Bootleg Star Wars AotC Debuts on Internet

Arctic Fox writes "Matt Drudge is reporting that bootleg copies of the new Star Wars movie have been appearing on the internet one week before the movie's big screeen debut. The article says that they have used a tripod mounted camera at a pre-screening to tape it. Not known is if anyone is seen walking in front of the camera." I gotta admit, I find this amusing, although I'd never bother downloading it: I've had 12:01 tickets ready to go and there is no way I'm gonna spoil it watching a low quality divx.

Comments

I downloaded LOTR, what a mistake

[dstanley]

I downloaded a bootleg version of LOTR when it came out. It realy spoils the awe that accompanies seeing the film on the big screen for the first time. Having made the mistake once, I won't do it again. After all, the wait is just like waiting for Christmas as a little kid.

Thats what I think, anyway.

Re:Not worth downloading...

[soap.xml]

If you give the DMCA any place to work, even with something like this, you are validating it as a law. The DMCA is not the solution here. It is simply copyright infringment. Plain, old fashioned copyright infringment. Its illegal, period. We don't need some stupid new law to tell us that. But my personal take on it is simply this. If you want to dl it.... go ahead. I won't, I'm watching it the day it comes out. Then I'll buy the dvd when it comes out, after lucas releases all of the dvd's Ill have a big star wars party and we will watch them in high quality, legally.

Those with the low-qual divx may see it frist, but nothing beats the "big screen" :)

No Harm, No Foul

[bill_mcgonigle]

So, to see these you need to incur a gig of download and all you get to see is two crappy VCD's of a movie that's coming out next week.

These are obsessed people, my friends. Nobody is doing this to avoid paying $8 at the box office. The people who download this will probably be first in line, dressed up as their favorite StarWars character. And they'll probably see it 6 times, even if it sucks.

Noone is loosing money here.

Re:No Harm, No Foul

[Rogerborg]

• [The people who download films] are obsessed people, my friends. Nobody is doing this to avoid paying $8 at the box office.

Hmm. Sounds reasonable, until you consider the guy sitting right behind me. He's currently downloading four films to his home machine over his cable modem (using VNC to drive it from work) and has just started looking for AOTC (based on me telling him that it's out there). He basically downloads everything, just because it's free, and it's there. He's getting megabits per second that he's not paying for, he's got a 120GB hard drive, and CD's are dirt cheap. Downloading a film involves half a dozen keypresses, two mouse clicks, and bingo, it's waiting for him when he gets home.

Would he have spent money at theatres to see all of those films? Probably not, but he's damn sure not going to now. The main point is that he's not a hard core Star Wars fan (he's too young), so it's not just the obsessives who are doing this. Remember, original Star Wars fans are all 30+ now, there's a whole new generation coming up who are seeing films not so much as something you go and watch as something you download to see if it sucks.

I can quite honestly see why the movie industry is worried. However, I think that the solution is to make fewer and better quality films, and (personal gripe) to show them in theatres with a strict "Shut the hell up and don't bring your damn chattering hyperactive kids, you morons" policy, rather than doing what they're doing, which is dumbing down, going for quantity over quality, and shrieking for legislation to protect their profits.

Re:will have no effect on box office

[Nehemiah S.]

If it sucks as bad as TPM did, then it might. I dl'd TPM and didn't bother seeing it on dvd or in the theater, and I will probably do the same here.

By the same token, I dl'd matrix and saw it afterwards in the theater 4 times. Same with LOTR (I only saw it at the theater twice though).

The point being that P2P services are hollywoods worst nightmare- because if everyone has easy access to free movies, they will only pay to see good ones at the theater. Lucas doesn't want to be forced to make a good movie, but he wants to make $200M anyway--so he will fight KaZaA etc. with everything he has.