Andre Yoskowitz
17 May 2009 13:01
At a breakfast panel about the future of filmmaking hosted by the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, Sony Pictures Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton has said he believes the Internet is a waste of time.
“I’m a guy who doesn’t see anything good having come from the Internet. Period,” was his exact quote.
His rant continued when he stated that the Internet has “created this notion that anyone can have whatever they want at any given time. It’s as if the stores on Madison Avenue were open 24 hours a day. They feel entitled. They say, ‘Give it to me now,’ and if you don’t give it to them for free, they’ll steal it.”
A separate panelist, Nora Ephron, said the Internet had affected print more than the movie business and added “We’re in the last days of copyright, if you want to be grim about it….Stop it. I dare you.”
Ephron also spoke out about the pay scales of the movie industry, saying: “It’s a giant Ponzi scheme set up to compensate a few people at unbelievable rates. These people live like pashas. You cannot imagine the scale of wealth in Hollywood. People live like that here, but we live in apartments so you can’t see as much.”