Google Fiber in Kansas City Makes Hollywood Nervous

In 2010 Google announced plans to bring super-high-speed Internet access to select communities in America and in 2011 picked Kansas City to start. The search giant has said it hopes to spur innovation among cable companies and Internet service providers by demonstrating what’s possible with Internet speeds 100 times faster than the U.S. average. The project could also foreshadow dramatic changes for Hollywood, both because of the specter of piracy and Google’s possible experiments with new ways to distribute content legally.

Google Fiber spokeswoman Jenna Wandres stresses that Google Fiber isn’t meant to empower pirates: “We hope higher speeds will actually make it easier to deliver and download more authorized content,” she says. Nonetheless, Howard Gantman, spokesman for the Motion Picture Association of America, notes that piracy is always a concern of the entertainment industry. Google Fiber “could be a great opportunity for consumers whose access to creative content is often hampered by slow speeds,” he says. But in South Korea, “the home entertainment marketplace was decimated by digital piracy” enabled by the widespread availability of high-speed Internet.