Hollywood and the entertainment industry are "shooting themselves in the foot, or maybe worse than the foot" by pushing the current anti-piracy legislation, according to Google co-founder Sergey Brin.


He said the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act that Hollywood has been lobbying for would have led to the U.S. using the same technology and approach it has criticized China and Iran for using.



Brin made the comments in an exclusive interview with the U.K.'s Guardian newspaper.


The entertainment industry, he said, is failing to understand that users will continue to download pirated content as long as it is easier to acquire and use than legitimately obtained material.


"I haven't tried it for many years but when you go on a pirate website, you choose what you like, it downloads to the device of your choice and it will just work - and then when you have to jump through all these hoops (to buy legitimate content), the walls created are disincentives for people to buy."


Brin's criticism of Hollywood was part of an alarming portrait he painted of the current Internet landscape. He said that the principles of openness and universal access that fostered the creation of the Internet three decades ago are under greater threat than ever.