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Interview with MPAA Chief Dan Glickman 476
farmerbuzz writes "USAToday has an interview with Dan Glickman (Jack Valenti's replacement as the CEO of the MPAA) where he announces that the MPAA will begin suing movie downloaders. An interesting point brought up in the interview: 'At the time the RIAA announced its lawsuits, it said music sales had fallen 25% over a three-year period. The MPAA is in a much different situation. Box office receipts aren't down at all -- 2003's figures were $9.5 billion, the second biggest in history.'"
Fuzzy math (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fuzzy math (Score:5, Insightful)
I have bought TONS of songs via iTunes, and I can tell you that I am ashamed to have spent $16 in the past per CD with 2 good songs because that's all they would market to me.
There are so many artists out there with great music, and probably great indie films too. You'll never get exposure to these great media as long as the record companies and MPAA have their way.
Re:Fuzzy math (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, you still have the problem of movies not out on dvd. In that case, go to a matinee if you can't wait the 6 months. $4 later you've had a better experience anyway.
My two cents.
Re:Fuzzy math (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Fuzzy math (Score:3, Insightful)
Now if you don't go out often, or have kids or a large extended family to share the cost with then it certainly could be economical for you. However,
Re:Fuzzy math (Score:3, Informative)
The payoff comes later. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The payoff comes later. (Score:4, Insightful)
The best part is that it really _helps_ Microsoft, because it brings about wider adoption.
Do you think Microsoft really cares about that much about home piracy? Yeah, they do come up with all these policies and strategies to counter that - but in truth, it just brings about more people using Windows.
That is an area where Opensource can really pitch in, IMHO.
Re:Fuzzy math (Score:5, Interesting)
For some people, there is a certain price that they're willing to pay for something. In the case of someone who won't buy it, that price just happens to be $0.
Exceptions to this statement are those people that would have bought it, but instead saw it for free (pirated) and in their cost comparison, found free was more amiable to anything else.
This is not meant as validation for pirating, merely debunking this "lost revenue" crap.
Losses due to boycotts (Score:3, Funny)
Personally, I've just extended my RIAA and BSA boycott to include the MPAA, and unlike music, which I never bought before, I used to occasionally go to the movies (last one I saw was Farenheit 9/11). And Hades will freeze over before I buy any MPAA media.
Re:Fuzzy math (Score:3, Interesting)
And if you go see a movie in a theater, all you get is that one viewing. If you have a copy of it, you can watch it when you want, as many times as you want. Yet people are still willing to fork over around $10 apiece to just SEE the movie.
If me and my wife to go a movie, it costs us $20. Why wouldn't I just wait for it to come out on DVD and BU
Re:Fuzzy math (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I suspect I go to more movies than you and to ME there is a massive difference between a movie on a 27inch screen and a theater screen. The theater experience is better in many ways than watching the film at home-assuming that it takes advantage of the large screen and to a lesser extent the sound and crow
Re:Fuzzy math (Score:4, Interesting)
True, but the major difference between RIAA piracy and MPAA piracy is quality...
RIAA : Someone buys a CD, rips it to mp3 (or whatever format), shares it, somebody downloads it and can listen to it with virtually no loss in quality.
MPAA : Somebody goes to a movie theater, he brings a camcorder, films the screen, shares the result. Someone downloads the movie, shitty resolution (even 800x600 doesn't compare to today's hyper-huge-screen theaters), crappy sound.
People who know they'll enjoy the movie will still go to the theater or buy the DVD because shared copies lose a lot of quality compared to the theater version (much smaller resolution and crappy sound), and also some quality when ripped from the DVD version (file decryption/compression usually affects the quality of the colors).
People who know they'll enjoy the music can still download it and have a 'good-enough' copy and most people won't know the difference.
When people figure out a way to pirate theater movies with high-quality, then it will become a major issue in MPAA's income. For now, they're just trying to make money off people who downloads their movies and who wouldn't have gone to the theater anyway.
Re:Fuzzy math (Score:3, Informative)
Most DVD rips are now full quality. Yes, some people transcode in order to fit the movie on a DVDR... others will simply use two DVDr's. Now, with dual-layer DVDr, this is not necessary either.
Further, some poeple just leave them on hard disk, and play from there.
Good DVD rips are identical to the original DVD. Good transcoded DVD rips are very close to the original DVD (just as good mp3 rips are ve
Re:Fuzzy math (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fuzzy math (Score:5, Interesting)
Why should Joe have the privledge of enjoying music/movies/anything that he can't pay for? This isn't Food, Shelter, or Medicine here, Joe will get along just fine without access to the Bubba Bandits latest album (there's even this "free" service called the radio and TV).
The RIAA bugs me because they use price fixing to inflate the price of their goods, and haven't figured out the sliding price models that serve the software and movie industry pretty well. While these successful and growing inustries price their new material highest, slowly dropping prices over time, the music industry prices new material lowest, then raises prices. But I still don't use that as justification for stealing music.
Re:Fuzzy math (Score:4, Insightful)
Secondly, noone is being denied any money, whatsoever. Noone put money into this distribution, and noone is making money from it. If someone wanted the cd, and could afford it, they would buy it. An mp3 is not a cd. A cd is a cd. Sorry.
Also, your logic, and the RIAA's is standing in the way of the greatest social and creative revolution in history. Creative works are built atop old creative works. (ask disney)
In this country, there are kinds of brilliant music that are ILLEGAL and people get sued for. (DJ Dangermouse's Grey album)
That alone is extremely disturbing. Music should not be illegal.
Re:Fuzzy math (Score:3, Insightful)
Classic Fallacy: copyrighted content is not a rivalrous resource. Comparing it to rivalrous resources is a fundamental flaw and completely invalidates the argument.
Why should Joe have the privledge of enjoying music/movies/anything that he can't pay for?
Because it doesn't cost them anything for him to do so.
Copyright was invented for the sole purpose of encouraging people to share their creative works with others. The ability to profit from those works is the incentive, not t
"Property" (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm glad you put "property" in quotes, but the example you then go on to gi
Re:Fuzzy math (Score:3, Interesting)
Bzzzt! WRONG
This isn't about property. This is about copyright.
Copyright is this weird legal construction that regulates people are allowed to COPY even in private, behind closed doors.
By very definition there isn't any deprivation of property going on here as that actually WOULDN'T be copyright infingement, since no copies would need to be made.
Why s
Re:Fuzzy math (Score:3, Insightful)
Wheras if he returns it, all is well again? After all, he still has use of his Ferrari! Maybe Joe will give him some $$$ to compensate for the milage to drive down to the Kwik-E mart and pick up some hotties? That will surely make it All OK!
The grandparents post point was that because Joe couldn't pay for the music, it was OK for him to download them. Perhaps a better analogy would be a Ferris wheel at an unpo
Keep those DVDs cheap boys... (Score:5, Interesting)
No, the movie industry has had a tremendous negative impact on itself. Expensive movies that fail turn into expensive losses. STOP MAKING SHITTY FUCKING MOVIES that cost 100+ million dollars. Believe me, I don't feel sorry for the MPAA when they have to shell out millions to big name actors to get them to act in a movie that sucks.
In fact, if anything, piracy has had a great impact on consumers. The MPAA has been forced to push movies out quickly to consumers at low costs. Walmart has some great titles for under $8. Target routinely has newer releases for under $15 and some under $10 on sale.
A: My son Jon was executive producer of the recent film Mr. 3000. A few days after the film was released, a member of my staff found it being sold as a DVD just a few blocks from our offices. I called my son to give him the bad news, and he told me this is happening to all the current films. And then he said, "And what are you going to do about it, Dad?"
Is this quote supposed to make me feel bad? That the head of the MPAA is fighting for the rights of his son who is a producer? I don't. In fact, it turns me off more than anything.
A: I have very good teachers here. I think of myself as having adequate knowledge, but the principles are easy to understand. We have to embrace new technologies, but also enforce the law.
Perhaps you should learn to embrace the wants and needs of the consumers and be less worried about pissing everyone off.
Re:Keep those DVDs cheap boys... (Score:5, Insightful)
If the movies are so bad why are people stealing them (sorry, infringing on their copywrite)? I bet I could find a torrent of Garfield the movie if I realy wanted to.
Re:Keep those DVDs cheap boys... (Score:5, Insightful)
If the movies are so bad why are people stealing them (sorry, infringing on their copywrite)?
It's the Slashdot version of the Goodwin law. When all else fails, justify theft by claiming that whatever you are stealing sucks.
Re:Keep those DVDs cheap boys... (Score:5, Interesting)
They are stealing them to steal them. I know that some people here don't like the fact of "I'm not going to pay $9/ticket to see a movie but I'll download it for free" issue but it does exist.
There's a market for free movies even if they do suck. I refuse to spend money on a movie that I just know (or was told) blows.
Honestly, the only real reason that bullshit suck movies do well is because there is only a small number of movies made and people need something to do with their 2.5 kids on a Saturday night.
Re:Keep those DVDs cheap boys... (Score:3, Insightful)
I know that some people here don't like the fact of "I'm not going to pay $9/ticket to see a movie but I'll download it for free" issue but it does exist.
I'm one of those people.
Not all movies. We have a "rule of thumb" that unless it gets a 7.0 or higher on IMDB (my peers, so to speak) we just don't go or download it. That all said, we rent DVDs once in a while yet very few of those are worth the effort to copy with DVD Shrink [dvdshrink.org] to DVD-R. Most recent movies are so-so one time views, that is what I think
Re:Keep those DVDs cheap boys... (Score:2)
That will download but won't pay or the other way around? I'm not clear on that.
That all said, we rent DVDs once in a while yet very few of those are worth the effort to copy with DVD Shrink to DVD-R.
If it's not even worth the $2 blank DVDR and the time you have to spend ripping/stripping/burning it then it must have been bad
Re:Keep those DVDs cheap boys... (Score:2)
Re:Keep those DVDs cheap boys... (Score:2)
It's amazing what people will do just because it is cheap or free.
Re:Keep those DVDs cheap boys... (Score:2, Interesting)
They've addicted a great many people to really shitty, mindless entertainment. Anyone that has seen the fall network lineups with its hordes of reality shows and nauseating sitcoms has to see this, I would think... there's no other way they could survive, nothing else could cause it's consumption short of some form of addiction.
I don't have any sympathy for crack dealers when their poison is stolen from them, why would I feel different towards the MPAA
Re:Keep those DVDs cheap boys... (Score:2)
Because its highly addictive and lets them forget about how much their life otherwise sucks. Sorry, dont see the paralel to bad movies here. I can quit seeing Quentin Tarantino films any time I want. I just dont want to.
Re:Keep those DVDs cheap boys... (Score:2, Troll)
Re:Keep those DVDs cheap boys... (Score:2)
Re:Keep those DVDs cheap boys... (Score:2)
Re:Keep those DVDs cheap boys... (Score:3, Insightful)
Simple macroeconomics. The taco shop on the corner may make lousy tacos, and you'd never buy them at $1 apiece, or even on sale at 39 cents each. If they dropped the price to a nickel, though, even you might go over there for lunch just to save the money to get something else you want or need. Piracy reduces the cost of obtaining a movie to a few cents worth of bandwidth, and with modern PCs it doesn't even tie up the machine, you can run it in the
Re:Keep those DVDs cheap boys... (Score:3, Insightful)
When you have sites like Suprnova up where every single tv show, movie, game, app, etc is but a click away (and a few hours of downloading), many people think, "hey, its there, its free, and if i like it I might buy it, if not I've saved myself some money"
So its not so much that there's now an intense desire to grab the movie (well, in some cases there is a HUGE desire, but I'm talking abou
It's the old joke ... (Score:3, Funny)
"The food here is terrible
Re:Keep those DVDs cheap boys... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Keep those DVDs cheap boys... (Score:5, Insightful)
Too bad the answer wasn't "Hold out for you to produce a movie that's worth protecting."
Re:Keep those DVDs cheap boys... (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny you mention this, because I just finished reading Peter Lynch's "Beating The Street". His #1 criteria for picking stocks to buy???--- That the company gives the consumers something they want. That way there will be a long prosperous history of sales. Otherwise the company will dwindle and die. I think if the MPAA goes the way of fighting consumers, alternative sources of entertain
Re:Keep those DVDs cheap boys... (Score:3, Insightful)
I totally agree with that... I find it very difficult to feel sorry for millionaires not getting richer. I know we're in a capitalist country, where you can make all the money you want if you're good at it, and that movie piracy is stealing, but for gods sake... don't try to use SYMPATHY to convince us not to steal your movies -
shake in your boots... (Score:5, Insightful)
Will we totally obliterate piracy? No. But we have to make it as difficult as possible.
Suing people won't make downloading "difficult". Perhaps a bit riskier for those people in the US who happen to do so.
Regardless, I'm assuming they'll have to go to the ISPs individually with a court order for ID rather than the sweeping lawsuits the RIAA used?
Re:shake in your boots... (Score:5, Insightful)
I've stated this several times before, but WTH, I'll do it again. The problem with the MPAA is the same problem with the RIAA - they are both cartels [wikipedia.org]: they are not competing for a consumer dollar amongst each other, they are enforcing illegal trade restrictions, bribing congress for ridiculous laws that don't make sense, and seek more control of the market and revenues by any means to avoid business risks associated with free market and competition. Once you are down that path, there is no turning back unless something drastic happens in the industry.
So, no, their strategy is definitely not making the downloading difficult - they are just ending up suing their best customers.
Imagine now, what would make "piracy" really difficult is if there was any competition in the entertainment industry and consumers were getting what they really want. No, not the service that works on Windows media player only and you pay and download a "movie" that you can watch for the next 24 hours only on your computer. This is useless. What consumers want is a service that allows them to download a movie (in MPEG-4/XVid/DivX/Theora/whatever) for, say $5, burn it to any DVD easily and watch it on any DVD player of their choice. Imagine now if all this can be done many ways - using your computer, networked DVD players, DVRs, etc., etc. On top of that, how about making the deals with broadband providers to mirror the content for faster downloads? How about helping them deploy fiber optic cables for better and faster market acceptance and saturation?
If not this way, find another way to deliver content and meet the existing and future demands of potential consumers. Let the market and the competition decide what method will win and what your consumers really want.
Instead, the way the cartel is taking the industry and the "market" is paying legislators to try to pass mandated DRM schemes, CDBPTA (or whatever), INDUCE Act, broadcast flag, guaranteed tax revenues (while they are not paying their share of taxes), restricting fair trades, and best of all - suing their own customers.
Will people ever say enough is enough and make their governments disband the illegal cartels?
Comparison (Score:3, Insightful)
CD sales went down, but how about concert revenue?
Movie box office went up, but how about DVD/VHS sales?
Soon there will be only one way to d/l movies (Score:5, Funny)
Ive bought my last movie (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm about ready to cancel my cable TV as well..
Will my dropping off their cutomer roles hurt them? No.. but enough others follow me..
Re:Ive bought my last movie (Score:2, Insightful)
Bad Analogy (Score:3, Insightful)
1 is a case of public safety.
2 is a case of a debatable civil issue.
Re:Ive bought my last movie (Score:4, Insightful)
If you disagree with the policy decisions that the near-monopoly that controls movies, you have only one choice: "vote" with your wallet. It's probably even less effective, because you only have one ideology that you can vote for or against, rather than voting between two competing ideologies, but if you want to do something other than simply bitch about it on slashdot, clearly it's about the only choice you have.
Re:Ive bought my last movie (Score:3, Interesting)
title (Score:5, Insightful)
So stopping piracy will bring movie prices below $12/show right? Riiiiiiiight???
When it costs as much to see the movie in the theater as you can OWN the DVD for later on, it's a wonder they still make money at all.
Original Headline (Score:3, Funny)
Y'all who enjoy lambasting the editors over dupe articles, chew on this for a while, alright?
Mr. 3000 (Score:5, Insightful)
I found the real explanation here, nestled between paragraphs...
"We know there are losses. We believe we're losing $3.5 billion yearly."
...
"My son Jon was executive producer of the recent film Mr. 3000."
Hmmmm. Ever considered that part of that mysterious 3.5 billion dollars might have gone into making this stinker?
In any case, Mr. Glickman does a wonderful job of not answering the question at all, and by pulling a random number out of the air.
Lies and Damned Lies (Score:2, Insightful)
Sales of singles went down significantly.
But...
Its mostly because they stopped selling singles.
Some of you buy into the crap that these people spout. I think its a joke, and those of buying into these lies should be ashamed of yourselves.
Negative Impact (Score:5, Funny)
Right
MPAA Shouldn't be losing money. (Score:5, Insightful)
DVD Burners (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:MPAA Shouldn't be losing money. (Score:3, Insightful)
But there's a big difference here, which is that a record has physical worth to me. Sure, good vinyl costs about 10$/ea, and you only get anywhere from 1-6 songs (most dance records have about 2-4). It's well worth the money, imo, because spinning from softw
Spare me the heart tugging bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
Awww poor baby (Score:5, Funny)
How will they find downloaders? (Score:2)
Value of movies, lost revenues and lost paradise. (Score:5, Insightful)
A) In the past few years, Cable TV, view-on-demand, pay-per-view, TiVo and gang have proliferated. Massively. That means that single-viewing of movies became cheaper. Meaning that people can finally see CatWoman for a dollar before blowing $25 on the DVD. Thus, triage has gotten tougher, and crappy movies can't sell DVDs on title alone, anymore, in quantities they used to.
B) Suing downloaders has nothing to do with lost revenue. Lawsuits are, in the modern world, more frequently made to acquire profits than to compensate for losses. SCO would've NEVER generated income based on its alleged properties on the scale of some of companies whom it is suing. It is far easier, and cheaper in the terms of production expenses, to sue someone than to turn out a new product.
C) Suing downloaders, most likely, doesn't have 'making profit' as a primary goal. Most students and high schoolers can't pay tens of thousands of dollars of damages. No. Goal is Shock and Awe assault on offenders. Smack a hundred of them with lawsuits, and others would back off. At least in theory.
In the end, it all comes down to the fact modern movie costs are overblown. If an actor gets paid several mil. dollars for half a year of half-assed work, and you have several of those actors to pay, then add to that a million other overblown expense issues... Holywood really needs some budget lessons.
No Surprise (Score:5, Interesting)
There's been many studies that showed the file sharing has not decreased (and I would agree with that). There's also studies showing that CD sales have continued to plummet.
So, you may ask, if the monte carlo lawsuit method isn't slowing piracy then why would the MPAA take up the same fight?
The answer is simple. The goal isn't to curb piracy, that won't help anyone. If the CDs being released now are really bad then stopping piracy isn't going to fix that.
Piracy is simply an income source. A few years ago the RIAA had to find, sign, and rape bands, then spend a fair amount of money to advertise and publish the bands. This was lots of work for a moderate income. Lawsuits are much easier. Simply write a program to log into a file sharing network, write down IPs, and have the printer send out extortion letters as fast as it can.
One person, with a pair of laserjet printers and an internet connection, can generate a few thousand dollars per extortion letter printed.
Hold on a second....
Sorry about that delay, I had to fold the paper that just came out of the printer and put it in the envelope. I just made $2000 by threatening some 13 year old kid.
What? You say this will make me look bad? You say that people will become alienated and refuse to buy CDs? I couldn't care less. I, as the RIAA, make far more money mailing out random lawsuits that I do pushing pop CDs.
The lawsuits won't stop piracy, but nobody wants piracy to stop. If piracy were suddenly brought to a halt then the RIAA would have no income from CDs AND no income from lawsuits. Piracy is what keeps the RIAA in business now.
It's what keeps the RIAA in business, it's what keeps SCO in business, and it's worked for years. The MPAA isn't hurting, not in the area of sales. What they see is an additional income source that they can tap into.
If *YOU* want to become rich, simply start an organization called "anti-piracy group". Contact a few dozen big software manufacturers and get them to sign a contract. "If you let my organization sue file sharers on your behalf, I'll settle out of court and give you half."
You won't stop piracy, but you'll be filthy rich really quick. It's a good income for the software companies so they may be eager to sign up!
And then... :) (Score:3, Funny)
Yee haw!!! Creating your own lawsuits er... market.
Isn't that sweet? O:)
No nepotism here... (Score:5, Funny)
A: My son Jon was executive producer of the recent film Mr. 3000. A few days after the film was released, a member of my staff found it being sold as a DVD just a few blocks from our offices. I called my son to give him the bad news, and he told me this is happening to all the current films. And then he said, "And what are you going to do about it, Dad?"
Why didn't dad do something about it being such a crappy movie? I wasted a whole day's worth of bandwidth for it.
a much different situation (Score:2)
Ahm yes, but those numbers are based on data when the MPAA wasn't treating their customers like dirt and wasn't sueing everyone. Maybe after their lawsuits get the press they are after there will be a change in the numbers. Of course, if there is, they will just point to that as proof that piracy hurts their bottom line.
Give him a chance! (Score:5, Interesting)
This has been mentioned before, but while Sec. of Agriculture under Clinton, he was the catalyst in a civil rights cleanup in the department. He had little support from anybody on this (including Clinton, most people would say). He just thought it was the right thing to do. I think that's pretty amazing these days.
People may hate the MPAA (for good reason), but it's better to have somebody like Glickman at their helm than Valenti.
Re:Give him a chance! (Score:3, Insightful)
We should be applauding 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.
Fuzzy Math Redux. (Score:2)
The MPAA is not suing to recover possibly lost income. They are suing to discourage future lost revenue by dismissing the notion that illegal movie distribution will go unpunished. They want to discourage illegal behaviour and they have the force of the law behind them.
Whether or not they have record profits this year, whether you think all movies are formulaic hollywood dreck, whether you think movies contribute to the decay of society,
"We Believe"...No, I Know... (Score:2, Funny)
"We know there are losses. We believe we're losing $3.5 billion yearly."
Uhhh....Ahem.
Mr. Glickman, I spend about $1200 a year going to the movies. I **KNOW** that two thirds of those movies were absolute crap and in NO WAY deserving of 90 YEARS worth of copyright protection.
You just keep up this sue-happy asshat behaviour and you can count on a grass roots ground swell that'll have the congress winding that ol' copyright clock back to 17 years where it belongs!
YOU are not in charge of things arou
Re:"We Believe"...No, I Know... (Score:2)
so it's no wonder the money is "lost", because the customers don't have that money to begin with.
Better Questions (Score:2)
Q: Mr Glickman, which movies specifically will you be suing people for sharing?
Q: And which networks will you be targetting in your lawsuits?
Q: Specifically what time of day will you most likely be busy gathering IPs of sharers?
I call BS (Score:2)
I guess this numbnuts has never seen a camcorder copy of a movie. Absolute CRAP.
Like everyone will start downloading crappy camcorder copies, so no one shows
Them spouting loss figures... (Score:2)
The MPAA et al should get it out of their heads that the figures they are spouting as actual losses to their revenue stream are factual will actually be believed by anyone with anything beyond about a grade 7 education.
The figures they quote are not actual losses, and I'm pretty damn sure that everybody knows it, so there's no point in them trying to convince anyone that they are.
That said, however... they are still entitled to compensation because their copyrights were infringed. Anyon
Yay for nepotism (Score:3, Insightful)
A: My son Jon was executive producer of the recent film Mr. 3000. A few days after the film was released, a member of my staff found it being sold as a DVD just a few blocks from our offices. I called my son to give him the bad news, and he told me this is happening to all the current films. And then he said, "And what are you going to do about it, Dad?"
I can't believe he's actually proud to bring that up. I just can't believe it. It's almost as perverted as the fact that Dubya can call on Jeb or his Dadda to get him whatever he wants.
Man, America is going down the pipes in fifth gear, and nobody's doing anything about it.
<RANT> All you pacifist liberals/lefties/intellos/geeks who like to shit on Micheal Moore because you think it's more intellectual to be able to shit on your own camp (ref. Team America, World Police)... you'd better get off your starbucks drinking asses and get something done, and fast...
I grew up in several countries and continents through my life. Namely, Canada, Turkey and France. I clearly remember in my younger years how the US was in fact something of an ideal. An actual land of the free. You may not realize it but this is changing fast. It actually boggles my mind that such a deep cultural change could sweep the globe so fast.
</RANT>
PS. FUCK KARMA!
Re:Yay for nepotism (Score:3, Funny)
I'm condemning the people for voting at 51% for someone who's clearly daddy's boy. George Bush, along with all of the others in power right now, is there *only* because of his family ties into money and oil. He did not earn anything on his own. And it seems the american people attribute no value to
Re:See it, but you do not see far enough (Score:3, Insightful)
Your real problem is that you cannot see beyond the power of the moment, to the balance of the future. Sadly your hatred blinds you to the truth, and you see fit to live your days in the paranoid shell you have crafted for yourself.
It might be true. I can see right now, in these days of despair, that my biggest weakness is my extreme aversion for the American 'Freedom' and Glory. Now a much less rational me would have been very upset
The difference between the MPAA and the RIAA (Score:2)
The difference is summarized in one word: theaters.
My understanding was that this was one of the major reasons the MPAA wasn't going to sue customers because the association between the MPAA and theaters is too strong creating a very vulnerable and public target.
This is a very different situation from that of the RIAA. Whi
Told you it doesn't matter... (Score:2)
Not to mention the slashdot articles in the past stating how much p2p activity was up in the past few years...
I guess their case just about falls apart, eh?
My argument still stands: it really doesn't matter if you download movies or not - the rest of america will still pay to see em. Ok, so they only get $9 billion instead of $9.7 billion. Boo hoo.
Corruption (Score:3, Interesting)
Society is really messed up when corruption amongst lawmakers is treated as casually as both interviewer and interviewee did here.
Did the interviewer make up the bit about Republicans claiming an entitlement to certain jobs based on their control of Congress, or is their support for this?
This is a far more serious issue than movie piracy.
Losing $3.5 billion yearly?? (Score:3, Interesting)
Quality (Score:5, Funny)
The biggest problem with videos of movies that come out on theater is that they are in Cam quality on IRC. I download these religiously. I don't think I have a god-given right to them, but I download them like no tomorrow. If caught, oh well, it was fun while it lasted and the MPAA can enjoy suing me. They can "make an example" out of me. If someone can get away with using lawsuits to ask for outrageous amounts of money in damages, then I don't particularly see a future for myself, anyway. All I see right now is dodging one litigous situation after another.
Anyway, I steal because I just can't justify spending 7 dollars per ticket plus five dollars popcorn and pop for myself and a date. And yet, I'm suppose to court all these lovely young ladies that are gold diggers too. (Told you I was an asshole, stay with me, here)
I went to see Return of the King, and I think that will be the last one. Forget the crappy quality of the Cam versions, I enjoy the other little things, like:
1) Popcorn and pop cost whatever I spend on them at the grocery store. Usually about 50 cents a can and package.
2) I have as much room as I want, either on the couch or leaning back in a computer chair. I can even change my clothes while watching the movie.
3) I can pause the movie when I have to take a crap. Or to go jerk off.
4) I can answer my cell phone and say, "What's up?" without being booed and hissed to the foyer. Same goes with farting, people won't get offended and tell those pimply-faced teens to ask me to leave.
No, I don't answer my cell phone during movies (I have it on vibrate, I'm not a total asshole) but it sure is nice to hit pause and then answer it right there. Can you imagine if they gave people remotes so they could pause the movie while they used the crapper, got a drink of water, made out, or breast-fed the baby? Return of the King would have been 3 days long, not 3 hours.
For what it is worth, it's not the MPAA that is the problem, it's the damned theaters. They have to start introducing some things that I can't purchase for my home and use that to try to get me to go there.
Here's some ideas:
1) Private rooms or twenty-person rooms with a large screen TV instead of a projector.
2) A table I can put food, Goobers, or a UMP on.
3) Theater massages - This can include vibrating chairs
4) Headphones. These serve two purposes: first, I don't have to hear the little brats screaming/whining/crying; and second, the abducter that is stealing the screaming/whining/crying brat will actually get away before the mom notices her kid is gone, so the kid will grow up in a god-fearing Mormon/Candian home, far away from me.
5) Naked chicks. The theater girls aren't always that ugly and fat, why not pay the good ones more to give us a brief synopsis on the movie while in the nude?
6) Hell, maybe if they even started providing gas for my big olde SUV I'd start going.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I introduce the... (Score:4, Funny)
Careful, now. Not too close.
TV is Theft (Score:3, Funny)
I think it's only a matter of time before McDonalds starts suing people who distribute recipes online.
Re:TV is Theft (Score:3, Insightful)
As to the entire **AA anti-downloading stance, as I and others have pointed out many times, it has nothing to do with piracy. It has to do with *controlling the distribution channel*. If the only way to distribute a song or movie is thru the big cartel, the big cartel takes a cut of the profit (or in Real Life, MOST if not ALL of the profit). If
Its murder, silly, not theft (Score:5, Funny)
Copyright infringement is murder, and should be penalized accordingly!
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
RIAA issue is completely seperate from MPAA issue (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm glad I just stated the obvious but I did it for a good point. The extended time it takes to watch a movie then to listen to a CD changes the effect of the product. You don't go around watching Chapter 3 & 5 of Kill Bill Vol. 1 and then watch a little Chapter 6 out of Cube. When this is easy to do with music, because one song is not directly connected to the other. With movies your going to watch the whole thing.
I find downloading movies is more like renting them, if I like the movie, I will most likely buy it. Mainly for the subtitles, great sound, dvd extras, and overall quality. Music isn't getting any better weather you get the CD or the mp3s of it. You can always download the cover and anything else that comes with the CD. You can do this with DVD's too but most don't. Most likely you will find a divx rip of the movie, with no subtitles (or enlish if the movie is in another language) with no dvd extras, no DD 7.1 surround sound option, a set quality and view port. The Divx copies are extremely limited.
People that download these movies for the sake of watching the movie wouldn't buy the movie anyways, they would probably rent it. Which as we know doesn't take away money from the MPAA, it takes away money from the rental business. Also there is a slim chance that people wouldn't even rent the movie. Generally the only thing I will do with a downloaded movie is watch it once to find out if i will be purchasing a good product that i will enjoy having. Sure, you could say that I am still doing this illegally, but this is helping the movie business because I have bought dvd's now that I wouldn't have imagined wanting to buy before.
I do disagree with what people are doing when it comes to pirating movies before they have came out in theaters, this can take away from theater sales because there are quite a few people that don't care if they see it in the theater or not, how ever this seems to be happening in every data business these days, weather it is music, movies, games, or software, on any platform and through any medium, it is a bit of a madness, but shame of the MPAA and the RIAA for trying to make a point by sueing random people that may be benifiting their company. You do not slap the hand that feeds you, eventually your going to end up starving!
While he IS a typical *AA jackass... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's perfectly reasonable to argue that that type of piracy does represent lost sales, and I for one think it's entirely legitimate to go after the people peddling those sorts of things. Too bad he goes on with Now THAT just makes him sound like a media-whore-sue-everything-that-moves twit; it's a shame, he had a good thing going. Well, except that he shouldn't be allowed to breed - I wouldn't d/l Mr. 3000 if you paid me $9 to.
Provide a good alternative (Score:3, Interesting)
And I consider hard media dead. Dead, I tell you. All my entertainment is enjoyed on a large computer screen. I would have gotten a projector if I had a bigger apartment, I am sure I'll never own a television set or any of it's related devices ever again.
So what is the movie industries alternative for me? Nothing. This is the alternative I want:
I buy a one months free rental card from a major TV station or producer, or from some movie corporation. The one months pass gives me the right to view all and anything from that particular corporation. The corporation should make all their shows available in high quality easily-distributed divx files. Not only does this make customers satisfied, but it allows people to distribute the files and advertise them freely. Movie vendors could also make two versions available: One available for everybody with advertisements and one without. Those who would pay for a non-advertisement copy would do that, those who do not want to pay will not do that regardless.
I'm sure I am not alone in being willing to pay for the copyrighted files available on the net. I would very much like to clarify that it is the divx versions available on the net I am willing to pay for. I am not willing to pay for any streaming service, any service with a closed file format, any format that requires a special player and so forth. The movie industry tends to want control, restricting the customers freedom to use the product to the point where he simply will not buy. He will get a free hi-qualify copy that is USABLE instead. 'I would pay for a streaming service or a dvd if it gave me the right to download the xvid version,' someone told me a while ago.
Now, how would the movie industry end piracy anyway? THIS IS NOT A REALISTIC option. They can not do that. They can, however, MOVE the piracy. They can move it from BitTorrent to Freenet. Then what? There is already freenet and there is not a thing anyone or any corporation, no matter how big or small, can do about it. BitTorrent sites can be closed by Napster was closed.
The public demand for soft-versions (not on hard media) of entertainment is what is making BitTorrent use up to 85% of the outgoing bandwidth at Universities because they industry itself does not provide any realistic meet for the demand.
So what is wrong with hard media? First, it is very unpractical. It takes up space. It involves finding the hard media and inserting it into some device. Download the file and it's already playable from the device, without finding anything. Any computer, xbox and other funny device today can store one movie, and that is all the space needed. Movies are so widely available today anyway there is no need to store it, most people now tend to just download and play music and movies a few times before they delete it. People used to burn these things back in the last century, today it's quicker to download a music album off the net when you want to listen to it than to find the CD you bought of the album 20 years ago.
The environmental issue: There is not a single scientific paper published the last 25 years that contradicts a 6 th wave of mass extinctions (We have had 5 throughout history, the dinosaurs got hit by the second) within the next two hundred years due to the human species over-harvesting, destroying of natural habitats and pollution. We are cutting down ten times more trees than the world naturally produces, we are harvesting 25% to 50% of all plant material produced by the earth in any single year. We need to stop producing garbage. CDs, DVDs and video tapes are unneeded garbage, things we produce not for survival but to entertain ourselves. And for no good reason at all. Electronic distribution eliminates the whole harmful production of these hard-media items.
Re:Interview with first post chief (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Which is it? (Score:2)
Box office receipts mean movie sales. So despite the fact that their revenues are as high as ever, they still find the need to sue 12 year old
Re:Which is it? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's called a comparison. The RIAA has sued file sharers. The MPAA is going to sue file sharers. The RIAA was in the position of having lost revenue. The MPAA is doing it more out of principle, as their revenue has not fallen.
Looking at the two different organizations, one can see that the imperitives behind doing this are likely different, though the motivation is still a fat stack of $$'s.
Re:Which is it? (Score:2)
On the other hand, the movie industry's profits have never been better. It's hard to claim piracy is having an impact if their profits are increasing.
That is the point of the quote.
Re:Which is it? (Score:2)
So the situation for the MPAA and the RIAA isn't all that different.
Re:HA! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:HA! (Score:2, Informative)
Just a note to that, its the theaters themselves that add the commercials beforehand. The large theaters by me all have commercials, but if I go to one of the smaller(ie. Non-chain) theaters, I'm am greated by a blank screen and a radio playing right up until the previews start.
Re:HA! (Score:2)
I agree with you, but as has been said here before, the entire online community is not your friend.
You have no idea what you are talking about. (Score:5, Insightful)
Distributing other peoples works without thier permission is indeed against the law and has been for a couple hundred years. The only difference that selling makes is that it then becomes a criminal offense instead of just a civil one.