Hollywood and Silicon Valley face off on movie piracy

This week a panel on movie piracy featuring heavyweights from Hollywood and Silicon Valley took on a much different tone than it would have last year when we were in the midst of the rancorous debate over SOPA and PIPA legislation. Instead of threats from both sides, opening statements from Sony and Warner Brothers sounded a conciliatory note, agreeing in principal with the message from fellow panelists representing Google and BitTorrent that market-based solutions were the best way to solve the piracy problem. As the evening wore on, though, gloves started to come off, with the studios falling back on pleas for greater legal tools and the tech companies urging more of a free market approach for content distribution.