MPAA Opens Anti-filesharing Website 775
PontifexPrimus writes "The MPAA's new advertising campaign against movie piracy has a home on the internet. Did you know that 'Network users have a back door to your hard drive while you're online, thereby seeing your personal, private information, such as bank records, social security number, etc.'? Learn about the dangers of filesharing!"
One word. (Score:5, Insightful)
Need I say more?
What really happens (Score:5, Insightful)
#1. You're cheating yourself.. absolutely, I divorce myself!
#2. You're threatening the livelihood of thousands.. just the MPAA member company shareholders/execs
#3. Your computer is vulnerable.. avi/mpeg/mov can carry a virus? Learn something new everyday!
#4. You're breaking the law.. >:]
The best part of their site was their "Music Games & More" section where they say "Did you know that you can download the latest songs", I wonder what the RIAA would think.
"Don't cheat yourself (the poor shareholders/execs) out of the magic (new yacht/ferrari). Movies - They're worth it (HONEST!)!"
I don't know about other people, but I know that all of the movies have downloaded in the past I had actually paid to go see them before/after I had downloaded it and/or bought the dvd if I thought it was good. Not even Kazaa can beat Dolby 5.1 and a dvd picture
Reminds me (Score:5, Insightful)
LOL! Sometimes FUD is funny.
You're Cheating Yourself (Score:5, Insightful)
Is what any way to experience the magic of the movies? Free? I think it's a great way.
Only 4 out of 10 films turn a profit.
6 out of 10 films suck.
Do you really want fewer movies to choose from?
Gladly. Maybe they'll be forced to make movies that aren't complete shit.
Glad? (Score:3, Insightful)
I won't bother debunking 3 or even talking about 2... but don't you love how they try and manipulate priorities?
Cheating myself? (Score:5, Insightful)
There is nothing that compares to the silver screen. Well, there wasn't, but home theaters are starting to come close. So, make movies that don't suck and people will still go to see them.
4 out of 10 movies don't recoup their investment because they suck. Gigli isn't going to recoup it's investment because it sucks. 4 out of 10 movies are going to suck. The other 6 are just going to suck less. Stop automating your script-writing, and be more stringent with what movies you actually produce and then people will still go see them in the theater and you will still make money. People will still pirate them, but so what.
The biggest thing people use pirated movies for: To find out if it is worth the $8. If it sucks, it isn't worth $8. I'm not cheating myself, I'm saving my damn money.
Reason #2 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Cheating myself? (Score:5, Insightful)
"4 out of 10 movies don't recoup their investment because they suck."
Correct.
"4 out of 10 movies are going to suck."
INCORRECT!!!
9 out of 10 movies are going to suck. 5 of those 9 will actually make a profit, despite that. (and the tenth, that one movie that doesn't suck, isn't likely at all to make back its costs)
Re:What really happens (Score:5, Insightful)
Read it again... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's simple really (Score:2, Insightful)
That's all. All this discussion of copyright reform and the "artists" is a non-issue. What it is really about is "we want everything for free."
People really think that if copyrights were repealed completely, that somehow the marketplace wouldn't change at all: that $200 million movies would still be made, people would devote 3-5 years to writing a book, and animators would spend tens of thousands of man-hours on television and home video.
Here's a hint: they won't. Sure, you'd have the odd street performer and concert in the park, but by and large, all professional creative effort would be pointless, and the people who are now making a living at it would have to find other work: probably a minimum wage fast food job, because as we all know, arts degrees are worthless in the "real world."
"All for free" is just as extreme, and just as absurd as "pay per play." But the argument will never be taken seriously, because it isn't about fixing things, it's about "we'll just take it, and then rationalize it with some bullshit straw man argument over the meaning of the word 'theft.'"
If copyright is repealed, it will render millions of man-years of effort totally worthless, and put tens of millions out of work. Dozens of industries will become pointless. That's not progress.
How about a real discussion of copyright reform instead of half-assed "nyah nyah nyahs" at the MPAA?
General (Score:2, Insightful)
As I remember it, if the member companies of the MPRIAA see the same type of stuff (whenever one makes a purchase or buys a subscription), they enjoy the legal right to collect any such information a customer must give them and "share" it with marketers for money.
How come they only "seem" concerned when they're not the ones doing it?
Why the MPAA is full of shit (and the RIAA isn't?) (Score:5, Insightful)
1) The MPAA would recoup its investment MUCH faster by encouraging people to come to the movies more often, and by reducing costs. How can they do this?
a) Reduce ticket prices. Lower tickets mean more movie-goers.
b) Quit paying the stars so fucking much money!!! Ben Affleck made TWELVE AND A HALF MILLION DOLLARS for Gigli, one of FOUR movies released this year that he starred in. In other words, he made roughly one THOUSAND times as much as a skilled professional with a post-secondary education. (Notice that the MPAA site doesn't link to any stars' opinions--just the grips and the stuntmen, making a thousandth as much as the stars)
c) QUIT MAKING MOVIES THAT SUCK BADLY!!!
How many times do you need to hear it? How many brainless sequels to brainless movies do you need to make before it sinks in that you SUCK, and that your movies SUCK?
Imagine this: A movie where stars are treated as skilled employees and paid roughly $200,000/year (hey, their careers aren't as long as some of ours--they deserve higher salaries for that), the writers are required to come up with original and innovative ideas to earn their pay, and the tickets are $5/seat, with affordable popcorn.
Why they might actually make a profit, and DESPITE all of the file sharing (that doesn't take away a single ticket sale), get people out to the movies.
As an aside, you might ask how does this NOT relate to the RIAA?
1) The RIAA actually is hurting (some) from filesharing. Most people are as happy with a burned MP3 as they are the original quality song, whereas nobody would seriously miss a good theathre movie just because they had a really crappy camcorder copy they can watch on their TV.
2) The artists don't get paid millions--they get paid SHIT. They get about a tenth as much as the tech staff, instead of a thousand times as much.
"Entertainment Available on the internet" (Score:4, Insightful)
Browse the links below to discover a whole world of entertainment available to you - legally - right at home.
Gotta love how they don't link to project Gutenberg on the books page.
The "back door" is real ... Sorta. (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember who these ads and websites are aimed at. The average /. reader knows the "truth" about back doors in software, and, more than that, knows how to share directories with granularity. The average computer user, I would posit, does not. Don't believe me? Hop on KaZaA, Gnutella, whatever, and do a search for '.xls' or '.wpd,' etc. See how many personal documents you uncover. We did that once and found a CEO's copy of the salary breakdown for his dot-com... No names to protect the clueless (and shareholder value ;)). So, it's FUD, but it's (if there is such a thing) justifiable FUD.
Re:What really happens (Score:4, Insightful)
I had a look at the video and the general theme of their site and realised theres a bit of a fault with their reasoning. They claim that although it might not affect the producers and actors etc because they earn so much, it will affect the 'small' guys like set painters etc...
but... if the movie makes so much as they admit, theyre not going to pay the 'set painters' etc any less because, as they admit, they still will be making more than enough money to pay these guys. They are probably contract workers and will only do it for an acceptable fee. WTF.. shut up you stupid MPAA wankers.
fuzzy math (Score:3, Insightful)
Not worth the effort anyway. (Score:2, Insightful)
Getting a camcopy or a DivX complete can take days - if your time is worth anything (mine is), it's cheaper to get a couple tickets for a real cinema, or rent/buy the DVD. Goes better with girls too, they do not appreciate watching movies off the computer screen :)
Relax, MPAA, it's the RIAA who's in real trouble.
Re:What really happens (Score:1, Insightful)
Funny thing is that, while piracy only seems to hurt the big guys, the only people they spotlight on their site are the poor grips and stuntmen. In reality, their appeal for public sympathy is paid for by the bastards who'll get 4 million instead of 5, and feel cheated.
So there, free of guilt. You're welcome.
Re:I think the MPAA just.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's simple really (Score:5, Insightful)
Copyright needs real reform, however. Film, music, and art has a significant impact on our culture, so much that these things become a PART of our culture in a very short time. This is why I have a problem with insanely long copyright terms.
The original term for copyright was fair. Let a piece of work remain copyrighted for 14 years, and then let it fall into the public domain so that society can utilize what has been added to its culture.
Elvis is dead. He had plenty of time to profit off of his works when he lived. His music has become a part of our culture and should belong to society, not some record company who will continue to take advantage of copyright extensions to charge for Elvis' music until the end of time.
Likewise, Hollywood has made a crapload of money off of its hits. Titanic, Jurassic Park, etc. all have made lots of money for studios. I doubt it would REALLY hurt Hollywood if Jurassic Park were to enter public domain in 2007.
Perhaps if the RIAA and MPAA knew they only had 14 years to make a profit off of a recording or film, these groups would focus on making quality material rather than being uncreative.
MPAA has much less to worry about than RIAA does (Score:5, Insightful)
Secondly, most of the releases that come out on IRC, newsgroups, bittorrent or whatever are crappy cam recordings that people don't like anyway. Who wants to watch some washed-out version of a movie with bad sound anyway? If it's any good you'll go see it in the theater to get the real experience.
Third, most of the movies you find on the internet are in divx or some other format that generally only plays on a computer. Most people are not savvy enough even to burn a VCD to play in their DVD player, what to speak of building a dedicated home theater pc to play the divx movies. Most people do not want to sit in their computer room in front of a 17" monitor to watch movies. They would rather see it on the 42" widescreen in the living room, or in the theater.
Finally, movies is a social thing. People take dates to movies, they take their kids to movies. They like to eat the candy and sit in the theater with the big screen and surround sound.
So MPAA, take a chill pill. We're not going to drive your poor key grip and dolly boys into homelessness. WTF is a 'key grip' anyway???
Piracy And Baseball (Score:4, Insightful)
Interestingly, however, the reasons for baseballs, and the RIAA/MPAA decline are identical:
1. Overpriced... seats/cds are too expensive.
2. Salaries, stars seem to want more and more lately...
3. THE MAJOR REASON: Recession! People don't buy cds, movies, or go see baseball games because THEY DON'T HAVE THE MONEY.
Baseball is adjusting, because it has to, RIAA/MPAA are fighting tooth and nail for legislation so they can retain their current business model....
STFU RIAA/MPAA.
Re:It's simple really (Score:1, Insightful)
Bullshit.
I've been studying the issues surrounding copyright for 10 years. What it's about is getting "The Hulk" for free. It's that simple. It's a lot easier to let some other guy try to figure out how to replace their job than it is to just PAY for the FUCKING MOVIE. It doesn't have a FUCKING thing to do with the progress of copyright law.
Oh, it might have at one time. There used to be real discussion of copyright reform. But it isn't that way now, because it isn't about copyright reform and the "artists" any more. How does infringing on copyrights help the artists? It doesn't. That's an irrefutable "chain of logic."
Your championship-level run-on sentence also brings up about eleventeen red herrings and straw men which have nothing to do with the difference between WAREZZZZ D00000000dZ000RR>>ZZZZZZZ and the current state of copyrights.
'Tens of millions' out of work? What was the source of that number, PIOOMA?
Actually you can start with the Federal Trade Commission and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
I'll make it easy for you: publishing, printing, typesetters, chemical and page treatment, editorial services, shipping, distribution, retail, advertising, sales, paper, binding materials.
That's just the book industry, without the writers, of course. Now multiply that with: music, movies, software, television, theater, newspapers, radio, magazines, photography, painting and practical arts.
Then you can erase all the educational support for those industries, including the schools of language arts, linguistics, dance, music, drama, etc. at several thousand universities.
In 200 years or so, there will no longer be any need to learn to read, since nobody will have time to write anything worth reading, except perhaps a misspelled grocery list. How about a 10% literacy rate? Wouldn't that be just great? Guess what happens to the progress of technology then? (hint: The word "faceplant" comes to mind.)
So yeah, it's sort of important. We should be talking about copyright reform, not how to warez the sequel of the month.
Re:Because without KaZaa.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that vulnerabilities get found and fixed on linux is hardly a blackmark.
Bad recordings vs bad movie theater... (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny, I could swear the last time I went to see a movie in a real movie theater that
* The sound was off (too much treble, no bass)
* Lots of "muching" sounds by people in the audience pigging out on snacks
* Random noise/chitchat
* Cell phones/pagers going off
* The picture wasn't in focus (it was slighly out of focus until the last 15 minutes)
* People would walk across my field of vision (in order to get more snacks or to use the bathroom)
* I missed scenes when I went to the bathroom
Now, what am I gaining by going to an actual movie theater? They need to come up with a better arguement than the one they're using, that's for sure...
Re:One Better (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you willing to pay an extra $5 per ticket?
Re:One word. (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't agree with everything on the site. Their coverage of the copyright laws is completely onesided. They neglect to mention the repeated, absurd open-ended extensions granted to copyright holders each time the rights were about to expire. But this is just the industry trying to give their side to the story, and provide alterative links to rental/purchase sites.
So, if you still think their site is FUD, then please present your findings from the code audit you must have run on kazaa. Or present your patch to removal all viruses and worms spread through the service so that the happless masses of windows users can enjoy the hassle-free sharing you seem to think is available.
Re:Because without KaZaa.... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not looking to get involved in some battle of the zealots with you or anything, but what you said of course, doesn't make any sense. Of course it's a 'blackmark'. There is always a period between when a vulnerability is discovered, and when it was fixed that the machine was - guess what - vulnerable to compromise. Also, the more bugs that are found on a regular basis, regardless of wether or not they do eventually get patched is bad. With that many holes known to the public and security communities, you can be sure there are more that are unknown with exploits being traded in private. And using your logic, why harp on Microsoft then? After all, they eventually patch all their major security holes. Bleh.
Backdoors (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Because without KaZaa.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think it's funny you're responding cynically to their FUD-laden scaremongering about backdoors and viruses being spread through file sharing programs with equally FUD-laden scaremongering about security holes in Windows.
Though I'm sure the irony will be lost on you.
Re:It's simple really (Score:5, Insightful)
I want it easily accesible, portable and priced reasonably. This isn't about artists rights or copyrights as much as it's about distribution control.
Just today I Tivoed a movie called No Man's Land. It's an 80s flick with Charlie Sheen. Ebert gave it 3 stars, so I thought what they heck. Later on I went down to check on it and it was actually a 2001 movie about Bosnia or something.
Now, I wasn't able to get the movie I wanted. Why not let me hope on the internet, let me buy/use the movie for 30 days. Charge me a buck. Heck, encrypt my credit card in it. I don't care. But let me get it A) Right now. B) Let me move it to my laptop to watch on the plane. C) Don't gouge me on the price. It's not costing you anything except some bandwidth.
Palm does it right. [peanutpress.com] They offer topical, up to date ebooks for purchase. They encrypt your credit card in it. This makes sure that you don't pass it around, but also makes it portable. They don't care where you read it. It's a very nice, easy solution for me to buy books for those long flights. I think some of their prices are too high. I think they should pass the savings of not having to publish a book onto me, but that doesn't matter. I vote with my money. I choose reasonably priced titles.
The cat is out of the bag. People want easy, convinient access to digital media. The companies better get in front of this.
As for the movie industry bitching
The RIAA is just lost. They can't seem to grasp the fundamental fact that their market is moving away from them.
Re:So. (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you are guilty of contributory infringement. Having a filesharing program running, and sharing copyrighted files from it - you are knowingly distributing copyrighted materials. By the law, you do not have that right, only the copyright holder does, unless they have specifically given you that right.
It is in no way comparable to loaning someone your car, because the primary use of loaning your car is legal. If you knowingly give people access to resources that you are aware they are using to commit a crime, you are generally guilty of a crime as well.
The key word there is knowingly. You pay someone to kill someone: you have broken the law. You give them a gun knowing that they are going to use it to murder someone, you have broken the law. You give them the keys to your neighbor's house, knowing that they will use them to rob their house - you have broken the law. If you loan them your car knowing that they will use it to rob a bank, you are not only incredibly stupid, but also guilty of a crime.
You'd have to be pretty naive to think that people aren't going to use your filesharing of "J-Lo and Ben Affleck Cavort Around, Pay Us Money" to download it illegally, and stupidity is not generally a legal defense. In otherwords, you are knowingly facillitating the commission of a crime, and would be extraordinarily hard-pressed to argue otherwise (unless you were distributing licensed, or free media - in which case the **AA isn't your problem).
In the least, all these actions are "Aiding and Abetting" or criminal negligence. In the worst, they are conspiracy. Filesharing of copyrighted works is no different, although of considerably less gravity then the above crimes.
Please people, a little sanity here. The **AA are overblowing things, but distributing copyrighted works with normal, restricted distribution rights is illegal. Period.
hey, FUDster (Score:5, Insightful)
With the exception of the few who are "important" enough to get cut in on a percentage of the net, these are union people who get paid by the hour and get paid rather well while work lasts. Their payment does not depend on whether or not the movie sells or is pirated.
You are saying that no more movies are going to be made if somebody downloads a low-quality copy of the next Matrix movie? What are you smoking?
The RIAA argument you're trying to make also requires you to demonstrate that significant losses in sales are occurring due to broadband downloads of movies.
EVIDENCE PLEASE, other than studies paid for by the MPAA to PR firms.
Your argument also, carried to its illogical conclusion says we have a moral obligation to buy even movies we don't like or these poor, starving industry employees will be out of work. Do they have the obligation to buy software from companies that employ us whether they like it, want it, or need it?
Or how about computer people just like us, who work on the special effects, or just install and support the computers for the people involved with a movie?
You either expect to make enough from your share of the profit to afford to take the risk of their not being any or are getting the certainty of a pretty good paycheck. Either way, you are not my problem, any more than any failed dot.com I wasn't personally involved with is.
I'm a little lost on this whole "theft" thing... (Score:2, Insightful)
What I'm getting at here is that there isn't money in my budget to go see a movie that costs $8 and leaves me at the end with nothing more than break-room gossip. There is however room in my budget for what is free. If there were no sources available for me to get a movie from for free, I'm still not coughing up the 8 bucks to see it in a theater, though, and I believe that's where the MPAA's reasoning has gone awry.
The MPAA seems to believe that for every time a movie is downloaded off the internet, there is at least one person not paying the $8 that they would otherwise pay if the movie were not available for download; but this is just not the case. If the movie isn't available for download, it doesn't get downloaded; however if people don't have room in their budget for an $8 movie, they still won't spend the money on the movie even if they can't get it for free.
Now, if I downloaded some movie and I gave it rave reviews to all of my peers, maybe some of them will have the $8 required to go out and see the movie in a theater; or the $3.50 to rent it; or the $20 to buy the DVD, or whatever. I'm just pointing this out because I know that it does happen from time to time, and it is probably a phenomenon that the MPAA is ignoring. This puts movie downloaders in the same seat as movie critics; people who see movies for free and then pass on their opinions. If I tell a buddy of mine that I know is into sci-fi movies that there's a sci-fi movie that I saw that he might enjoy; he may just rent it and check it out, because he respects my judgement of sci-fi films. It would probably never stand up in court, but if each movie downloader can drag some witnesses up onto the stand to testify that the movie downloader's recommendation is what solely motivated a ticket / dvd purchase, that might take the ball out of the MPAA's court.
So back to the subject of the comment: theft. What am I stealing? There was never $8 set aside to go see a given movie in the first place, so by my downloading it and watching it, what have I stolen from anyone?
Re:Sort of... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:hey, FUDster (Score:3, Insightful)
With the exception of the few who are "important" enough to get cut in on a percentage of the net, these are union people who get paid by the hour and get paid rather well while work lasts. Their payment does not depend on whether or not the movie sells or is pirated.
Yes it does. If movies don't sell, those people won't get jobs in the first place. And quite frankly, if the fact that some union people get paid by the hour is your only justification, you need a new one. Next.
You are saying that no more movies are going to be made if somebody downloads a low-quality copy of the next Matrix movie? What are you smoking?
That's exactly true. If everybody downloads DVD-R rips of upcoming movies (and DVD-R rips are currently the rage), there won't be a reason to shell out for the DVD itself. Of course, you'll mention low-quality cam rips and ignore DVD-R, DivX, SVCD, and all the other high-quality rips floating all over the place complete with surround sound and subtitles.
The RIAA argument you're trying to make also requires you to demonstrate that significant losses in sales are occurring due to broadband downloads of movies.
It doesn't matter, pirating movies is still wrong and immoral. It's only a matter of time before broadband becomes so commonplace and downloading becomes so convenient that just grabbing the latest movie is merely an overnight affair. You are a fool to ignore this ever-growing snowball simply because you refuse to feel any guilt over it, and so justify it because you've grown accustomed to the convenience. You don't want it to go away.
EVIDENCE PLEASE, other than studies paid for by the MPAA to PR firms.
Ah, the copout ploy of playing it off as a PR stunt.
Your argument also, carried to its illogical conclusion says we have a moral obligation to buy even movies we don't like or these poor, starving industry employees will be out of work.
Why would you download a movie you didn't like? How is that still not wrong and illegal anyway?
Do they have the obligation to buy software from companies that employ us whether they like it, want it, or need it?
What are YOU smoking? The company buys software licenses for employee use.
You're just some lame Kazaa/eMule user trying to justify things to get rid of the pang of guilt that comes with the realization that what you do is illegal, immoral, and will not last forever. You're simply used to the convenience, but the free ride will not last forever.
Here comes the part where Slashbots accuse me of being a shill, bring up unrelated analogies usually involving cars, or try to shrug things off as a negligible loss. Nice try.
The theater experience sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
The theaters are so filthy, we go there early to find a clean seat. We used to be able to hold a conversation before the movie. While the theater showed a slideshow accompanied by music, it was quiet. Now, there's 20 minutes of commercials, followed by 10-15 minutes of trailers before the movie, and it's so loud you can't talk over it.
The sound systems are always broken or set improperly (front speakers only). The movie is never in sharp focus (no, it's not my eyes). If there's a problem, you have to wait 15 minutes for the projectionist to show up. We recently watched part of a film burn up, because there was no one in the booth. When there is a problem, they skip ahead to keep the movie on schedule, so you miss part. Sure, if you complain they will give you another ticket, but that's two hours of your time.
I've called the THX number and emailed the theaters to complain, but nothing is improving. Of course, the admission price is going up. It now costs less to buy the DVD than it costs for my wife and I to see the movie in the theater, and we get several hours of extras on the disk.
We obviously loved going to the movies, but with the increasing cost and reduction in quality, it's hard to justify. I can see why people are bootlegging the movies.
If the MPAA wants to stop the bootlegging, they should just release the DVD at the same time as the movie is in the theaters. Let the market decide how they want to see the film.
My personal favourite. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must certainly pay for all they get."
- Frederick Douglass
Translation: It's OK for us to rip you off, but you can't rip us off.
Re:The theater experience sucks (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The commercials are comming... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I went to a preview of American Wedding and they showed it then too. I cracked up. Aren't those guys all union members anyway? I don't see them taking a pay cut anytime soon. The only possible way that movie piracy could affect them is if people simply stopped going to movies and just downloaded them instead. I would have to happen on a scale that caused the industry to just stop making movies (and thus not hiring all those union guys). That ain't gonna happen. The quality is generally (very) inferior and you don't get the big screen/big sound system effect either. Sure, some people have home theaters worth more than a nice car, but they're few and far between. Then there's rentals. I could possibly see this impacting those, but even then it's a long shot. You don't get all the extra features and stuff that a lot of people like (and one of the few things that the movie industry is doing right). So I think the poor guy will still be able to put a crust of bread on the table for his wife and kids for a long time to come. Hollywood needs to handle this a lot differently and quit pissing people off. If they would simply create good movies and keep improving the package deal you get when buying a DVD, then they should have no problems.
MPAA is not talking to those responsible. (Score:4, Insightful)
The Theater Experience (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You people disappoint me... (Score:5, Insightful)
"What about the money the copyright holders arn't making?" you may now ask. "Isn't this stealing?" No, the copyright owners never had the money, thus it cannot be stolen. Why is this difficult?
"What about the constitutional right to intellectual property?" Try reading the constitution. All it says about copyrights is that the congress may set a copyright. But this isn't to protect people's intelectual property, the point of the option of copyright law is clelarly spelled out in the constitution. The point is to further the advancement of the art by granting a TEMPORARY monopoly to the creator. There would, however, be no constitutional ground whatsoever to stand on if congress decided to revoke the copyright laws, it is not gaurenteed.
"But its still illegal!" you may now protest, your arguments becomming flustered. NOW I'll agree. This is obvious copyright infringement. This is illegal, under current laws (which I don't agree with but accept as law) but this does not make it theft.
Re:One word. (Score:3, Insightful)
Duh. Pirates who sell their work are no threat to the MPAA - they, after all, have to make a profit. The MPAA's never gone after them. What they're scared of is people getting the idea that (a) culture or entertainment should be free, or at least cheap and (b) there are sources of entertainment and culture other than the MPAA. (Which IS what file sharing will eventually lead to)
the thing that gets me... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So. (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, what if I'm sharing mp3s of my garage band? Or a friends' garage band? Or if I got all the garage bands in my neighborhood together and put them all up?
See, it is not as hard as you'd think to come up with a sane, nonillegal use of filesharing. If I had a garage band it would be natural to post my music online to spread awareness and to see what other people think of it. Take a look at the Minibosses or God Ate My Homework.
Or, lets say you have an incredibly popular site or you know your site is about to be hit by
So now, to mangle one of your analogies, since its obviously illegal to loan someone their car to be used in a bank robbery, should you be banned from ever loaning your car? Should filesharing be banned because it could lead to copyright infringement? Just because the legitimate purposes aren't popular at this point in time, who knows where it could go from here?
Re:hey, FUDster (Score:2, Insightful)
Your wishing that I was a Kazaa user in order to support your peculiar beliefs means no more than my wishing you were a Linux user in order to prove that Linux is so easy to sue that tards and PR people can "get it".
Even my speculation is well supported by *AA organizational behavior and common knowledge of business models of the record and motion picture industries. Yours is supported by hot air.
The only question that your post gives me is "are you a liar, a fool, or both?", and frankly, I'm not all that interested in why you'd spend that much time and effort trashing your personal credibility.
Re:Because without KaZaa.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's the line of thinking as I understand it, well written software, just due to human nature and the nature of programming, ends up with a more or less constant rate of glitches (constant in a statistical sense, I'm sure). Usually, the hardest part about making glitch-free software is just knowing about the bugs. Apparently, the most important part in bug-fixing (and the hardest) is the bug-finding.
You're assuming that the argument is that, because it's OSS, it's bug-free from inception. I don't think anyone has ever made that claim. OSS, the argument goes, is just better software (in a general way, of course. OSS is no guaranty of crappyness-free software, just as the fact that someone succesfully managed to charge for their software is no form of guarantee either) because the process in which it's developed (checkout The Cathedral and the Bazaar, insteresting stuff) more bugs are found faster.
Your post pretty much suports this view -- what you're showing is pretty much, according to OSS suporters, the superior bug squashing process taking place. In that light, according to your nice list, MS is 7 bugfixes behind! (doesn't it appeal to common sense also? What do you think is more likely, that the 7 bugs don't exist in MS software, or that MS hasn't found them yet?)
Re:Because without KaZaa.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's take a look at this for the moment, the linux kernel is primarily coded by people from a pool of top programmers in the world. Microsoft and other fortune 500 companies (including IBM and those who contribute to the kernel) basically buy and swap these people around. There is a list of about 300 names and you'll find at least a few of them on the roster for any given major project, commerical or gpl. What this means is, more or less the same people are doing the programming, and they are no more or less apt to write a bug. So given two projects with roughly the same controls, of the same complexity, and with the same programmers, you'll end up with more or less equal bugs going into the code. There is no such thing as an app without bugs, they are there, they never all get weeded out.
It's what happens after that which is interesting
In the case of windows by far more bugs are discovered by 3rd parties than by microsoft after release, those parties can do nothing bug report said bugs to microsoft. No shortage of bugs are discovered first by the crackers and the crackers exploiting them is how they become known to everyone else.
With linux after release there are thousands of people looking for and fixing bugs in the linux kernel, at any given hour, of any given day. Out of the thousands of people looking over the source code trying to find a bug and get an honorable mention in the changelog. These thousands were able to come up with 9 bugs and all of them had 24hrs or less turn around time before being fixed. A bug is virtually never discovered because someone was exploiting it, bugs are almost always exploited retroactively after there is already a fix out there.
Now either way, if you don't stay patched you'll be vulnerable to bugs... because no matter how many we find there are more out there. But I consider a system where the best the hackers can do is follow the bug announcements themselves and hope I didn't patch to one where the hackers are usually the ones who find the bugs to begin with.
Campus and Corporate Networks? (Score:4, Insightful)
Furthermore, it is not a crime to install or run a p2p app. It is only a crime to knowingly engage in copyright infringement. Do you think your average kazaa (not slashdot) user knows how to turn off uploads or even know that they are allowing uploads at all?
Re:The commercials are comming... (Score:2, Insightful)
Also worth mentioning - of course movies don't *have* to be seen in a theater. I'm sure everybody here has heard "I'll wait till it's out on video."
Some movies make money. Some break even. Some lose money. If a smaller percentage of movies make money, less movies will be made. If a larger percentage make money, more movies will be made. Piracy is one contributing factor to movies making not as much money.
Movies losing viewers to piracy? I don't think it's widespread, yet, but my friends and I will sometimes download movies, or purchase bootleg DVD's, as opposed to watching the movie in a theater. True that's more popular with urban Asians than with other groups - but as bootlegging movies becomes as easy as getting music off Kazaa, and as computers become better integrated with TV, it seems likely to become more and more popular, and eat into legitimate movie profits.
Re:hey, FUDster (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, having worked in the business, I can attest that the majority of wage-paying jobs are for movies that are never finished, never sell, or have a brief run in small venues, then disappear forever.**
In short, these wage-paying jobs in film are there no matter what becomes of the film afterward. Commercials and series TV are even steadier work, whether your current job's end product is a hit or a bomb, and regardless of whether it's pirated later, because there are always N-many hours of production time to fill on every network.
** Some of these going-nowhere films are real productions, but one suspects that many are used primarily for money laundering.
Re:What really happens (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:One word. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Because without KaZaa.... (Score:1, Insightful)
How useful is that?
Re:hey, FUDster (Score:3, Insightful)
As long as the entertainment industry continues with its attempts to control the consumers (it is not "customer" anymore, it is consumer - we are nothing but a way for the entertainment industry to make more money, and constantly insult us), a lot of people will find it moral and justifiable to rip off the industry as much as possible, to cripple its attempts to gain more and more control of our lives.
Many will, in fact, say that the only moral thing to do is to fight for one's rights. If that means ripping off the entertainment industry and helping to distribute their products to get them out of business, then a lot of people will be perfectly happy about that.
The fall of the current entertainment industry can only lead to others taking over, and they will know that they shouldn't try to screw with the customer because it will backfire and they will crumble up and die, just like the monopolist entertainment industry of today.
You can hide behind laws and some perverted sense of moral obligation to support an industry which does everything in its power to corrupt our rights. But others will disagree, and they will laugh at your attempts to make them feel guilty for doing what they perceive to be the only right thing to do.
And no, to them, simply not viewing their movies or listening to their music is not enough. They will try to make sure everything is available for free so that people who would otherwise pay don't, because they can get it without paying instead.
My favorite phrase... (Score:3, Insightful)
For most of the P2P programs I have seen, you have to have actually downloaded the file yourself to become a distribution source.
It's also possible that they are trying to say that if you install a P2P program on your computer, you become liable for any and all illicit material posted on that network, whether or not it actually resides on your computer. That seems like a pretty nasty blanket statement to me.
ORG? As in non-profit organization? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:One word. (Score:4, Insightful)
And honestly, your argument is also somewhat specious, because if the work wasn't worth your paying for it in the first place, why would you want it to begin with?
Re:hey, FUDster (Score:3, Insightful)
Let's translate this into a non-media example for easier understanding. A manufacturer makes cars, but finds that half of them are being stolen from the dealerships. The people are justifying these actions because the workers that make the cars have already been paid for those cars, and therefore don't get affected. At the next board meeting, the company finds out that profits are down 50% and cuts its workforce. Is that really so unrealistic? You could say for any company or any product that stealing it only affects the shareholders of the company, but that is just not true, and doesn't hold up logically.
You don't have a moral obligation to buy movies or software that you don't like. You just have an obligation to pay for stuff that you would otherwise have to pay for. Otherwise it's wrong, no matter how you try to spin it. I'm not saying I've paid for every piece of software or music that I have, but at least I'm not deluding myself by saying that I'm perfectly justified when I do.
So the best way to end an argument. (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's how it works as I understand it (Score:5, Insightful)
This doesn't always happen. Sometimes movies go into production before they've been pre-sold to theatre chains. Those are the movies destined for "straight to video/DVD" status, although very occasionally, a small film is picked up by theatre chains to fill a hole where a pre-sold movie hasn't made it out of post-production in time, usually because some snotty director mistakenly believes that it matters that it sucks. When this happens, we tell ourselves that the system works, and that it's vitally important that it continue to work in just this precise way, for ever and ever, otherwise society will fall apart, cannibalism will ensue, cats and dogs living together...
And nobody ever asks what happened to all the music hall performers when movies came out. Nobody cares what became of the movie theatre pianists when talkies appeared. We don't recall the MPAA saying that the VCR would spell the death knell for the movie industry. We don't wonder whether movie theatre box office takes might be being transmuted into DVD and home theatre sales. We don't dare to consider that people will spend exactly the same amount of their disposable income on entertainment, but that they'll spend it in different ways.
We just accept the line that the system works, that it's always worked, and that it must go on working exactly the same way - whatever the MPAA declares that to be - until the end of time. Or it will be cats and dogs, living together...