy. It is big, it is revolutionary, it is fragile, and yet, in order for the studio CEO’s to get it, they need to stop being encumbered by the established way of doing things. The expectation that anyone with a solution to movie piracy will just hand it over to somebody at either the MPAA or Movie Labs, because it is the established way of doing things, is not only ridiculous, but also an encumbrance.

© 2015, Glenn Stencell. All rights reserved. 2015