David Lynch Dumps Film, Goes Digital

David Lynch (great director I admire, and who doesn't) said in a recent interview with MTV that he's quit using film (you know, those celluloid strips used by ancient cameras) and is going digital from now on:

MTV: You shot "Inland Empire" using digital technology. Will you ever go back to film?

Lynch: Never. Digital is so friendly for me and so important for the scenes, a way of working without so much downtime. It's impossible to go back. Film is a beautiful medium, but the world has moved on. The amount of manipulation we can do, anybody can do, is so much the future. Film is so big and heavy and slow, you just die. It's just ridiculous.

Anti-"piracy" rhetoric carry some moral currency when you consider how bloated and expensive film and its related technologies are. Traditional film outfits invest a lot of money, and as a matter of policy, the law should protect their expectation of a reasonable return. But digital technology (lighter, cheaper, more accessible) changes the calculus. When it costs so much less to produce movies, does it still make sense legally protecting old business models?