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Movie Industry Cries All the Way to the Bank
shandrew writes: "Jack Valenti, president of the Motion Picture Association of America, has reported that the year 2001 was the "greatest box office year in film history" with movie admissions reaching their highest level since 1959. Isn't this the same industry that is complaining that piracy is putting them out of business?"
It does seem pretty surprising. They stil try and push through these stupid laws & bills to prevent piracy, yet here is another example that the market is booming.
I can't exactly lay my hands on figures, but I know the same is true of the music industry - not necesessarily their best year or anything like that, but I know that they are definately not hurting from lack of revenue.
Now maybe they can cut some of the cinema prices? I couldnt help but notice that the prices keep ticking up, whilst the adverts get longer and longer..
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
Don't forget if there wasn't 350,000 downloads(hehe yeah right) a day of pirated music online this banner year for the film industry would be even great which is of course more reason why we should support all of their digital copyright ideas right away and with out any debate!!
:) hehehe you could even charge people
:)
hehe i got a bridge in brookyln i can sell ya reall cheap to
$25 for a once a year fee
$ 2 per hour of use
$ 5 for 1000 views of the bridge from the road
ok that was cruel
Hey, lets not forget that the RIAA was bitching the same bitch and making the same kind of profits a year ago, and now. Now things couldn't be bleaker, many people are predicting the demise of the recording industry entirely.
A year ago napster was in full swing.
Also, one thing you'll notice is that the MPAA isn't making exactly the same claims that the RIAA was. And honstly movie piracy isn't such a big deal. The quality isn't as good, and the download times are insaine. Back in the modem days it used to take me just about 20 minutes or so to d/l an mp3. But snagging a 1gig divx of a new feature film off the campus lan can take an hour, and it can take days to get off filesharing services like morphius.
Movie trading just hasn't caught on the way napster has.
What the MPAA is saying is that movie piracy is going to hurt them in the future and it's also keeping them from jumping on the digital TV, movie thing (thats why we need the SSSCA!).
You'll also note that these are box-office results, not home video rentals or DVD sales. Piracy wouldn't have any affect on that anymore then music piracy would affect concert sales.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
According to the Fish, the post reads:
The peculiar thing is that they are able to amortize the film in less than 1 year. So to that it comes that the right of Copyright lasts 75 years? I believe that with 5 years of Copyright they would have time to sell the film in the CINEMAS and to even sell a few DVDs to price of " opening ". But to more money they make more money want, and more case is arranged has to do the government to them.
This is actually a really good point - so I'm posting the translation as a public service.
If you work harder and earn more than the common man, you should be brought to justice.
The wealthiest people in the world are hardly the most hard-working. Look at the cast of the TV show Friends: They will be paid one million dollars per episode to film a 1/2 hour TV show. How does that compare to some guy that's doing construction work for 8 hours every day? Think of the pity that the average coal miner would feel for the hard-working cast of Friends.
People like Jack Valenti aren't hard-working. They're just greedy.
Listen to me: Valenti and his hord consider that DVD Region-ing is a way to prevent a film to be seen in a place in which it has not previously been played in theater.
they could schedule some 2-year period (hard-coded on the DVD, if they want) during which the DVD would only be playable in a given place, but after this period, it could be played worldwide with *no* limitations...
Trolling using another account since 2005.
There's the fundamental weakness of the arguement. When dealing with intellectual property the stealing doesn't cost you (the owner) anything directly. You're only losing the potential profit.
Now the problem is figuring out what that potential profit might have been. Only a small fraction of the people who downloaded your CD for free would have otherwise purchased the music. Against that you have to (or should) weigh the benefit of additional exposure - more people will hear your music and will tend to make it more popular, thus selling more CDs.
I don't think anybody really knows what the impact of all these free downloads is. It is clear that the figures the RIAA throws around are nonsense, since they count each download as a lost sale.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
The goal of the media giants has nothing to do with piracy really. They want the infrastructure for pay-per-view/play, which will make their profits skyrocket beyond comprehension. Watch that movie again? Pay again. Play that song twice? Pay twice.
Piracy is a good excuse. If they can use the 'piracy threat' to force DRM technology to be adapted, it opens the way for a pay-per-view model.
Piracy is the best free advertisement that any industry may have. People will always want to buy the original, and if they can afford it they will. they will sample the pirate and then buy the original.
there is a common belief that anything that is pirate is in fact of worst quality then the original one. This quality need not to be in the format (video quality, cristal sound and stuff like that), I believe that people will buy quality packing and quality extras. How many DVD rips you seen with tons of extra features, and how many came with say a poster of the movie?
even MS use piracy to enhance their monopoly, why do you think that every one is familiar with their enviroment?
[]'s Victor Bogado da Silva Lins
^[:wq
Because without open and honest debate oover laws crafted by users and producers of content we will eventually lose the ability to loan a DVD or a CD or whatever the nextgen of media will be(MPAADISC for example) to a friend to listen to and apreciate or even to make a back up copy... Potential profit is just that! POTENTIAL I'm not gonna go buy the britney spears CD but I have listened to an MP3 of it downloaded by a friend here at work and we laughed at how gay it was and converting it (in parts) to .wav and making it a start up sound on 10 people's computers here.. so the company loses potential profit.. but thats all it ever was since we would never be dumb enuff to ever buy it since we used it for less than 1 minute of amusement.
Also on the otherhand I have downloaded MP3's of an amazing artist Victor Wooden who plays BASS with bela fleck and i was so impressed with it that I went out and bought his whole collection of CD's. which would never have happened(from me) had i not heard a few of his songs first...
good enuff answer for ya?
These arguments are getting old, but here we go...
Copying, as bad as it might be, is *not* stealing, try to get that into your minds!
When you steal something from someone, they don't have the original object anymore, you do. The poor guy from who the thing was stolen is lacking his object.
When you copy something, the guy still has got his stuff left, but you also have a *copy* of the the object. You didn't steal anything from anyone.
Now some people will start yelling: "But you stole the Programmers/Moviemakers/Artists paycheck, they don't get the money they deserve...". True. But it isn't theft. Theft would be if you broke into that artists house and stole the money he has already made from previous artistic work. Now it's not theft, but copyright infringement. Theft sounds worse and is worse, imho. The people affected will very much notice when someone steals the stuff they already have, but not as much when someone copy one of their works.
--
"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
The loss of potential profits is a serious problem, especially if you can copy the stuff you sell infinitely.
So they propose legislation forcing each of us to pay more for our consumer electronics, and suffer with less capability, all so that they can protect against potential profit loss. It's not my job to protect their profits and neither is it the job of the government.
What the government should be doing is legislating fair use laws to keep consumers from finding themselves unable to copy music, record television programs, and fast-forward through commercials.
What next? Will we be required by law to pay a private security guard to stand over us and make sure we don't pirate software?
Well it can't. The internet cannot completely replace the movie going experience. Theaters are (usually) the best place to watch movies. You have an enourmous screen, awesome audio (theater dependent...), and I think most people prefer watching movies as a group.
For somebody to pirate just released movies today, that usually requires taking a video camera to the theater and capturing the footage from that. The quality of that capture process is horrid. The cool theater audio gets ruined. And getting a group of friends together to huddle around your screen is a 1-way ticket to the geek table. No matter how good the piracy of first run movies gets, it still doesn't hold a candle to going and watching the movie.
What can and will hurt the movie industry is inflexibility with pricing. There are a LOT of movies coming out lately, but my budget's having a hard time shelling out $7 for myself and $7 for my gf, only to have the movie totally suck ass. *Cough Rollerball Cough*. If theaters would lower their prices to say $4.50, then I'd likely see 2 movies per weekend, instead of like 2 movies a month. If Hollywood's producing more movies, they're going to find themselves a bit diluted. Suddenly downloading a video taped movie overnight doesn't sound so bad.
"Derp de derp."
it's very simple, R-rated pictures do not sell.
Wrong. The MPAA prevents R-rated movies from selling by rating them R! If there were no movie-rating bullshit then studios won't have to work so hard and remove quite innocent scenes to get a PG-13 rating. Get over it! Only parents should decide what their children see. Many parents are very liberal in this sense but the rating system limits the creativity of the movie producers to create.
Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org
Can DVD sales suffer from internet piracy? Possibly. Can box-office sales? Nope. Pirating a movie in the theaters cannot hold a candle to going and seeing the movie. Frankly, if somebody is going to download the pirated movie, then the chances are they aren't going to pay to see it. It is too big of a hassle.
DVD sales can be seriously hurt by P2P sharing. The MPAA has a few things they can do to prevent that, though. Loading DVD's up with features is one idea. The DVD still has value if the movie's getting downloaded, but the extras aren't. (Or am I in the minority of DVD purchasers because I care more about the bonus footage and making of scenes...?)
Another good approach would be to get a handle on why people download the movies. Are they just curious if the movie is any good? Well here's an idea, the MPAA should release an edited version of the movie, free to watch on the net. Maybe insert some ads into it or something to get some money per view. Edit out the language, and maybe cut out a few scenes. This way, somebody can watch the movie to see if it's interesting to them. Then they can go buy the DVD if it's interesting to them, or move on if it's not. If they can get ad revenue that way, then it's not wasted time for the MPAA.
Hopefully the MPAA will look at why people download movies and try to provide a profitable alternative to them, instead of trying to sue them out of existence. It works better for both sides if they take a more mature attitude about it.
"Derp de derp."
Better - maybe put online only the first half of the move (+ADs). Many people will watch it to see what's it all about and then will be in great suspense and urgency to actually see the whole movie. It's much better than trailers.
Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org
The loss of potential profits is a serious problem,
DAMMIT DAMMIT I have lost my lottery ticket, I have lost 1 MILLION EUROS!!!
..wait..
What do you mean with "you should check first if it was the winning one"?
(Potential is exactly that, potential. What next? Suing your employer because he didn't fire you, depriving you of the possibilility of getting a better job?)
The summary reads:
Isn't this the same industry that is complaining that piracy is putting them out of business?
I don't think so. I don't think the movie industry is claiming that piracy is putting them out of business, or even causing great harm at the moment. I think that their argument is that emerging broadband and internet technologies could soon put them out of business, if effective legislation and anti-piracy measures are not enacted.
The primary difference between the recording industry and the movie industry is that the recording people are complaining about what's happening right now, whereas the movie people are acting to prevent a "Napster for Movies" from being possible three years from now.
A pox on both their houses, of course. But I think it's wrong to suggest the movie industry is complaining about piracy ruining their profits today. It's all about what they fear will happen in the near future.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
some people DO/DID work to get where they are
The vast majority of wealthy people either lucked into their money or were born into it. Some guy sitting in a leather chair in a spacious office pushing paper around is not working hard. The guy who built his office is the one who worked hard.
Everyone wants to believe that, with hard work, they, too, can be rich. Well grow up and stop listening to fairy tales. Most people, if they work really hard, will become middle to upper middle class. And that will be as far as they go.
I don't feel sorry for the person that is mining coal because they were too drunk to finish high school.
I would love to drop you off in a rural coal mining town with that little message tattooed on your forehead. It would bring me great pleasure to see you get the shit beaten out of you for your bigotry.
You are the most vile form of snob. There are many hard-working, sober coal miners, construction workers, assembly line workers, and and other tradesmen. You disgust me.
What made me go watch both Galaxy Quest and Blair Witch was that scifi-channel ran a cleverly written 'documentary' on them. In the case of Blair Witch, the documentary explained how some kids disappeared but their film was found... but in an Unsolved Mysteries kind of way which was meant to sound real. Galaxy Quest had a 'behind the scenes' documentary, pretending that Galaxy Quest was a real TV show. These documentaries were fake, but they were fun to watch. I actually liked the BW one better than the movie. It stood on it's own as a neat show.
It'd be cool if Hollywood would start releasing clever marketing 'shows' like this on the web. Give me some downloadable content to watch on my laptop while i'm flying! They could use the Internet as a powerful marketing tool, but they have to do more than use fancy Flash banner ads.
"Derp de derp."
So the more sweat and muscle the work requires the more you should be paid, right?
No, but if you're making millions of dollars a year, then you should not be crying to Congress because a few working people have copied your DVDs to share with friends.
They will be paid one million dollars per episode to film a 1/2 hour TV show. How does that compare to some guy that's doing construction work for 8 hours every day? Think of the pity that the average coal miner would feel for the hard-working cast of Friends.
In case you havn't figured it out yet, people arn't payed based on how hard they work - they are payed based on how much money they make for their employers! An executive who makes $190,000 a year might not work harder than a fast food worker, but he or she does create more buissness; he or she does more for the employer. That's how wages work in our world.
BTW, the word "piracy" seems to me to be highly inappropriate if one thinks of what pirates usually do. We could just as well call it "terrorism".
Shure and the next thing you will see is the MPAA bombing some housing with the backup of president Bush himself.
Seriuosly you are advice is to change one word (piracy) because of what 16th century (17th or even 18th century, I'm realy not that good with history) people did, for one that is used now and is on all the media? I realy don't think it is a good idea.
[]'s Victor Bogado da Silva Lins
^[:wq
I'll admit I'm guilty of "Movie Trading". It's how I decide what I'm going to buy. For example none of my friends have Neon Genesis Evangelion and I'm sure as hell ain't going to find it at my local blockbuster. Since 25-30 greenbacks is way to much for me to spend on something I'm seeing for the first time, and might not even like.
So I became one with the devil one fateful day and fired up Morpheus. And on that day the worlds biggest evangelion freak was born.
I didn't play with linux for two weeks, cause I didn't want to reboot out of my win2k partion so I could keep downloading. Eventually I had the entire series all mine for free, some were fairly decent quality too.
Did I stick it to the artists who created such an animation masterpiece? Well some would say yes. Some would say they deserve to be ripped off simply for the fact that they charge so much for a three episode dvd. I'm not going to get into that. Plenty of threads covering that topic as it is.
In my case it dosen't really matter anyways. I purchesed all eight dvd's, have an almost complete collection of evangelion toys (Just need to get Unit 01). And a gorgeous Askua poster in a black frame hanging on the wall above my monitor.
Maybe my case is an exception. I never would have bought all this stuff if I never saw the crappy divxes. I relize they're is alot of freeloading on the p2p networks, but because of software like Morpheus and Gnutella I shelled out quite a bit of cash at my local Suncoast. This stuff isn't cheap!
>
1. not all movies are block busters that people watch more than once and buy the dvd/vhs.
2. nitch movies like foriegn or art films may not make as much money in theaters. Most big theaters no longer play art films, unless they are produced and directed by famous people.
3. pirated version of "so-so" movies will have a harder time breaking even. Why spend 10+ bucks for a movie with no production value, which barely keeps you interested?
4. pirated version of popular or great movies tend to see a benefit.
5. pirating may affect movie budgets negatively and force movie makers to do more with less money.
6. pirating of movies before they are released to the public may kill any chance of it making money, let alone profit. Crap movies will be affected the most by this.
7. Pirating DVD disk image may become a bigger issue in the future, but for the most part it's professional pirating by organized criminals that are the biggest problem.
Just my opinion, but I think the movie execs just don't understand it and realize they need to change how they do things. In a lot of ways, art and foriegn films could see an increase in popularity if video on demand becomes reality. Someone might not spend 7.00 for a ticket, 3.00 for popcorn, 2.00 for a drink and 20 minutes to drive to the theater for an art film, but they might spend 3 bucks to see it at home. There are a lot of ways for the movie industry to re-invent itself and make more money. Now if only they would "think" instead of react, they could really see a whole new world of cinema.
I like watching short movies on the net, when they are good. I wouldn't spend 7 bucks on a questionable movie, but I would risk 1-2 bucks. As more people master the art of making short movies, the market will grow. Especially if hollywood continues to crank out formulaic junk.
Hmmm, let me see if I understand this now:
Rampant movie piracy in Asia means that we have to have region encoded DVD's and electronic devices that won't copy anything without going "mother may I" to the RIAA and MPAA?
Have you seen some of these pirated movies? Someone walks into a theater with a freakin' cam corder and films the film. Or, they borrow the actual film from a friend who works there and they do the transfer that way. How do ANY of the proposed DRM (Digital Rights Minimization) tools going to prevent that?
The single biggest complaint that most of us have is that there is no logic to support the laws that the industry is asking for. The last time the MPAA went this crazy against a technology it was the Video Recorder. Fortunatly, they picked on Sony and ran up against a company that was willing and able to fight. This lead to the fair-use laws and one of the largest ancillary markets for the movie industry ever. You think they'd learn from the past and look for the money making angle.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
Funny, I think 2001 is the first year I didn't see at least one movie per week, not even one per month, presumably because 95% of them sucked shit.
It's quite telling when a bunch of chums (some smart, some dumb) look at the 24-plex' listings and all say "there's nothing worth watching". What's even more telling is that the economy is supposedly in a tight spot, yet admission prices have jumped 25% in most cinemas. Are the movies 25% better ? nahhh, they just hurt more when you realize you've just sat through 2 hours of crap that cost you 12$ (canadian). I'd much rather watch 2 hours of Family Man back-to-back for the same price, at least I'd walk out of the dark room with a fresh smile.
Piracy has very little to do with it. I think it plays on the 'value threshold' as I like to call it. Some movies might be worth seeing on a big screen, others you think "hmm nah, i'll wait for the DVD/VHS". Now if one finds a DivX of that second-grade movie, and it's relatively easy and inexpensive to obtain, then why not ? At the same time, this sends a faint monetary message to the movie industry : "we're not going to invest in movies that suck". When thousands of people start doing this, the execs will notice, they might start grasping for more legislative strings to pull, but the message will get across one way or another.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Gee, that's funny. I've noticed the opposite trend. Back in high school in the early 80's (cough!), the theatres here in Richmond, VA were huge. 'Ridge Cinema' had four or five enormous screens, with sense-surround or whatever it was called. (Remember Battlestar Galactica used it...).
Now, the Virginia Center Commons theatre is like a 20-plex, but with much smaller screens. Here's my theory: Say a real blockbuster comes out. You can show it on 5 of your 20 screens and still meet demand. You can even stagger the start times to limit the wait for the customer. As interest dwindles, you can reduce the number of screens in use (freeing them up for other flix), while still offering the movie in essentially full viewing rooms.
In the case of the old, large-screen model, as interest waned you'd be wasting all that space to continue to offer the movie, and would be unable to show anything else. I think it makes a heckuva lotta sense, actually.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Funny thing, now that the popularity of napster has waned CD sales have gone down. Dont get me wrong, I know there's still plenty of music sharing going on out there, but I remember when DJ's at radio stations were developing massive libraries of music off of napster. Now that napster is by the wayside and music sales are dropping the industry still blames piracy for waning sales although, when music sharing was up and popular sales were high, now that sharing is dying sales are going down. It is odd how a scapegoat remains a scapegoat long after he's been served up with mint jelly on the side.
Though I mostly agree with you I want to add a bit of insight from a different location in the world. Here in Europe (and most of the rest of the world not being Northern America), we have to wait a couple of weeks to a couple of months, before a movie that has been released in the US, is shown here in the cinemas. If it ever shows up in the cinemas at all, because many movies, even good ones, go straight to video here or never are released at all. If you download a movie during that waiting period and watch it, you generally won't go to see it in the cinema, nor rent the DVD. So here downloading movies is hurting (in a small way) the sale of cinema tickets, though in my opinion it is mostly because the studios restrict when and if we can see a particular movie.
The big record, movie and tv-companies haven't yet caught on to the fact that the world is a village and that people want to see and hear stuff when it becomes available, not when/if a company decides they can see or hear it.
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You are forgetting foreign markets... Valenti (unless I completely missed it in the article) is only talking about US revenue... lots of non-top 20 films get carried overseas. Even if a film "only" makes 30M of it's 47M cost in the US how hard would it be to make another 17M world-wide? Not very hard really...
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
I don't have any more information to hand about screen sizes over time, so I can only say what I think is happening. Perhaps its a UK phenomenon *shrug*
what else? Video games (the majority at least) have remained at about $50 since forever (though gameboy games have climbed). Hardware, just about any type, is always dropping. Magazines (for the content based argument) seem to sell for approximately what they always have. What else out there continues to climb in price year after year?
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
I'm no big fan of piracy, however we all know it can be very useful to get pirated material of things not available or no longer available on the internet or wherever your piracy needs are filled. However, this just goes to show that there is still no positive link between the amount of pirate movies and how many people visit their local cinema. Remember a few years back (mid 80s?) when nobody was going to the cinema? They blamed the video store. Pirate movies have been around for years and years and years and years and... snip. They'll blame steps splitting up on mp3.com next
The vast majority of wealthy people either lucked into their money or were born into it.
:)
That's a huge generalization. And what's wealthy? Someone who makes double the average US income? Most IT geeks passed that during the boom a few years ago. I know I wasn't born wealthy, and I make more then the average, as do most people I know
Some guy sitting in a leather chair in a spacious office pushing paper around is not working hard. The guy who built his office is the one who worked hard.
Oh that's a poor comparison. What if that guy behind the desk started the company 50 years ago - what if it's a construction company - that built that same building. This owner risked it all - his house, his financials, everything, back then, to start that business years ago. He busted his nuts.
Is there no time where someone who's paid their dues can sit back and reap the rewards?
http://slashdot.org/~tf23/journal
Its been that way since the depression. People who couldn't afford a loaf of bread could afford to spend a few hours in a darkened room forgetting about their troubles.
One more thing that moron Valenti's wrong about. Gad. Can how can you be that full of shit and live?
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
I think you must mean "had a higher turnover" - "making money" is synonymous with making a profit.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Sometimes DVDs from States get here (Portugal) before the movie does (theater).
Lot's of people see it and lose interest.
Others like it, but ain't going to the cinema in two weeks to see it again.
So, they can get hit pretty bad.
They should release movies worldwide at the same time.
If copying overseas is the main problem then why are these companies hitting their most profitable and loyal home based customers?
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Remember, this is the same industry in which no film ever makes a profit, thus negating the need to pay royalties, yet somehow nobody ever goes bankrupt.
Yes. It IS an argument. Some object's price is meaningful only within given geopolitical aspect. $1200 for the tulip flower is certainly too high even for USA, but it was pretty ok(converted to gold equivalent) in Holland during 1600..1700 timeframe. $15-$20 for the DVD is (mostly) ok in USA, but hardly acceptible here in Russia. Well, just an example - Jagged Alliance 2 (one of my favourite games) originally was priced at $49 or like. Localized Russian version (localisation done by Buka, under agreement with Sir-Tech), costed about $2.50 for two disk set and about $3.50 for shrinkwrapped version. And since Buka released their version (perfectly legal) with a price competing with pirated copies (they were priced for $2) - there were no pirated JA2 versions on the market anymore. Just an example.
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
I couldn't agree more.
There really isn't just one Brittney Spears. There are actually many of them. When it comes to blonde teeny-pop musicians, they are a dime a dozen.
Its just that the recording industry decided to market and sell the hell out of the particular one THEY picked.
They created the demand by promoting this one. They limited the supply by controlling the industry to prevent other blonde fake-boobed teeny pop musicians from getting exposure.
And the kids fall for it every time.
if you're making millions of dollars a year, then you should not be crying to Congress...
You raise 2 interesting questions:
1. At what point do you make so much money that you cannot reasonably expect the law to protect your property?
2. At what point do you make so little money that the laws that protect property no longer apply to you?
It is people with the least amount of property that have the most the gain from the rigourous enforcement of laws protecting property. If those laws mean they can't pirate movies, that's the price they pay so that people can't steal stuff from them.
I agree with releasing at the same time everywhere, but their are several places I cna think of (like England) where they get the movie within weeks of the US release... DVD releases still take 3 months (or at least they do here in the US).
You do however make it sound as if movie 'piracy' is considerably worse in Portugal though. Maybe the movie industry should focus more on foreign markets & pircay? (not to say that everyone does that there) But the US still lacks broadband even in some large cities (or at least some areas of large cities) & DVD's can be rented at the local video store even in the smallest towns these days... Making piracy less apealing (or at least I think so)...
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
Hmmm, maybe there are a few people who fit both descriptions, but from what I can tell, those who actually create GPL software (i.e. those who have any right to complain bitterly about GPL violations) are not lame enough to hold those two conflicting views.
It certainly seems to me that there are two distinct groups of "free software" people: those who believe in free software for its freedom, and those who see it as basically equivalent to pirated software or download-for-no-charge software like Adobe Acrobat Reader.
(If you haven't guessed by now, I am in one of these camps and have a certain amount of contempt for the other.)
"How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
There is a big film industry in Tamil Nadu (southern India). The same shouts and whines are going on here about piracy here.
The movie industry guys get together and decide that no actor should give interview to the satellite TV channels (people prefer to watch their actors in the TV rather coming ot the movie halls !!).
In Radio talk shows, directors call those who watch movies in VCD as doing prostitution at home !!!. The whole thing of not understanding and going along with the technology but resist till they are dragged along kicking screaming is painful
These guys copy so many techniques from Hollywood. But do not look at how the industry there went through the same process and learnt to bring the fans to the movie hall inspite of all the VCDs.
yAthum UrE yAvarum kELir All the places are our place, everybody is our kin. (A Tamil Poet - 2000 years ago)
You're exactly right. In fact, even though studios show press screenings of movies weeks before the movie opens, they ask reporters not to post their reviews until the movie actually opens. Of course, they can't force the reviewer not to print it, they just say "if you do, you won't be going to any more screenings..."
It's obvious why they do this. They don't want bad reviews sinking crappy films before the first day. A crappy film is going to have it's best take the first couple days of its opening before everyone has had a chance to hear how horrible it is. The movie studios can't say "you must wait until opening day to release your review UNLESS it's a good review" so they make you wait with all of them.
Here's an explanation from a reviewer I know.
...that Jack and Co spouted the same, now tired, tripe when VHS came out. It didn't destroy them then (it actually made them stronger once they embraced the technology...) and if they play their cards right now instead of the protectionist bullshit they're trying to get made up for them it'll be a repeat performance.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Yes, but the article only states profits in the US & the comment wasn't considering the extra money that comes from foreign markets (which can easily be twice overall what just US figures are). Hence my comment that you have to take into account foreign sales or the comment isn't a complete picture.
Also the original article (& the comment) are reffering to theatre ticket sales. piracy has little to no effect on ticket sales in the US... See the other 50+ posts sayign so below for a list of reasons...
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
They're talking about box office revenue, which has nothing to do with the kinds of "piracy" discussed here. I think, like most of you, that Jack Valenti is one of the lowest forms of scum to walk the earth, but it won't do us one bit of good to sink to their level of calling apples oranges and oranges apples because we think it may help our side in this whole conflict. Truth is, it won't help, and it only harms our credibility.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
This reminds me of a caller that called into a radio show. She remortgaged her house and used the money to do day trading. All her money from the mortgage was lost to day trading. She then called up the radio show and asked how she could get her money back! The host just laughed at her and basically said she was an idiot for doing that.
The point is, too many people rely on the government to solve their financial problems. Most people think that if they lose all their money the government will step in and get it all back. Same with corporations. If the corp is losing profits they expect the goverment to step in and give them all their profits back. How about making a better product than trying to get the government to force money out of people for you?
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
If Mercedes, Caterpillar, and Boeing thought they would increase their profits by selling their products in those countries at a reduced price, they would. The fact that they don't indicates they believe they'll make more money by foregoing certain sales (at reduced prices) but preventing their products from becoming commodities--which would eventually lead to worldwide lower prices.
The poster is simply saying that, in the case of DVDs, the target market is "the masses" so you have to offer a fair and attractive price. The price you choose to sell your product has to be in line with what the market values your product at. Otherwise, people won't buy your product (but may look for alternatives). This is basic capitalism.
Piracy is truly a fact of life in any intellectual property business. I'm not saying piracy is RIGHT, but it's a fact of life and a cost of doing that kind of business.
Generally, a business should price their products to maximimze profits. That means that if they've decided to sell their DVDs at $20 each they've decided that, taking into account piracy, that is the highest price they can charge. Perhaps if they sold their DVDs for $3 there would be virtually no piracy, but their total profit would actually be less due to the reduced price. So despite piracy, they've maximized their profit and in all honesty have nothing to complain about unless someone is committing highway robbery and stealing their physical product.
What they are doing when they ask for all kinds of absurd copy protection, etc. is asking the government to legislate laws that reduce their costs of doing business. That's a luxury virtually no industry is going to receive, and is akin to government-endorsed protectionism.
It is NOT the government's job to protect companies--or entire industries--from becoming obsolete.
Just like SDMI's watermarking was proven to be ineffective at keeping people from filing the serial numbers off and impairing quality, the same goes for video. If it's invisible to the user and is identifiable, it's removable as well.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Monday, March 18th at 7pm, one of the Vice Presidents of the MPAA will be speaking at the main (I think?) branch of the Broward County Library with the public invited for a question/answer session.
Of course, if you listen to WLRN for any great length of time during the day, you know this
Face it, people are stupid, and the internet is the place where they all meet.
3% loss in revenue over last year. That's what the music industry is worried about. Nevermind that there was an economic downturn this year and many more industries lost more both in percentages and money. Of course the rest of the industries in the economy aren't lobbying to have our rights taken away... or are they?
No, just the ones who use the terms 'open source' and 'free' interchangably.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
paperback books.
I have a copy of some thick book like Dune or Magician that was about $2.99 in 1979. Now that book is about $10.
Same book - possibly new cover art.
No, no. BakedBabies put it best when they called Amelie "a 'Fight Club' for chicks".
do not read this line twice.
That's irrelevant -- inability to secure rights in Country X merely prevents the studio from selling through outlets in Country X. It doesn't create an affirmative duty to prevent someone from buying a copy in Country Y and bringing it to Country X in his luggage (if it did, the system would require one region for each country).
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
"There has grown in the minds of certain groups in this country the notion that because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with the duty of guaranteeing^W taking away from him such profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is not supported by statute or common law. Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back."
Pushin' 'n dealin', shovin' 'n stealin'
What the MPAA is saying is that movie piracy is going to hurt them in the future and it's also keeping them from jumping on the digital TV, movie thing (thats why we need the SSSCA!).
I don't think movie piracy will ever really hurt the movie industry even when it does get as easy as ripping off songs. The reason is, you just cannot duplicate the movie going experience on your DVD or home computer. When LOTR comes out, I don't want to see it on my laptop- I want to see it on the big screen with a big crowd.
Sure I might want to watch it on my laptop later- but I will buy or rent the DVD with all the cool extra footage and quality. A friend of mine actually did download a copy of LOTR and he showed some of it to me- but somehow it cheapened the experience. I thought "Gee, I really want to see this in the theatre again before I see it on the small screen.
Downloading songs is completely different. You can duplicate the exact experience of listening to the CD. Or near enough where it threatens the sale of the CD.
Just my .02
I mean really, I'd see every movie that came out if it didn't cost me 8 dollars to see them! Really, they'd probably make MORE money if they'd cut prices!
This seems so dumb, we're making millions of dollars off of this amount, so let's raise ticket prices, pay movie theater employees next to nothing (they don't even have to make minimum wage and I know many who don't!) and tell people who are supportng us by buying DVDs that it is illegal for them to decrypt them so they can enjoy the product they paid for!
Derek Greene
on this.. I think the MPAA and the RIAA realize the full potential of the internet. If they went down without a fight, how would that look? How would that look to the public? In going down kicking and screaming, they are deterring the average joe while they can get something else in place. I think they probably are buying time right now. If they had let up, then everyone and their mother would walk all over them given the chance. While there is actually no proof, what's there to say that they aren't working on an mp3 sites where you can pay 5 bucks a month?
What else out there continues to climb in price year after year?
College tuition, health care, cable TV.
In case you havn't figured it out yet, people arn't payed based on how hard they work - they are payed based on how much money they make for their employers!
In case you haven't figured it out yet, employers pay people as little as they can get away with. What's more, they'll pay some classes of employees, women and blacks for example, less money than white males unless prevented by legislation.
Anyone who's ever worked in an IT department knows that productivity varies enormously between employees and salary only incidentally reflects productivity.
If you work in technology long enough, you'll figure it out eventually.
I'll agree with luck having something to do with it. But please, those guys don't work THAT hard. I've done factory work before, and land scaping, ditch digging, it's not THAT fucking hard. Our country has one of the best student financial aid programs in the world. The idea that someone can't go to their local university, take a loan, and get a degree is ridiculous. Now, in India, over there getting in college is tough, where maybe one in ten thousand get to go. But telling me that someone over here is too poor to go college, when I paid my way through and got two degrees, is absolute bullshit.
Lobbying is a long-term game. The recording companies & associations are also looking at their long-term profit potential, which is fairly soft 5-10 years out. It has nothing directly to do with piracy, it has to do with demographics and greed.
The demographics are simple: there is a fairly large cohort of baby-boomer's kids in the premium 14-24 age group. Five to 10 years from now they will start to move out of this age-group (en mass). To the MPAA & RIAA this is a nightmare. People between 10 and 30 are their core market. SO, 5-10 years from now, their profits will plunge (and I do mean plunge) -- after all, who can afford to spend 100's of dollars on CD's, music and entertainment when you've got kids and a mortgage.
So why do the execs care? Greed and security. Even though the average exec (exec, not owner) couldn't give a damn about their current company 5-10 years from now, investors do. So, to to justify their huge salaries and bonuses, execs have to look out for the long-term interests of the company. If the industry/industry is considered a bad investment, you can't make as much money on the stock markets. If you can't make as much money on the markets, the executive pay shouldn't be as high.
And, this issue is industry-wide, so if they want to keep working in music (which I assume most of them do), there is a career crisis.
So what do they do? They look for new revenue sources. And P2P payments look great! In fact, it looks like a money tree. The profits will only grow, even if the demographics shift, since you can creep up pricing over time. And, your marginal costs will drop over time as the technology gets cheaper and cheaper.
Too bad for the rest of us that their idea seems more like taxation by corporations rather than a fee for a service or product.
What percentage of the movies you download are in commercial release (shown intheaters) at that time?
If SSSCA is passed you won't be able to afford to make your own digital content becuase creating it could also be used to circumvent copy protection. Ergo, you pay to see other people's stuff, but can't make your own without paying commercial rates to create it.
Movies and CDs increase in cost because the production costs increase. Post production costs have grown and special effects are creeping into some of the most unlikely places in movies. Recording studios use the latest technology to improve the fidelity of the music they record. Do not compare what can be done on a laptop or desktop with what can be done in a full blown studio setting (both for music and film).
Isn't this the same industry that is complaining that piracy is putting them out of business?
They aren't claiming that piracy is putting them out of business, they are claiming that it has the potential to cause them more and more loss of profits with the emergence of broadband technology. Something that they have the right to be annoyed about because this happens to be America a country known for its success with the Free Enterprise system.
I'm so sick of hearing people bitch and complain because somebody charges a few bucks for a movie they spent millions to make. This isn't communism, Hollywood and everyone else that watches their movies doesn't have to support your movie habit. Just pay for the show if you want to watch it, would ya? And quit complaining that somebody is making money for his innovation. Those are all principles that this country is built on, if you don't like them, GET OUT!
You are receiving this message because your browser supports Slashdot Sigs and you have Slashdot Sigs enabled.
Not entirely correct.
I was able to snag "backup" copies of the fast and the furious from kazaa within 15 minutes. Split into two files each roughly 600mb in size.
With a beefy connection (ds3@65mb/s) I was able to get multiple feeds of various parts of the same file from different users.
For this to work of course there have to be a good chunk of users with fast connections for me to abuse.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
Creative accounting to cheat an author out of any money from the movie based on their book?! I'm sorry, but what separates that kind of behaviour from swindling retirees out of their pensions? Nothing, in terms of morality. Pirate "Forrest Gump", and distribute copies to all your friends! Why not - you're only stealing from thieves and con artists, not the original content creator. Buy a copy of the novel to go with your VHS tape dub or DIVX copy, if you really want to help "level the scales"!
Freedom: "I won't!"
You raise 2 interesting questions:
1. At what point do you make so much money that you cannot reasonably expect the law to protect your property?
2. At what point do you make so little money that the laws that protect property no longer apply to you?
Then I will give you answers:
1. You can never expect the law to protect your property. It might help you protect your property, but you have to be a realist and expect that you will have some losses. Every retailer in the world knows that and accounts for it in their financial projections.
2. Never.
If Valenti was lobbying for tougher enforcement of copyright laws, I'd have little gripe with him. But what he's doing is analogous to the publishing industry lobbying Congress to outlaw photocopying machines. He wants to cripple everything from computers to HDTV, costing consumers millions of dollars and degrading their overall quality of life, because a tiny minority of people pirate movies. He's still mad about the Supreme Court betamax decision in the 1970s in which they upheld the "fair use" concept. He wants legislation to make fair use illegal (through the DMCA) and impossible (through the SSSCA). And he's already half way there.
If Valenti represented retailers, he'd be lobbying for laws that made pockets, large coats, and handbags illegal -- because a tiny percentage of people use them to shoplift.
Yes, very few in the scheme of things.
> So how come executives of companies that are making losses still command huge salaries?
Generally there are two reasons. First, the pay for a CEO is commensurate with responsibility. Because they make decisions that guide the entire company, they get paid better, because mistakes are much more costly at this level than down on the shop floor, so companies are willing to pay quite a bit if that's what it takes to get a qualified person in the job. Second, companies don't generally keep CEOs if they feel that the CEO is the reason the company is losing money. So, in the case where a CEO stays on the job while a company racks up red ink, it's usually because (A) the company doesn't directly blame the CEO for the loss (for example, when the economy tanks), or (B) the company is buying the talent to engineer a recovery.
> Or why do civil servants get paid so well when they don't make any profit for anybody?
Civil service isn't a for-profit venture, so the "profit" isn't monetary. In public service, the goal is to maximize service levels within a budget constraint, so a civil servant who can do this well is earning the "profit" of lower costs and better (or more) service.
Virg
I'm not telling anyone here anything they don't know already, but it just makes me shake my head and sigh every time I see this: When an article is about how an industry (recording, movie) is being negatively impacted, you can bet there will *always* be a mention of piracy. You need proof? Look at the press releases and stories about the music industry for the last year and a half. 10 to 1 odds that if the article is even slightly negative, and possibly unrelated in its scope, the piracy card gets played. Not once do you see piracy mentioned here. To be honest, I'm kinda surprised its not, but I guess ol' Jack is trying to drum up sales by pointing out how much they are all loved. ;)
I get so pissed when I see stories (e.g. about a settlement of a pissed-off purchaser of a copy-protected CD with the industry) turn into a screed about the evils of the Internet and how it's screwing artists out of money. That part of their argument always pissed me off. It seems to me like they've pretty much led by example in the screwing of the artists department.
PrisonerCX
hey doodez...
i just spent the laugh half-hour downloading the divx version of "panic room" with 6 unexplained jumps/ black-outs, graininess, audio that sounds like it's on the inside of a washing machine, and some guy standing up in front of the handicam 30 minutes into the movie to go to the bathroom. i'm burning it on my cdrw now man!
come on over to my place, i'm showing it at 1:30 pm today on my 17 inch! the movie tends to hang in a few spots because my cdrom is a scsi, and i can't figure out which of my scsi devices down the chain is causing this periodic freezing, but no problemo! we're gonna bring down the movie industry man! you'll see!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Actually, your description of the Virginia Center Commons theatre is exactly what has changed in the theaters here in San Francisco Bay Area.
:-)
There is no such thing as a theater complex with just 5-6 large screens anymore for first-run showings; the prototype of the future of cinemas here is Syufy Enterprises' Century 25 Union Landing complex in Union City, CA, where you have 25 screens, with a number of screens of larger sizes for the blockbuster movies and smaller screens for movies intended for a niche audience or the tailing end of a first run. The important thing is that because the complex is built from the ground up, they can build every screen to sport full THX certification, which means above average picture quality and definitely top-notch sound quality. That means going to a movie is actually a good experience again.
Syufy recently opened the Century 20 Great Mall complex (Milpitas, CA) based on this model; they plan several more complexes opening in the next three years built in the same manner. I remember the old days when people thought the Century Theaters were a joke; the new complexes with their THX-certified screens have ended that in short order.
That really doesn't matter. This isn't about profit. It's about ethics. An artist or studio releases a work under certain conditions (e.g. don't copy and distribute the work, pay for each copy). The assumption is that there is a quid pro quo - in exchange for them actually releasing their work to the public (which they didn't have to do), the public agrees to abide by those conditions.
Now, it's entirely possible that some musician will release his/her music without requiring any fee (see mp3.com). That's their decision, and their right. But many artists don't do that. If you respect the artist enough to want to listen to their work, you should respect the artist enough to live with whatever conditions they impose on its distribution (which doesn't mean you shouldn't try to persuade them that there's a better way).
I don't understand why this is such a hard concept to grasp around here. I mean, the entire community has a collective cow when someone violates the GPL. But no one seems to care when musicians have their release terms violated, or when movie studios have the same problem. It doesn't matter how much money they're making. The simple fact is that you wouldn't have the music or movie to rip off if it wasn't for the musician or studio or whatever. If you don't respect that fact they will eventually stop producing.
I'd love to see freely downloadable music. Or movies for that matter. But I'm not going to take the music or movies without permission. The same way I wouldn't use GPLed code without releasing my software under the GPL.
Yes, I see your point. I am a bit spoiled there.
You don't happen to know the main reason a movie's released in US first and delayed elsewhere, do you?
Does anybody? I would find that bit of information interesting.
"Derp de derp."
Hey, lets not forget that the RIAA was bitching the same bitch and making the same kind of profits a year ago, and now. Now things couldn't be bleaker, many people are predicting the demise of the recording industry entirely.
Think of this as the last days of disco. NO real musical acts got signed during disco... and it was all performance music. Everyone thought it was great at the time, and Arista and other groups cleaned up.
Everyone loved disco. But like all fads, it got old really quick. Then they got tired of it. Then overall record sales slumped. Then they had to find real musical acts... people wanted to listen to real music instead of dance. The same analogy can be about raving. It used to be about dancing, then it became all about the drugs. Very quick.
Do you think anyone will care about Britney Spears in five years after we have been Britney bombed? Honestly, did anyone care about the superbowl ad? I personally am getting tired of her ass, bigtime. The rest of America is too.
It's limping. The proof? O-Town. That fucking boy band couldn't make it, even with 50 hours of network television to back it. See? Aren't we all just getting a little tired of Justin Timberlake? Aren't we all just a little ashamed that we know his name when we see his face?
In about a year, they'll have to look at real musicians again... whereas my little hometown of NAshville, TN will just keep chuggin' along. But even they had a country fad about 4 years ago... and yes, they whined that they were "dying" afterword. Yeah, after record breaking profits.
Give it a year, and make sure you turn off MTV so that those idiot rappers that talk about thinly veiled anal sex references to nine year olds watching MTV don't get any money... although I think that they are propped up by all of the morons out there. That is the one trend that I wish would die, grassy knoll style. Because I cannot put up with a woman flapping her ass on camera to crappy Casio SK1 sounds.
And ticket collectors are no biggie. If you have 10x the number of screens, theaters only need to hire up to 2x as many collectors. If there are going to be long lines, so be it. They're going to wait, they already paid for their tickets, so why bother adding more collectors? Same goes for the cashiers (even if they haven't already paid, they've already put the effort to try to find parking amongst the hundreds of parking spots).
The trend I've seen are exactly like the parent post describes: a multitude of screens, with only around two or three of them being big screens with the best surround sound systems for the top movies of the week, with the rest of the screens being smaller room with mediocre (or sometimes horrible) sound systems for the lesser grossing movies of the week. More screens, but not more service. Customers are just cattle. Charge exorbetant amounts of money at the consession stands. Also, don't bother opening up the theater until 5 minutes before the first showing, and don't bother getting the soda or slushie machines working until after the first 50 customers try to order their drinks.
The movie theaters are in a sad, sad state.
How do any of the current string of property protection laws help the people with the least amount of property?
The current string of laws seemed to be aimed protecting intellectual property in the new digital environment. New authors, composers or publishers have as much to gain, if not more, from these new protections as established companies.
As for consumers, they may find that new laws interfere with their long standing desire to get something for nothing but in practice, they can well afford to rent DVDs. If not, there's always network television.
So maybe, just maybe they start making actually *good* movies, with less marketing and just screen some substantial part of the film on TV and/or the net.
There's nothing more driving to see a movie than seeing it to some point. That's how TV commericals work. People want to finish what they started.
So the process is: 1. Hype the movie. 2. Screen about half of the movie on TV/the net. 3. Bring movie to theatres that evening and see how many viewers will be eager to see the end.
Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org
Sigh, let's all go back to drawing cave pictures for each other and banging rocks together. Lower quality, maybe, but fewer commercials.
Why is Grand Theft Auto a much more serious crime than Reckless Driving?
The original point was about profits, and how the entertainment industry misrepresents their losses.
As for the ethics argument, you haven't proved your point. The whole basis for the monopoly granted to artists is that it benefits society. If you want to make an ethical argument, then you need to show that violating that monopoly hurts society. You've made that assertion, but you haven't provided any evidence.
As an individual, I can honestly say that I've never copied a CD that I would have otherwise purchased. The loss to society: zero. The gain to society: I got a few minutes of entertainment. Since there seems to have been a net benefit, my conscience is clear.
You're not required to release your software under GPL. You're prohibited from releasing your software without the GPL. In other words, you can't remove users' freedoms. That's not even vaguely similar to the situation with music and movies.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
Check food prices at your local supermarket.
Someone you trust is one of us.
I thought that was a well-recognized phenomenon: when times are tough, entertainment becomes more popular. Recession, war, terrorists, etc., are all unpleasant things that people like to escape from. It happened during previous wars and the Great Depression.
To all the conspiracy theorists: forget President Bush funding the terrorist attacks to better his popularity rating, how about Jack Valenti staging 9/11 to improve the MPAA member's bottom line?
Not really because if they can sell crap they don't need to bother making good stuff.
I mean really, why am I paying $7 for a "value" meal?
Because you are contributing to McDonalds's 'Lawsuits due to food poisoning' fund.
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
Who cares how old he is? He/she's a pathetic little bitch who will be the first one to start screaming the second someone steals something of his. Yes, he is spoiled and thank God that most people are not like him. Really, putting a computer in your car just so you don't have to buy CDs?! That is almost pathalogical(sp?).
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
I would suspect it is partially because this way the studios find out what the audience thinks of a particular movie and doesn't need to spend money on movies that won't make it here. So there is a bit of a profit motive involved and that is OK. Saves us from some of the crap in american cinemas. On the other hand, the European audience has a different taste than the US audience. So it might actually become a hit, would it ever be released. That is how British, French and Australian score. It is almost impossible for them to score in the US.
Furthermore I would suspect that there is some arrogance from those studios involved as well. The way they operate, they generally see the US as their market and the rest of the world as something that creates a nice revenue, but nothing more. American companies in general have trouble dealing with the fact that the rest of the world is not one market with one common language etc etc. But instead of having a regional organisation that is independent to do what it wants, like the car manufacturers, the movie industry keeps their non-american branches on a tight rope and most of the decisions are made in the US.
Use Adsense for Charity
Well, do what we do if we can't get what we want, because of stupid regional codings and other restrictions. Download it! Ofcourse you should also buy the DVD, to keep everything legit. ;-)
Use Adsense for Charity
On the other hand, they win people who liked the part they saw on TV and wouldn't have come to the film otherwise.
I don't go to the movies that much, but if I would have seen, let's say, the first half of "Memento", "The Sixth Sense" or "Fight Club" on TV, I would have ran to the cinema to see it.
Make even shorter URLs - 8LN.org
The movie industry should stop trying to hold back technology just because it's paranoid about its current revenue stream.
They should look to ways of making the theatre goers experience an improvement over what can be delivered to most homes. This should not be hard to do.
Sheesh, I've already paid several times over for the same movie just to get a better experience throught the magic of technology: once at the theatre, sometimes for VHS rental, sometimes for VHS purchase, repeat rent/purchase with DVD.
It's ludicrous how many times I've already paid for the movie, but until now I've been willing to do it for the improved experience and the convenience. But if the movie industry stops improving my experience and starts encumbering my hardware, you can bet my willingness to pay will decrease accordingly.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
You're an idiot.
No, I'm a genius and have the test scores to prove it.
You think people get rich by sitting on their asses?
In some cases, yes. George W. Bush is a great example of that.
I fucking hate people like you.
Osama Bin Laden hates people like me, too. And your approval is equally important to me.
If it is so easy then why aren't you doing it?
Because I wasn't born with movie star looks, fantastic athletic skills, or rich parents. That's the point. It's not easy to get rich unless you were born lucky. Simply working hard won't make it happen for 99.999% of the people alive.
Some "work" is physical, some "work" is mental, some is a little of both, some is repetitious, some isn't...there's no "work level scale" and physical laborers are not the only hard workers of the world!
And my point was that being wealthy was no indication of how hard you worked. I thought that the Harry Potter books got you children reading again...
Source? Specifics? That may be true in some places, but they don't call the US the "Land of Opportunity" for nothing. Obviously there is such a thing as inherited wealth, and such a thing as good luck or bad luck, but honestly - if you have talent, ambition, imagination, and hard work - you really can do anything.
There are any number of sociology studies that demonstrate the social stratification of the US. The common-sense wisdom of a classless society and increased social mobility within the US (compared with European countries) is just pure ideology, useful to those with real power and inherited influence, essential for the preservation of hegemony. Remember Orwell -- if you remove words from the language and ways of talking about things, then it becomes almost impossible to easily think about these things. Or try Foucault, for an example of how people's ideas can be constrained by discursive regimes.
Or think about the Usual Suspects:
The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.
Da Blog
You choose a few examples of companies where politics, graft or outright criminal deception threw things off, but you're avoiding the central tenet of the situation. Barring privately held corporations, when has a corporation crashing ever injured the top management? The answer is that it generally doesn't, because the people who pilot the corporation aren't very often the people who get the profits (and losses). They get a salary, just like you and I do (assuming you don't own your own business), and they often get bonuses when times are good, but they don't own the company for the most part, so they don't own the debt. If your company died tomorrow, your salary would disappear, but I doubt they'd try to invade your bank account for money to pay creditors. That's why even bad CEOs don't end up on the dole.
So, the answer is that they always apply in real life. If you have any gripe about how much big company CEOs get paid, it should be addressed to the law that limits personal liability for corporate losses. Of course, that same law protects small business owners from complete loss, so be careful about suggesting sweeping reforms.
Virg
Take the shows Blind Date and Survivor, and you've pretty much got ElimiDate . It's an embarrassing guilty pleasure.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
If somebody copies GNU code and gets caught then the law applies. The same thing should be true for movies and music. They are perfectly in their rights to shut down web sites and arrest people who are copying their copyrighted works and distributing them for free. They are not in their rights in trying to control how I use my own copy and computer.
The cow I have is when some self-important asshole decides that he gets to modify *my* equipment, the equipment that *I* paid for, in order to protect against any possible future infringement of his copyright.
*That's* where the cow part comes in.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Damnit, why don't I have mod points when I need them . . .
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
Any theory of social stratification should take the above case (which seems almost too black-and-white, but trust me, it was not made up) into account. These guys have the same cultural background, the same social class - but the one had what it takes to make it in this world and come out higher up the economic food chain than he started, the other apparently didn't, and ended up on the bottom.
That's the great thing about theories, there are so many to choose from. Bordieu's theory of habitus comes to mind. People are not born equal, but accrete a physical body, mental disciplines, and social connections based on their immediate neighbours. Basically, rich people are trained to be rich, poor to be poor, and so on. But these are not absolutes, they just tend to steer an individual along a certain lifepath and limit the trajectory of their ascent or descent within society. And so social stratification endures, reproduces, and resists change. Bound by culture, human society is an amazing, adaptive meta-organism that outlives the death of its individual cell bodies.
11. Is habitus totally atomistic? That is, does it reduce society to a = large collection of individuals, to be sorted or re-sorted at the whim = of the sociologist? According to Brubaker, Bordieu is not setting up a = theory to tackle a particular problem, but rather a heuristic to help = solve whatever problem concerns one at that particular moment. Further, how similar can two individual "habituses" (Habiti? Habitae? = Aardvarks?) be if they are dependent upon initial conditions - which = Bordieu states are objectively unknowable and only inferred from the = "symptoms" of lifestyle?
Sociologists even have their own versions of organizational emergence theories, or interactionism.
Bordieu came to mind because he died quite recently.
Da Blog
My reading skills are fine, your communications ones are off. This is what you said:
"The wealthiest people in the world are hardly the most hard-working."
And that is what I meant. I did not say that wealthy people were not hard-working. I said that, as a group, they "are hardly the most hard working." "Hardly the most hard working" is not synonymous with "lazy", "slovenly", or "shiftless."
Saying that "the Germans were hardly the best skaters in the Olympics" would not be the same as saying "the German skaters were amoung the worst in the Olympics."
My writing skills seem fine even when I review what I wrote. That you misinterpreted what I wrote is not a reflection on me.
using the examples of coal miners and construction workers (both of which are not really "low paying" because of the risk, they actually pay quite well)
If you think that they are paid well, read this from the United Mine Workers Journal:
The Journal recently conducted its own experiment, comparing the average coal miner's salary ($50,000) against American Electric Power CEO E. Linn Draper's year 2000 total earnings of $25,101,107--a figure that does not include the $7,612,500 Draper currently holds in unexercised stock options. After punching in all of our data, the reply came back that the average coal miner would "only" have to work 502 more years to equal Draper's one-year haul. It also noted that with Draper's salary alone, 21,941 workers could be enrolled in pension plans or health care coverage could be provided to 12,190 uninsured workers.
I hope that gives you a bit more perspective.
P.S. $50K/ year is not my idea of being paid "quite well" for hard work.
psxndc
The emacs religion: to be saved, control excess.
And how many people have a 65 mb/s connection? I have a cable modem capped at 2 megabits and most people on cable/dsl, who are on the fast end of consumer ISPs, it would take 32.5 times as long as it would take you.
Then again, according to my calculations, your 15 minutes for 1200 megabytes only gives you a total of 10.7 megabits/sec.
I'm nit-picking, but I know I'm right.
;-)
I disagree (surprise!). "Among the best" does not include everything on the right half of the bell curve. In your world view, there is no one who is mediocre. Everyone is either "among the best" or "among the worst." I don't think that's how most people view it.
many reacted the same way as I did
And many pronounce nuclear as nuke-u-ler, but it doesn't make it right.
Are you socialist?
No, just a liberal.
However, "coal mine worker" or "construction" is an entry-level job that anyone who is physically able can receive on-the-job training for and perform, therefore the supply (thousands) roughly equals the demand, creating a lower price. It's basic economics.
And that's why I objected to the claim that personal wealth is strongly correlated with hard work. It's the luck of the draw. Being born pretty, intelligent, or to wealthy parents has more impact on your chances of being rich than how hard you work.
I'll bet you never made anywhere close to 24/hr before you got your degree
I don't want to appear a cad so I won't go into specifics, but you would have lost that bet on all counts -- and not barely.
But griping about white collar vs. blue collar is totally ignorant and irrelevant.
Ignorance would be talking without a grasp of the facts. I'm not doing that.
The gap between rich and poor has grown so wide that, in 1999, the richest 2.7 million Americans, the top 1 percent, had as many after-tax dollars to spend as the bottom 100 million. That ratio has more than doubled since 1977, when the top 1 percent had as much as the bottom 49 million, according to data from the Congressional Budget Office.
We need to have an economy where a person of average intelligence, ability, and drive can earn a living wage. And we are quickly going away from that. We are almost at the point where a person who lacks the intelligence or aptitude to make it in the tech sector or corporate management has to choose between working in retail or food services for starvation wages.
If we don't do something about that, we are going to end up with a caste system like India had.