MPAA to Sue BitTorrent Tracker Servers 1019
Mirkon writes "The Register and Reuters report that the Motion Picture Association of America is planning to begin a legal assault on websites that host BitTorrent trackers for copyrighted movie files. An announcement is supposed to be made by the MPAA President/CEO today, along with help from CEO of private P2P network developer Red Swoosh, and the CEO of BayTSP, 'which offers file-branding and -tracking applications.' Not that they have any vested interests in this of course. Though the articles take care to mention that this action is not against standard users, how long is it until BitTorrent itself is targeted?" Apropos of nothing, I saw a movie in the theaters a few days ago. At the official start time, the lights dimmed. Then there were 14 minutes of commercials (Pepsi, hair mousse, cologne, etc.) followed by 13 minutes of movie trailers (which are also advertising), followed by a few minutes of junk, followed by a 100-minute movie. I can't imagine why people would want to download movies when they have that great theater experience to compare against.
Vote with dollars (Score:2, Insightful)
Then why did you include it in your post? Say this in a comment instead. Anyhow, I will respond: I agree that it is silly and frustrating to have to sit through tons of ads before a movie, the length of time by the way standard so you cannot say "I will simply come ten minutes later". Additionally, ads are appearing in front of DVD movies which works for nationally known companies but not so well for smaller local companies which I am sure is one of the biggest reasons behind the push of On Demand. Namely the ability to sell localized content ads for an "at home audience". We are going to be faced with a deluge of ads (even intimately targeted ads) no matter what. The way to deal with it is vote with your dollars.
Advertising (Score:5, Insightful)
How many of you remember MTV, Nickelodeon, and other cable-only channels were originally commercial-free back in the early 80's?
Just because these media conglomerates are making money off of you directly doesn't mean they won't try to make it indirectly as well.
Dan East
They have a point. (Score:4, Insightful)
I do not see this as a threat to bit torrent as it is not removing the arguement of having other, valid uses.
Guess You'd (Score:3, Insightful)
rather pay even higher ticket prices. See, the advertisers defer some of the cost of the movie, be it at the production level, distribution or showing.
Don't want to sit through some commercials, tough tittie, still doesn't give you the right to steal it.
Re:Vote with dollars (Score:5, Insightful)
ugh.
Shrek 2 DVD (kinda OT) (Score:3, Insightful)
Choices... (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, the 100-minute movie was filled with dozens of product placements (actor A holding a can of "Pepsi" while actress B says "I have to check my AOL account").
Michael, quite your whining. You chose to go to the movie. No one forced you to do this.
Trailers? (Score:3, Insightful)
We should applaud this... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, of course there are still some stupid hybrid technological/legal measures they're pushing like 5C encryption and the broadcast flag. But if unlawful uses of file sharing/copying/archiving diminish due to fear of individual suits, then legitimate fair use will become a significant part of what is being prevented by these measures and they'll hopefully stop or be forced to stop them. Hopefully.
Re:Advertising (Score:5, Insightful)
That lasted a long time didnt..
Bram Cohen (Score:1, Insightful)
Why don't they go after the creators of ftp and http too while they're at it...
He hasn't done anything wrong.
Re:What if... (Score:5, Insightful)
1: Jurisdiction.
2: Intent.
Jurisdiction is something the MPAA has been good at manipulating for years. They'll find a way to get jurisdiction over anyone they actually sue, or mirrors, etcetera. Intent will be really easy in case of sites like Suprnova that have entire sections named off for things like Movies, Comics, Music, Games, etcetera. The sub-grouping of categories, show titles and other such breakdowns within those areas I listed above will be the most presentable evidence used to show "Hey, these people knew they were distributing copies of X TV show or music by this specific artist - they have a section with X's name on it.".
Re:Shrek 2 DVD (kinda OT) (Score:3, Insightful)
Haven't these people heard of NetFlix? (Score:3, Insightful)
What I can't get is TV episodes. If I knew where to buy them, I would (Invader Zim, anyone?) but I can't find any.
So it's really a shame to have the tracker services shutdown.
Re:Vote with dollars (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought I was!
But apparently suprnova is now going to get sued because of it.
Re:Shrek 2 DVD (kinda OT) (Score:2, Insightful)
I call BS... (Score:2, Insightful)
>13 minutes of movie trailers (which are also advertising, of course), followed by
>a few minutes of junk
30 solid minutes of ads?? Sorry, I don't buy it (no pun intended). I might see a one or two movies a month, and while I've never put a stopwatch to it, there is no where near an entire sitcom's length of ads before a movie.
While I admit that the trailers and ads are getting more pervasive, I think I'd notice if there were *28* consecutive 30-second spots, and a dozen 1-minute trailers shown before a movie.
Re:30 minutes of pre-movie crap... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What if... (Score:1, Insightful)
If someone shoots somebody with a pistol.... does the pistol maker get sued?
What this is about (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What if... (Score:1, Insightful)
But the sites themselves do not carry the files. They only have information about the trackers, and are not involved in the actual distribution or sharing of the files.
But they do host the torrents, don't they? And the torrents are specific to a certain file? So specific that they even have a cryptographic hash to prove that they are talking about the right file?
It seems to me that they are as liable for the copyright infringement as somebody who posts an encrypted tarball full of MP3s to usenet and hosts the decryption key on their own server. In short - they aren't specifically doing the copying, but they are deliberately helping specific cases of copyright infringement.
This isn't an analogue of Napster - they were simply running an indexing service and didn't promote specific copyrighted files.
This doesn't mean the developers of BitTorrent are next - they aren't promoting specific instances of copyright infringement either.
The copyright goons are suing the right people for once.
Re:Reform (Score:5, Insightful)
The key: look away.
Don't consume mass media, either free or for a fee. Just look the heck away. They will then reform themselves, or die.
Write your own stories. Make your own movies. Who cares if they're "crap"; share them with friends and give em to strangers. Do anything you can, just don't feed the established media industry.
Start creating. Stop consuming.
I know. Unrealistic hippie talk. Lay off the crack pipe. Blah blah blah...
Re:Advertising (Score:1, Insightful)
ha! they fooled you! back then the music was the commercial! mtv was basically a 24hour long commercial for the bands that it played.
You don't understand Slashdot (Score:-1, Insightful)
Back in 2000, Napster was being sued, and guess what everyone, including Taco, was saying? They should sue the individual infringers! Now, that is reasonable and it sounds like they must not be pirates because they're supporting the shutdown of pirates, right? This was the Slashdot partyline all throughout the Napster trial, in every single article.
Wrong. People said that because they figured they couldn't do it. How could they enforce a P2P network and sue millions of people? Surely, they could never do it, so I'll just tell them to do something I think is impossible. Well, they just went right out and did it anyway, suing hundreds of thousands of people at a time, exactly like Slashdotters recommended just a few years ago.
And yet, what do we see now? People bitching! This is because the original goal of saying they should sue individual downloaders was not borne out of valid concern for copyright holder rights, it was out of concern for protecting piracy by suggesting they do something we all thought they couldn't do. So when they end up doing it after all, suddenly they're bad guys again.
There is absolutely no legal or moral justification for piracy. Nobody on Slashdot has ever, ever given a valid reason. Most of the "+5 Insightful" posts have been college dorm room kids going on and on about some imagined "culture movement." Instead, what has happened is that a bunch of kids have taken over this site, confused the ideals of "free" with regards to the GNU movement and applied them to the "free" of the commercial world, assuming that we should get EVERYTHING for free just because they downloaded Mandrake for the first time and it didn't cost them a thing. Slashdot tells them that the MPAA is evil, so they go along with it. It's a "news for nerds" site after all. It should know, right?
A lot of today's geeks are basing their worldview entirely on Slashdot headlines. Yet the regulars here know that Slashdot paints a false portrait of reality. There is nothing wrong with going after people who are pirating. And the next time someone "steals" GPL source code, remember that you bitch in the MPAA article that "piracy isn't theft," that "the MPAA are bogeymen," and whatever propaganda phrases you've concocted to convince yourself that you're not a bad person and you're not doing anything wrong.
Re:You apparently don't understand BT (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes the tracker will direct me to each pieces, but those pieces all belong to a SPECIFIC file, be it an illegal game or movie. That torrent tracker becomes tied to that illegal activity by aiding the distribution of that specific illegal download.
So to user your analogy... the person who sets me up with johnny breakayoulegs(hitman), knowing that he's a hit man and knowing what i want him for, is also guilty of a crime under U.S. law.
I don't understand this. (Score:3, Insightful)
Guess what? This website doesn't just have editors around to pick and choose which articles are allowed to go to the front page. A well-written script could do that.
Jesus Fucking Christ. If you don't like it, LEAVE. Slashdot is NOT a part of the commons.
Re:ATTENTION (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:What if... (Score:3, Insightful)
The Law(tm) isn't like source code; slashdotters seem to have trouble understanding that. It is open to interpretation, and it can ask questions about intent (what you MEANT instead of what you DID). And it's pretty clear that suprnova's INTENT is to contribute to copyright infringement.
Re:SWAP in person! (Score:5, Insightful)
So, what, he shouldn't have mentioned it unless he can solve the problem for the entire freaking world?
nor is it actually P2P
Actually, it is the most P2P method of sharing imaginable. It's Person 2 Person without the computers in the way.
Re:Vote with dollars (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, this will not work. If that were the case, then only cars that don't need to advertise are the only viable ones to buy (Rolls Royce, Ferrari, Bentley, etc) And even those may advertise in higher dollar markets that I'm simply not a member of.
However, money protests may work if people demand their money back after watching an advertiser supported movie. I simply refuse to pay a rental fee for any rented movie that has ads that are blocked out by the remote. That has got to be one of the most annoying things out there. I hear that Disney does that with thier store bought DVDs.
I believe that there are simply too many mouths to feed and not enough real jobs to fill them. Its getting to the point that I feel like I'm being accosted by a begger everywhere I go, but the people begging are typically people that have more money than I do. Salesmen lying to me and badgering me all the time. Telemarketers. SPAM. Billboards. Ads are _everywhere_. Baseball has greenscreened the infield to overlay different ads, because one was not enough. Tickmaster shoves more ads down my throat and these people are a monopoly in providing different random (I love those 2 terms together) numbers to people, and asking me to PAY MORE for printing the damn tickets on my own printer and paper. Ads have been integrated into movies for some time as called "product placement" ads. I only see people drinking Dunken Doughnuts coffee in movies. Sometimes they are downright distracting to the point that I think I can hear the marketing dweebie from the paying company in the background yelling "Please keep the product label visable at all times!"
Oh, and with the MPAA. Go for it. What are you going to sue for? What are you going to get? I've never downloaded a movie off of the net because I consider it a waste of time. If I really want a movie that bad, I'll pay the $20 at a store for it.
It is about time that the members of the ??AA groups start thinking about what they are going to do about their stupid antiquated business model. Its not that difficult, but I guess these people are simply that stupid. There is supply and demand and cost is relative to that supply and demand. The demand appears to be there. I mean people spend a great amount of time downloading low quality crap all the time where the downloads don't finish, the quality is worse than they thought, the movie just sucks, and so on. If these people can't figure out a way to entice people to pay something for their product, then they deserve to go out of business like all other businesses that can't make it.
Re:Shrek 2 DVD (kinda OT) (Score:2, Insightful)
Source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0298148/companycredit
Re:Vote with dollars (Score:2, Insightful)
Naa, they'd just blame it on piracy.
Re:Shrek 2 DVD (kinda OT) (Score:2, Insightful)
Really, stop bitching. Every one of you that bought a DVD player guaranteed that this stupidity would triumph.
Re:Okay, guys, let's hear it (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Vote with dollars (Score:5, Insightful)
"No, I don't want to see Barney, I wanted the Wiggles"
"No, let's watch Barney"
"No, Wiggles!"
"Barney!"
"Wiggles"
A great wailing and gnashing of teeth commences. In the back, the kids are also upset as they ads roll on.
"Wait - where'd Barney go?"
"Look, it's Blue's Clues. I want to watch Blue's Clues."
"No, where'd Barney go? AAAAaaaahhhhhh!"
I've had good luck with Sesame Street and Dora the Explorer videos letting you get right to the content, but that's the exception, not the norm...
Re:I call BS... (Score:3, Insightful)
Including the trailers, I second the observation.
I might see a one or two movies a month, and while I've never put a stopwatch to it, there is no where near an entire sitcom's length of ads before a movie.
In what timewarped, backwards place do you see these movies?
All the newfnagled cinemas have a metric ton of ads. Around here it's more than 30 minutes, because they have ads running on screen before the lights dim, intermingled with movie trivia to keep our eyes pointed at the screen (if I go alone I bring a book and an iPod to ignore them, in groups you can chat).
While I admit that the trailers and ads are getting more pervasive, I think I'd notice if there were *28* consecutive 30-second spots, and a dozen 1-minute trailers shown before a movie.
That's why then. They have the 2 minute ads and 3 to 5 minutes trailers. They sneak in 5 ads when you expect 28.
Re:Vote with dollars (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't pretend you're on some kind of moral high ground. Ghandi didn't take British salt, he made his own.
Re:What if... (Score:2, Insightful)
get back at them (Score:3, Insightful)
Caption:Movies. They're worth it.
Me [yelling]: YEAH! WORTH DOWNLOADING!!!
Always gets a laugh and makes me feel better.
Re:ATTENTION - Hate About Suprnova (Score:3, Insightful)
What I hate about sites like suprnova.org is the trapping code that attempts to disable your back button when you try to leave the site.
What I wish search engines like Google would do is, when they scan the site, flag all those with trapping code, viruses, attempts to download known adware/spyware/garbage-ware, as well as list how many pop-ups to expect from the page linked to. Now that would be a useful search engine.
Re:Shrek 2 DVD (kinda OT) (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, from a techincal perspective, you're not forced to watch the previews and commercials. If you were tech-savvy enough and you valued the time it would take to create a back-up of the dvd without the prohibited user operations less than you valued the pleasure of watching a dvd without opening commercials, then you could rip them out. Nobody can ever stop you from doing anything you want to content on a medium that is physically in your posession if you have sufficient time, technical skill, desire, and resources.
From a more realistic perspective, though, that is a lot of work (and added expense) that not a lot of people are willing to go through, and personally the practice offends my sensibilities as well as yours. I think the statement, "I should NEVER be forced to
This is all just part of the larger push to make more and more money off of consumers. If publishers could get away with it, they would stick commercials in the middle of DVDs or add those branding logos/advertizements to the content like TV stations do. Maybe they will eventually do this once people are comfortable with the idea of commercials at the beginning (and end) of the feature.
I guess the stock advice of, "If you don't like it, don't buy it," applies here, although just boycotting something in order to make it go away is about as stupid as just voting in order to change who gets elected. You have to go way further in order to make a real difference. Start by not buying so you have some credibility when you speak, and then convince others to join you. I'm not slamming you here. I empathize with your problem. It's just that I'd very much like it to be solved.
Re:I don't understand this. (Score:3, Insightful)
Jesus Fucking Christ. If you don't like it, LEAVE.
Noone's asking the editors to stop doing their work -- i personally would only like them to get some training. How about them taking a few short courses in journalism? Hey, i bet they could even find one online, so that they wouldn't even have to leave their comfy chairs!
Re:You don't understand Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Surely everyone can agree that downloading a DVD rip of, say, Shrek 2 and selling copies of it on ebay for "cheEp" is horrendously immoral and wrong. In line with that, no one would rightly complain about copyright legislation that prevents such scenarios *through civil remedies, not criminal!*
I see no reasonable argument for preventing my from copying CDs/DVDs/etc for my own personal uses (whatever those might be - stripping off forced commercials, the stupid FBI warning, editing out graphical sex scenes, etc).
Further, I see no reason why I should be prevented from obtaining a work online that is not available through other means (old roms, old movies, etc), especially if I already own a copy in another format already.
I think we all agree that "w00, free movies!" is not the point. Today's reality has brought us criminal punishments for civil crimes, the inability to legally watch movies in Linux, inability to legally even talk about bypassing encryption schemes, and other ridiculous craziness with the DMCA that frankly pisses me off.
The *AA's have made themselves representatives of all of the least-sensible aspects of current copyright legislations, and so it's not surprise that people hate them. If the legislation made sense, and we didn't have to worry that we might face criminal charges or ridiculously huge fines for doing something that used to be Fair Use - well, that'd be nice, wouldn't it?
Re:Vote with dollars (Score:3, Insightful)
The only ad that pissed me off is the one about copying movies, getting really tired of seeing it, and I see it several times a month. I don't copy movies, I go to see them in theatres. Yet after giving my money to the theatre I need to learn a lesson about how stealing is wrong.
I find that ad funny. It shows some cameraman or keygrip talking about how movie pirating makes his family starve. Meanwhile, Keanu Reeves made over $10,000,000 to jump around against a green background with cables and pullies to make The Matrix movies, and the suits who run the entertainment companies have personal jets, yachts, and other luxury items.
Piracy is not killing the entertainment industry, corporate greed is. Although much like BSD, rumors of the industry's death are greatly exaggerated.
Re:Vote with dollars (Score:3, Insightful)
Additionally, ads are appearing in front of DVD movies
Why should I pay $20 or more (I usually get the super-hyper-extended ultimate editions) for a DVD movie, only to be bombarded with outdated advertisements EVERY fucking time I watch it? If I wanted advertisements, I would wait for it to appear on TNT or USA. That and if I wanted analog audio, low-definition, and a castrated (narrowscreen?) image.
After years of saving up and buying components, I finally have a HDTV, digital 5.1 surround sound, progressive scan DVD, etc. so I can have the ultimate home theater experience. What kind of home theater is it if I am forced to watch something other than the movie I put into my DVD player?
Re:Shrek 2 DVD (kinda OT) (Score:1, Insightful)
It's a glib answer, but it doesn't solve anything. Boycotting is a valid reaction for a generic commodity - that is, if you don't like Wal*Mart's practices, it's easy to buy your groceries from some other store - a potato is a potato. But if your kids are clamoring for Shrek 2 on DVD, there's only one version you can buy them, and they aren't going to be too happy if you come home with some other movie instead "because it doesn't have as many ads".
It's easy for someone who doesn't want to own Shrek 2 to suggest boycotting it. But if you do want to own Shrek 2, and you don't want to own unskippable ads, you DO face a genuine dilemma. "Suck it up or don't buy it" is NOT a helpful response, and it's rarely intended as one.
You seem to recognise that, which is a refreshing change. I just wish you'd gone far enough not to think of mentioning the unhelpful response at all.
Re:Vote with dollars (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:ATTENTION - Hate About Suprnova (Score:2, Insightful)
if not WTF are you talking about?
Suprnova.org is pretty clean.
Re:ATTENTION (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:My opinion (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ok, Michael (Score:4, Insightful)
I've said it before and I'll say it again - the day 20 million people will spend their weeknight in front of the TV watching Polly Perky teach algebra, *then* I'll believe that Tom Cruise (or Barry Bonds) is overpaid.
Create. Don't Consume. (Score:4, Insightful)
I kind of realize how much help and enjoyment I gather from the internet and all of it's multitudes. So I decided I needed to start writing down my own knowledge (in my case, running, computers, books, etc.) to sort of give back.
I would gladly pay more for all the information I find on the net than the I would for the latest movie.
And yet the information is freely given while the 2 hours of enertainment sold by hollywood continues to go up in price.
Re:Vote with dollars (Score:5, Insightful)
This would be a whole lot more interesting if I'd used a word such as "steal" anywhere in my message.
the loaded terms that a small group of corporations are attempting to push into use
Actually, the majority of my music industry clients are small independent groups who are either completely independent or on small, specialized labels such as Sugar Hill. And they tend to use words such as "steal" and "pirate" to describe those that make unauthorized copies of music. Some of them choose to make their entire catalogs available for anyone to download, copy, or share. Some do select songs, and some don't want anything they do copied. That's their choice. But they're certainly not getting rich or part of any giant media corporation.
show me one moral code in all of recorded history that even took a stance on this intellectual fraud known as "intellectual property".
How about the golden rule, which you'll find in most major religions in one phrasing or the other?
If you want to look at recorded history as your guide of how humans should behave, you'll see that generally we've been rather poor in our treatment to each other and that someone powerful has kept other people in abject poverty in order that they might benefit. There are problems now, but I'd certainly rather be alive now than 500, 1000, or 2000 years ago.
Most of the composers that are now considered great from years past lived on the whim of rich patrons. Mozart died in abject poverty. Is that the standard you'd like to return to, that great artists have to choose between finding some rich person to kiss up to, die young and pennyless, or give up their dream of creating great works and work a day job?
Next, there isn't much of a history on the concept of intellectual property because technology has been enough of a limiting factor until recently that it's not been a major factor in lives. Most people's jobs consisted of dealing with physical objects and most methods of duplicating text, books, etc. were so prohibitively difficult, lossy, or expensive that there was little incentive to do so.
A very large portion of this country's economy is now based on non-physical objects, including your work, from the look of it. There's no actual difference in the bits that make up a wave file to your documents that hold your database analysis to your ruby programs - it's all just a string of 1s and 0s. The difference between what puts food on musicians' tables and your table is that virtually no one cares about what you produce (this isn't a judgement on your work, just saying that it's only meaningful to your clients) whereas music is appealing to a [comparatively] wide number of people. Lucky you. It's easy to cast slings and arrows at others when you have nothing to loose, isn't it?
You proudly support the FSF and even have a few bits of code posted under what I'm guessing is the GPL, but the GPL is just another form of intellectual property, albeit a very liberal one. If you view intellectual property as a "fraud," you should support placing all code completely in the public domain without any restriction, right? Think your clients would object to adding that clause to your contract?
The spread of large digital media and bandwidth have also changed the game. As a teenager, taped copies of music were passed around by my friends, but no one viewed them as a long term thing - they didn't sound great, they degraded over time, and they weren't convenient when you wanted to hear the 4th song on them. And importantly, each copy took a fairly good amount of time to create and the copies were given to a very select few. MP3s have changed all of that. (They don't sound great to me, but I'm pickier than most.)
Because without the act n
FREE MOVIES (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, sometimes I have to wait for things, but hey, the price is right. All I had to do was sign up for a little card that said I promise to bring it back before its due.
FREE!
They call it a "Public Library"
The difference between copying and theft (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, despite all this "piracy", the RIAA's sales continue to increase [theregister.com], as shown. The November 11, 2004 press release from the MPAA [mpaa.org] shows similarly for the MPAA:
"The movie industry's share of the American economy is growing--faster than the rest of the economy. And the copyright industries are creating jobs at twice the rate of the rest of the economy." (excerpted from above)
I fail to see how you can call something "theft" when someone is seeing greater sales happen while the "theft" is occurring. Theft would presume a model in which, for every download which occurs, one sale is lost. This is quite simply not true, as many, many people download things to preview them and see if they are worth the money. Given the large amount of garbage put out by the **AA's and the inflated prices they charge for it, this does not seem an unreasonable precaution.
The true solution for the **AA's is one which is known to all businesses which don't have a virtual monopoly and routinely have to deal with competition: Improve your product, LOWER YOUR PRICES, and find innovative ways to market and deliver the product.
Don't put ads on something people have paid money for, it will turn them off very quickly. (A trailer or two generally won't turn a consumer off if placed on their DVD, but a non-skippable Pepsi commercial most certainly will.) There is NO quicker way to turn off a consumer than making it so that the product they purchased (their DVD and DVD player) do not do what they expect it to (fast-forward when they hit the fast-forward button.)
Imagine your car not starting for 5 minutes after you turned the key so that it could play ads over the car's stereo. If you wouldn't be extremely frustrated by this, and very unlikely to purchase that brand of car again, well then, you are the definition of corporate whore. But the reason car manufacturers -don't- do this is because other manufacturers exist, and would refrain from doing this and take away their business. However, the MPAA has no competition, at least not on anything even remotely approaching their scale. If it takes suprnova and Kazaa to create the competition, then I'm not sorry to see it, whether or not there's a technical violation of law.
If these companies are not willing to address the fact that CUSTOMERS ARE NOT SATISFIED, and the ONLY reason that they have stayed in business is a lack of real competition, they deserve to die off and I don't care if people do pirate the stuff.
Re:Vote with dollars (Score:3, Insightful)
Add to that the Dvorak op-ed piece [pcmag.com] in the issue of PC Mag I got in the mail this week, wherein he points out that the MPAA is going down the same stupid road the RIAA took -- publicising something the mainstream public heretofore knew little-to-nothing of. "Hmm, $38... $27... $12... Hey, you can download movies on the Intarweb? Neato!"
Good going, MPAA.
Re:Vote with dollars (Score:3, Insightful)
and i didn't take anyone else's copy of any movies, i made my own.
Re:Vote with dollars (Score:3, Insightful)
Essentially, theaters exist almost exclusively to sell you popcorn and candy and soda at ridiculous prices and use the movies they are playing to lure you in.
Re:Ok, Michael (Score:3, Insightful)
sleeping with government (Score:3, Insightful)
But here in the states, where we normally shouldn't be as concerned about what our government may or may not think about what concepts or ideas we are using our freedoms to express - provided it's not for TV - it strikes me as odd that the entertainment / multimedia arts community would be attempting to forge stronger bonds with the government, bonds that are strange - bonds that appear to be advanced in part by lobbying money, in part by a shameless appeal to the merits of harsh punishment that would cross the interests of tens of millions of Americans. In any case, point being that if the *AA's don't think the government is going to "want something in return" for this request for VIP status from the *AAs, they are smoking something that is messing with their ability to think clearly.
Isn't it better for the movie industry to present a counterpoint to the "goody goody two shoes" mentality? Isn't there something "cool" about a good movie? Not to be completely rebellious, but to just kind of stand out there on its own, make its voice heard, and exhibit a "coolness" that would be inappropriate and out of place in a government agency.
It's just something that has never made sense to me. One decade, fighting to not get warning labels on CD's, another, trying to earn massive brownie points by shamelessly appealing to government regulation in the worst way. Showing a wanton willingness to sacrifice any and all artistic or creative freedom in exchange for strict, broad, governmental control over any and all creative multimedia, with massive profits acting as a light at the end of a tunnel of inaccurate information and a lack of understanding of the "end-users" of the movie industry's artistic efforts. Who ARE these people? Human beings are multi-faceted creatures; there is more to human existence - and this is what the multimedia arts ought to address.
When the *AA's get closely involved with government, the profits of maintaining a stranglehold on an ineffective and antiquated distribution model become more important than the expression of ideas and concepts, and the artistic creativity of the people making the films.
This is not good - going to a movie becomes more like flying on an airplane - checking for camcorders, people with night vision goggles spying on you, being forced to watch "educational" materials.
Of course, they can argue that their morals are correct, that file sharing does have some negative consequences, or "piracy", as they put it (and piracy does have negative consequences, it's just that filesharing is not exactly piracy) - but in any case, I can understand the point of view that if everyone fileshares for free there may be problems from that... but here's my point...
You have all this freedom of expression in America. You have this big Hollywood industry. Isn't it a waste of the artistic and creative freedoms that we all enjoy here in the US to go hop in bed with the government? Isn't it almost like a self-inflicted censorship? Can Hollywood simultaneously expect to retain its creative freedoms while trying to forge a tighter, closer, more intima
Re:Here's the great irony (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, this won't work. The DMCA makes it illegal to decrypt without the copyright owner's permission. In this case, it would be the copyright owner himself who is suing. He has his own permission to do the decryption. The DMCA will not stop this.
Not quite that simple... (Score:3, Insightful)
Strange situation, when you consider how these guys are so famous for "caring" about the less fortunate, and so infamous for demeaning the "greed" of OTHER industries.
But just consider this: How irreplacable are the extras in those fast food commercials? How about the boom operators or the production assistants on those movie sets? Have you ever witnessed a Hollywood set in action? Can you believe the number of people who are, half the time, doing essentially nothing?
And no, it's not necessarily because the work they do requires the most unique skills.
If the culture of Hollywood weren't so fundamentally wasteful and profuse, more movies would get made, more people would get hired, and consumers overall would have more venues to enjoy a more robust selection of movies. Hell, just take a silly union like SAG out of the picture, and we'd see a difference overnight.
The central problem here, from Hollywood's point of view, is that the instantaneous "what you want, when you want" free market environment of the Web is intrinsically antagonistic to their culture. After all how many Hollywood productions would survive in a free market environment like the Internet? Far fewer than what we see today. I can guarantee that.
Hollywood isn't interested in free markets or anything similar. They want to continue producing as little as possible for as much money as possible. And the nature of the Internet threatens them at the most fundamental level.
If they have to sell the public and/or the governments a bill of goods like "Piracy is harming artists at all levels" or whatever, they will do so. If they have to sue everybody and their mother throughout the world, they'll do that, too. They'll do anything OTHER THAN adjust to the new environment.
Which is another way of saying that Hollywood's days could be numbered. Hollywood could easily become a shell of itself in a few generations if they don't wake up.
Which would suit me just fine. =)
Re:Woo! (Score:3, Insightful)
I do admit that, at least until digital projection takes over (at which time there will be [i]no[/i] reason to go to the theatre), it is the only way to actually see the film on film. Video is a poor substitute, which is why the MPAA should have nothing to worry about.
Re:Vote with dollars (Score:4, Insightful)
And that's just the technical details. You also have all of these dumbasses talking on their phones and letting their kids run around screaming like apes. Take control of your freaking brats you negligent morons. And the floor is sticky, and the seats are ANYTHING but comfortable. And if you don't get there early enough to get the sweet spot, then you'll be watching the whole movie with your head tilted up or to the side 45 degrees.
Yeh, home theater is the way to go. For about $1k you can have a pretty nice setup with a projector, few speakers, screen, and you'll have a blast with it every weekend - parties with friends over, etc. Sure, if you're struggling don't get one, but then why spend money at the theater anyhow? If you've got a steady job with a decent income, it's pretty easy to set aside $1k over the course of a year to invest in a theater system.
I made my own (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, and that copy took so much effort, and now you feel you have the moral high ground? Whilst the comparison with salt can be stretched too far, someone claiming that copying a file is some form of civil disobedience shouldn't claim so unless they're willing to stand up for what they believe and go to jail for those beliefs.
Being an anonymous thief on P2P networks is not heroic. If there was a *real* world-wide clampdown on this kind of thing 90% of the users would drop it and stop copying, because it would actually involve the credible possibility of punishment.
If you don't like Hollywood, make your own films (not copies) or watch independent films. If you do like Hollywood films and choose to steal them, please don't try to convince people it's something other than opportunism. You're stealing because it's convenient, free, and there's little chance of being caught. When ISP networks are locked down and searched for this material and the distributors routinely punished, will you still be copying?
Re:Ok, Michael (Score:3, Insightful)
It's amazing that such tripe gets modded up as "Insightful". So you are saying that the only thing different between Joe the Janitor and Ed the Engineer is the type of work they like to do? Unbelievable.
The fact is, some people are better at some things than others. At the extreme ends, a few are talented in many areas, and some have no talents at all.
Re:Vote with dollars (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow. It's kind of like reading the Communist Manifesto, if Karl Marx had been dropped on his head a lot as a baby.
I love the way that right-wingers love to tar anybody who doesn't agree with their particular narrow brand of capitalism as (ominous background music) A COMMUNIST. A hint: McCarthyism went out in the 60's and it just makes you look silly. Economics and markets are complex subjects and what we have in law right now is just one of a multitude of possibilities.
To summarize, you feel that it's economically unfair for some people to get paid more than others,
No, some people work harder or smarter than others and contribute more to the community and so should be be rewarded more. Unless their contribution is extreme they should not be paid so much that it endangers the democratic process.
so the solution is for unrelated people to screw over everyone in the industry,
No, the solution is that government should take back part of the privilege (copyright) they've bestowed on the industry because it's no longer in the best interests of the public. Note that I did not say all of the privilege so stop implying I did.
never mind that the people on the lower rung are the ones who suffer, not the people at the top.
That will happen in any system but it is usually possible to create a more fair and just society.
It is simply not reasonable that that a small number of people (in particular, the actors) should get millions of dollars for a few hours of at best semi-skilled work.
Why not? That's dictated by the public, not by the studios.
Partly. It's mainly dictated by mindshare advertising where the studio oligopoly simply crowd out alternatives by the sheer quantity of advertising they put out. Remember that free speech can be compromised by too much noise as well as too little message. Duplicate advertising is noise.
They certainly don't want to pay $BIGNAME $20 Mil. per movie, but the public shows time and time again that they'll go to any piece of drek with said $BIGNAME in it. That's a failure of public taste, not of the industry. I'd say there are actually more quality movies being created now compared to anytime in the past. It's easy to look at the past and think that their movies were better, but that's because the bad ones have faded from history and use and only the decent to good ones remain. Cable, the internet, and high quality, low cost video equipment actually mean that film makers can do more with less and get better exposure than anytime before.
In theory. In practice the market is completely saturated and when one player wins another player must lose. The major studios simply crowd out alternatives. People have only a limited number of hours in the day (hollywood is producing more than two movies a day now, let alone TV and foreign movies) and go with what they know.
Most actors don't get paid anywhere near that though, and given that an actor might get one good part every two or three years, getting $150,000 for a part isn't that unreasonable if they're a good actor. And trust me, a good (or great) actor spends far more than "a few hours" on the part.
That's my whole point. A small number of players, actors or otherwise, control a huge percentage of the market. Market failure. It happens, you know.
There is no such thing as a pure "free" market. If it existed it would be warlordism, might makes right, those with the biggest stick get all the rewards. Instead we have a complex legal and economic framework that discourages negative competitive behaviour (protection rackets, anti-trust, fraud, false advertising, stock manipulation, manipulation of minors etc.) and allowing positive competitive behaviour (improvement in product, lowering of price etc.). Even copyright law itself is a response to the negative competitive behaviour of simply copying a competitor's work rather than creating so