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.
ATTENTION (Score:5, Funny)
Also, if that happens, please make sure you remove all links to Slashdot, or links to sites that link to Slashdot, as you'll also be liable.
P.S. michael, we're sorry you didn't like Blade Trinity, but Triple H was pretty hot, right?
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.
Use Earthstation 5 . anonymous filesharing ! (Score:4, Funny)
They are based in palestine which REALLY PISSES off Hollywood. They hate the jews.
Re:ATTENTION (Score:3, Funny)
Re:ATTENTION (Score:5, Informative)
Re:ATTENTION (Score:4, Insightful)
Woo! (Score:5, Funny)
Wow--heavy, insightful stuff. Looks like somebody is gunning for a Pulitzer!
Re:Woo! (Score:3, Insightful)
I do admit that, at least until digital projection takes over (at which time there w
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
Re:Advertising (Score:5, Insightful)
That lasted a long time didnt..
Re:Advertising (Score:5, Interesting)
Ad free television??? You Can't Do That On Television! [ycdtotv.com]
Best. Show. EVER.
heh... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Advertising (Score:3, Interesting)
Reform (Score:5, Interesting)
So, is there a way to reform that indusrty? Or, are we just screwed. Will it become like tv where the movies get shorter just to make room for more comercials and how long until there are comercials in the middle of movies?
Re:Reform (Score:3, Interesting)
How about now. Product placements in movies have been on the rise over the past few years. If you've been to see National Treasure, then you know what I'm talking about. Good lord that had a lot of placement in it.
If you want to see one of the best documentaries I've seen about advertising, check this out [pbs.org]. It includes the latest methods advertisers are conjuring up to get around the public's methods of blocking advertising in television (i.e. Tiv
Re:Reform (Score:3, Interesting)
Have you seen I, Robot? Will Smith wants everything vintage 2004...
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:Reform (Score:4, Informative)
In fact, I'm all for advertisement. How would I know about cool gadget X without it? But the invasiveness and complete obnoxiousness of the current crop of ads really gets under my skin.
Re:Put on shoes this morning? (Score:3, Interesting)
Ob. Simpson's Quote (Score:5, Funny)
To stop those monsters 1-2-3
Here's a fresh new way that's trouble free
It's got Paul Anka's guarantee...
[Lisa]
Guarantee void in Tennessee!
[All]
Just don't look!
Just don't look!
Just don't look!
Just don't look!
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:Reform (Score:3, Informative)
I know. Unrealistic hippie talk. Lay off the crack pipe. Blah blah blah...
Actually, I would say "This is already happening, look at the machinima scene. Three words : Red Vs. Blue." People are already looking away, just not enough... yet.
Re:"TacoBell won the franchise wars." (Score:3, Informative)
They changed it for the VHS/DVD release too. (Score:3, Informative)
I wonder if the voice-over was included in his original contract? Hmmm..... Paid by the word?
Bob-
Re:Reform (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
SWAP in person! (Score:5, Interesting)
WWW.MEDIACHEST.COM !! It's awesome. You can catalog (even use a CueCat if you got one) your entire movie, book, CD, game collection, and place the titles online for others to browse. Meet people in your neighborhood, get together with them, and swap your stuff. Watch each other's movies, read each other's books. Last I checked there is no law against that. (Yet).
And you get to venture outside, and blink haphazardly at the bright yellow object in the sky that you may not have seen in a while. And maybe make a new friend with like interests.
(Check my sig for a link to the website)
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"
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.
What if... (Score:5, Interesting)
So how do they plan to sue them?
As far as the last paragraph in the article... I don't know what to say... Let's say I wrote a new program to copy files from one destination to another and someone used it to copy a bunch of MP3's and movies, I guess the RIAA/MPAA can knock down my door and come get me... even though I had the totally benign idea to simply copy files from one place to another...
I guess they should attack any file transferring program no-matter how benign it is? That's like saying let's put the gun in prison instead of the guy that fired it.
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: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:What if... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What if... (Score:3, Interesting)
Also note that they are going specifically after trackers that are putting up torrent files to movies. Not after bittorrent, or torrents sharing, say, linux CDs.
People that post torrent files to say "The Incredibles" know exactly what they're doing.
Re:What if... (Score:3, Interesting)
Contributory copyright infringement requires that the MPAA can prove there is reasonable expectation of knowledge of infringement (they can see filenames) and there is material contribution to the act of infringement (they're a tracker). Someone has to be guilty of direct infringement for contributory copyright infringement to be possible (so a dead torrent, where everyone's at 0% and
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.
Shrek 2 DVD (kinda OT) (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Shrek 2 DVD (kinda OT) (Score:3, Insightful)
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
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: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?
Apropos (Score:3, Funny)
True, that is apropos of nothing. Myself, (apropos of nothing, of course) I like mittens.
Rolling the same joke just once more... (Score:5, Funny)
Minion: Somebody set up us the Tracker.
Minion: We get packet.
MPAA: What !
Minion: Packet Sniffer turn on.
MPAA: It's you !!
Torrents: How are you gentlemen !!
Torrents: All your MOVIES are belong to us.
Torrents: You are on the way to destruction.
MPAA: What you say !!
Torrents: You have no chance to survive make your time.
Torrents: Ha Ha Ha Ha
MPAA: Sue every Tracker!!
MPAA: You know what you doing.
MPAA: For great PROFIT.
Century Theaters (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Century Theaters (Score:3, Interesting)
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:Haven't these people heard of NetFlix? (Score:3, Interesting)
Monday: Netflix sends you three movies
Tuesday: You get them, send them back
Wednesday: Netflix gets them, sends you three more
Thur: You send them back
Fri: They get them, send you three more
Sat: You get them, send them back
Monday: Repeat
The additional problem is that it means you have to rip all t
Finnish Police & BSA Busted BitTorrent Site (Score:5, Informative)
Early this morning National Bureau of Investigation and BSA have busted finnish BitTorrent link site Finreactor for distributing copyrighted material worth of million euros.
According to sources, NBI raided the admins homes today and seized all the computer equipment and storage media for further investigation, but released the suspects shortly after the raid. The site itself has been down since early hours of today. Site had over 37,000 registered members and had links to more than 6,000 pirated releases on BitTorrent network.
Read the Full story [2039.org].
PS. If you are finnish, read this [waymeet.net].
Which would work great, except... (Score:5, Interesting)
.. that the BitTorrent trackers will just migrate to places like Russia and China, where there are no intellectual property laws to speak of, and where the Clerk of the Court would laugh if a lawyer for the MPAA tried to file a lawsuit against people for running trackers.
What are they going to try next? Snooping on people's personal net connections at home? They'll add a trivial encryption layer to BitTorrent - just try and prove what's being transferred over that link to Russia. Firewall China and Russia off from the rest of the Internet? Make encryption illegal? I don't think (or rather, I desperately hope) that people will accept such measures.
The information genie is out of the bottle. Business models that rely on the sale of information are doomed. It may take 50 years for them to finally give up on these models - they'll fight tooth and nail to save them, since they essentially rake in mountains of cash for doing nothing except copying digital media, which is now practically free. The long, slow decline of the viability of selling information has begun.
On the other hand, the active propagation of disinformation in schools has successfully managed to convince many people that "drugs are bad, mmmmmkay..." in the absence of any rational logical supports for the arbitrary classification of certain drugs as "bad", and others as "not drugs". (Only certain drugs - caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol are socially acceptable and legal; marijuana is (somehow) not, even though alcohol clearly has far more deleterious social and personal health effects).
Perhaps they'll wage a similar disinformation campaign to indoctrinate our children to believe in the sacredness of intellectual property, and thus get people to accept that encryption should be illegal, to prevent information piracy....
Here's the great irony (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, they'll then sue for the movie rights.
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.
What this is about (Score:3, Insightful)
In Socialist Canada... (Score:3, Interesting)
Here in Canada, when you go see a movie (at least, downtown Toronto at the Paramount or some of the larger "Famous Players" theatres), they are screening a short, 5 minute film before the feature presentation.
The film, at first, looks kind of interesting. It shows a portly teamster-looking gentleman talking about rigging up explosives to place on the back of cars in order to accomplish the spectactular car crash stunts seen in many movies (the example they show is in Enemy of the State [imdb.com], when the Will Smith and Gene Hackman characters are being persued by the NSA agents along the railway tracks). He talks about different special effects techniques and how dangerous, yes rewarding it can be both for the stuntmen, and ultimately the viewer.
This, of course, promptly degrades into a sermon about how "I'm such a nice portly man and I put in all this time and then someone makes a few clicks on their computer and STEALS all of that hard work.", followed by the new catch phrase of a movie industry that recently made this piece of shit [imdb.com]: MOVIES: THEY'RE WORTH IT.
Then, following this propaganda, we were all warned warned that staff equipped with night vision technology would detain, violate and then charge anyone caught with any technology being used to record the film.
When I returned home, i stole 3 movie off the internet... and I never download movies from the internet.
When, oh when, is the MPAA going to notice that even the foolish RIAA is way ahead of them? At least the RIAA has tried to "meet us halfway" with things like the iTunes Music Store and Napster 2.0, etc. The MPAA is still locked into their early 20th century mentality and shows no signs of change. Perhaps when the current crop of studio execs retire and the younger, more enlightened next generation takes over, things will start to improve.
Then again....
Commercials at "The Movies". (Score:3, Interesting)
I've already told the local theater owner that if I ever go to see a movie at his theater and get ANY commercials except the movie trailers, I will never go there again, and do as much as I can to make sure no one else does either. When he started to stammer, I told him that if he wasn't making enough to pay the bills that he needed to raise prices, not put advertisements in. It's bad enough that he has a slide show with local ads (but they play before 'start time' so they are easy to avoid if you don't go to the movie on the day it's released) We don't have any of the 'national chains' here. It's a locally owned theater.
If he ever does put the ads in, I'll just wait for the DVD. And before someone chimes in about how they will be in the DVD too, well, let's just say that my modded Xbox doens't care. I can start where ever I want on the DVD. That includes skipping the commercials.
Bittorrent needs a better name (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Vote with dollars (Score:5, Insightful)
ugh.
Re:Vote with dollars (Score:5, Funny)
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:Vote with dollars (Score:4, Funny)
Poor underpaid stagehand: Please don't download movies off the internet Someone in audience: Did anyone get that on video? Someone else: Yeah, I'll put it on Kazaa when I get home.
That was a rowdy crowd that night.
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
Re:Vote with dollars (Score:3, Insightful)
Essentially, theaters exist almost exclusively to sell you popcorn and candy and soda at ridicul
Re:Vote with dollars (Score:3, Informative)
You see, organizations like the RIAA and MPAA like to say that copyright infringement is stealing.
It isn't. Stealing is taking a tangible thing from someone else without their consent.
The thing is, charging $12 or one cent or 52 octillion dollars to see a movie isn't stealing as long as people agree to pay it.
Overcharging is bad. Copyright infringement is (usually) a civil offense. Stealing is illegal.
Re:Vote with dollars (Score:3, Interesting)
The same thing happened to me this weekend. And just when I was getting frustrated I thought, "But, wait, I'm still here and until it get's bad enough for me to stop going to the theater they're going to keep shoveling the crap on us."
Re:Vote with dollars (Score:5, Interesting)
Take the family of four(I live in a cheap area): Tickets: $18 (two adults @$5, two kids @$4)
Popcorn&Soda: $20 (easy, for four drinks & two large popcorns).
Total: $38
At home:
Buy DVD: $20
Popcorn: $1-4 (air popped/butter or microwave)
Soda: $2-3 (couple two-liters)
Total: $27, and you get to keep the movie.
If you rent: ~$10-12?
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: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.
Re:Vote with dollars (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought I was!
But apparently suprnova is now going to get sued because of it.
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.
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.
Re:The difference between copying and theft (Score:3, Interesting)
And that while sales were up, they were still well under that of every year since at least 1994.
Because, again, they are selling a lousy product (CD's which might contain one or two "radio songs" and the rest filler, and 45 minutes worth of music on a CD which we well know can hold about 80), at an inflated price.
Jobs that will be destroyed without copyright protection. Pretty simple.
Unfortunately, jobs are lost and gained every day. And going to a new distribution and marketing business model wil
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: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
actually, vote with abstention... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:actually, vote with abstention... (Score:5, Funny)
Just think of all the revenue you could generate with popup ads on the site.
Re:actually, vote with abstention... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Vote with dollars (Score:3, Informative)
Here's little tip:
Even if the DVD advert has disabled the fast forward buttons and the root-menu button, you can still hit 'stop', and then 'menu', which will bypass the ads. Maybe I shouldn't leak my secret, or they'll come up with a bug(feature) for that, too.
'Course, if it's a VHS tape, you can use a pair of scissors... Snip!
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.
sleeping with government (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Vote with dollars (Score:5, Interesting)
Then I remembered, I started going to a movie theatre that caters to movie enthusiasts. I can't remember the last time I saw an advertisement before the feature movie. I also can't remember the last time someone talked during a movie or was disruptive or anyone under the age of 18 was in attendance. No screaming babies either. Maybe because they don't allow children under 6 at all, and no one under 18 without parents and they are very intolerant of bullshit and very responsive about complaints.
Somehow, they still manage to charge about the same price as every other theatre in town. No wonder I go there for every movie -- and if it doesn't show there, I wait for DVD.
There are good movie theatres out there, you just have to find them.
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:Vote with dollars (Score:3)
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, progres
Re:another approach (Score:4, Funny)
It usually gets some chuckles from the audience.
Re:another approach (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Vote with dollars (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:My opinion (Score:3, Insightful)
No it's not (Score:5, Informative)
You probably went to suprnova.com or suprnova.net which are pay sites pretending to be suprnova. Suprnova.org looks like it still is the same as usual.
Re:Ok, Michael (Score:4, Interesting)
Because the presence of those actors almost always has a direct correlation to the amount of money the film brings in. I know, I know - you're one of those people who thinks that they should cast an unknown shlub in every movie that comes out, thereby slashing the budget and enabling you to go see movies for $.50. But eventually one of those shlubs is going to be interesting/talented/attractive enough that more people go see *his* movies than anyone else's and *then* some crackpot capitalist will realize that casting that guy = more box office and offer him more money than the unknown shlub that nobody cares about - but not you, no-sir-ree! You go see movies based solely on how low-paid the actor is, because that's the kind of appreciator of fine cinema you are.
Stupid hippie...
Re:Ok, Michael (Score:3, Insightful)
Not quite that simple... (Score:3, Insightful)
Strange situation, when you consid
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.
Re:Ok, Michael (Score:5, Interesting)
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: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:movie commercial database (Score:3, Interesting)
if the movie starts at 6pm and is 88 minutes and ends at 8:42 then you can go buy your ticket and get in at 7:15 and not worry about watching the 75 minutes of commercials.
Re:I call BS... (Score:5, Informative)
It really depends on the theater.
Near the place I live there are several movie theaters. One is an oldish small theater. One is a big shiny megamultiplex or whatever they are called. Obviously the megamulti has bigger screens, better sound system, etc. etc. Yet I don't go there to watch movies. Why?
Because in the oldish small place they'll show me two-three trailers and then show me the movie. That's what I came there for.
In the megamulti I'll have to sit through tons and tons and tons (yes, 15-20 minutes) of commercials before they even get to the trailers. Really stupid and obnoxious ones, too. So I stopped going there.
Re:I call BS... (Score:3, Informative)
The way they trick you is through having 2-3 minute commercials... you're expecting a 15-30 second spot like TV, but in the theatre you're a captive audience...you can't flip channels. You're very unlikely to get up and leave in fear of missing the start.
In fairness, I sometimes enjoy the movie trailers...but they're still advertise
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