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Director Attacks MPAA Piracy Claims
dipfan writes "Alex Cox, the writer/director of cult classic Repo Man and punk movie Sid And Nancy, writes today in The Guardian's media section that the movie industry's real pirates are the Hollywood studios and the MPAA - for squeezing out independents. He rejects the widespread claim that Spider-Man suffered from widespread net piracy, and asks: "Are [the MPAA's] claims of lost billions even credible?" (In a strange coincidence, Cox has another article in the same newspaper today, where he defends using 35mm film rather than digital cameras a la George Lucas, saying digital cinema gives too much power to the distributors and studios because the technology is less portable than 35mm.)"
They think that spiderman *suffered* from internet piracy? Jeezy Creezy how many box office records did it break?
Until a "sure thing" like Spider Man or Attack of the Clones sees *wide spread* piracy on the net and then flops like a Michael Bay crapfest, they have nothing to say. Maybe then they can cry foul, I have no sympathy for a movie's suffering when it was the fastest to hit $100 million (!!!!) *ever*.
And like the author said: if Spider-Man is losing lots of money to piracy, the box office numbers sure aren't showing it.
How much longer will we have duped (or more to the point, paid off) Congressmen who let these big IP holders walk all over the rights of the American people to own recording hardware?
My God, if these people had been around 100 years ago, they would have made the ball point pen illegal since it can be used to copy books.
I seriously think that this issue will not be solved until there is a Constitutional Amendment that guarantees fair use rights for all media.
-- We live in a world where lemonade is artificial and soap has real lemon.
What is this washout smoking? Who in their right mind considers CDs an "inferior technology" to vinyl records? I know of a few passionate nostalgics who subjectively prefer the sound of vinyl over CDs, but even they aren't stupid enough to claim that the technology is superior. You can't put data on vinyl. You can't play vinyl in your car, or while you're jogging. With this one, ridiculous comment, the author has lost all credibility with me, and has exposed himself as just another angry outsider who is upset that the Big Boys won't let him play with them.
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
From the article "Most of the rights to the book - including all US rights - had long ago fallen into the public domain. Only the British rights appeared to be privately held: by a former rock musician who hoped to turn Wells' story into a travelling stage musical along the lines of Blood Brothers or Fame."
It is amazing to me that literature as old as War of the Worlds is still unavailable for the public (at least in Britain). I mean, I used to listen to the original radio broadcast on reel-to-reel when I was a kid. The amount of quality work that has been abandoned due to continuously extended copyrights has to be non-quantifiable. Tragedy, because, although he didn't get to make his picture, the large studios bought out the rock-star and are now making it with Tom Cruise. I want to cry.Put identity in the browser.
By Sunday, it's obvious that Correlli has tanked, and that Beckham is a hit. Naturally you yank Corelli from the larger cinema and put Beckham in there. The studios hate this, but can do nothing about it. However, once the new technology is installed, Corelli will be beamed direct to screen one for the duration of its scheduled run, and will play to empty houses.
Why, exactly? The argument about this that I've always heard is that it's the other way round. With a digital projector, there's no problem with running out of reels; it is technically far easier to copy bits that replicate a reel.
Of course, DRM may prevent the cinema from doing this, but surely it's acceptable for them to pay more for showing the film to more people, seeing as it's the ticket (and food) price that pays for the film in the first instance?
And if the cinema has a shortage of digital projectors then that's irrelevant; it's just the case of the new technology maturing and becoming more widespread. Preventing progress because new technology isn't deployed widely enough is no argument at all.
The MPAA is evil alright, but this is not the kind of objection against war on piracy that anyone will take seriously. You cannot expect any industrial body not to take up a fight when they are losing money just because they are already "hugely wealthy."
I am all for MPAA-bashing, but I wouldn't expect anyone not already in the know to care about an article the stamps some entity as evil without provding any real arguments why this is so.
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
> I would be more inclined to listen to these claims if he wasn't just some hack trying to break into a bigger arena.
Right, cause the only ones we can trust are the ones who've already attained financial success. It's a sure mark of intelligence, business accumen, ethics, and most importantly of all, righeousness and correctness.
It's pretty funny - on the one hand you have a huge monopoly that attempts to keep the lid on independant artists' noise level, and on the other hand, you have a generation thats been born and bred not to believe anything unless the production values are high. Talk about your catch-22s.
"Old man yells at systemd"
If I produced any non-essential in such an environment, I would expect sales to be somewhat depressed. Sorry guys, Cinema isn't an essential. Produce a good movie, such as Spidey then we will probably go and see it. Unfortunate the industry distrubutes a lot of rubbish. I say distributes advisedly because some good stuff is produced (even ocassionally inside the studio system). However, it often doesn't get out unless it fits the business model of the season.
I want more creatives like this guy to stand up and say where the MPAA is getting things wrong when it tries for ever more content protection.
Some people may have heard about the much trumpeted Spidey raid in the UK. What was being (expensively) copied onto DVD? The only version I have seen listed would fit into a small part of a CD and as someone else commented who has seen it, the quality was barely worth the effort of watching. Maybe the industry itself has problems with higher quality masters escaping?
Last point in this ramble, the Gruniad article made the very good point that having a secure digital chain between distributor and projector is a great way of locking other content producers out of the theatre.
RMS for attorney general!!! Imagine how the M$ trial would have gone down if George "Oil" Bush and John "I am the worst terrorist of all" Ashcroft hadn't been around. Maybe this is idealistic but picture this one:
K&R - president and vice prez
Stevens - sec of state (if he werent dead)
RMS - attorney general
Jordan Hubbard - dir. of central intelligence
Alan Cox - technology special advisor
*pardon my shameless namedropping*
More realistically, I expect movies to be downloaded from dvd/cable/satellite and cached on some uber server installed at the cinema. This server can then be programmed to dump out the movie to one or more projectors at the appropriate times through a local network.
With so many 10+ screen cinemas cropping up, this sort of arrangement is inevitable, even though digital projection still sucks. Give it a few more years and hopefully the resolution will be enough that it will become acceptable.
Read. Become less ignorant.
"Cause there's 40 different shades of black, so many fortresses and ways to attack, so why you complainin'?"
Staggered releases around the globe are simply, in this day and age, stupid. There is no reason not to release everywhere at once now. If the studios can't handle it, tough shit! The market (legal or illegal) will make up for their errors.
sulli
RTFJ.
Cox isn't saying the MPAA is evil, he never uses the word.
He's merely putting the claims of lost millions in perspective.
His argument in a nutshell
- the studios are crying wolf over money lost to piracy
- they already make millions whilst independent film-makers struggle to get finances to get movies made
- the measures they want to put in place to counter piracy will hurt the independents even more. In effect they'll be barriers to entry in the market.
I thought it was a well-written thoughtful article.
Pissed in your _own_ cornflakes this morning?
Reread the article. Read a few others. The MPAA is agressively attempting to control the upcoming technology in such a way that without the backing of a major studio, a filmmaker won't be able to make films. They're also trying to control all forms of playback technology, so that ultimately no one will be able to watch a movie without the knowledge and consent of their organisation.
Alex Cox is capable of making movies that sell well enough and have enough of a following to support him, and allow him to make more movies. If the MPAA has their way, this won't be possible.
That's what is being objected to here. If that's a "Euro-Leftist" attitude, then the US is a pretty damned socialist country.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
35 mm is prohibitively expensive to shoot on without major $$$ because of development costs. The MPAA doesn't have a monopoly on anything-people just don't look at the alternatives enough. This is a war of ideas that can be won.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
You can still get Digital Video cameras for a grand...
And this is what they're really scared s*itless about: loosing control over both distribution and content. Distribution is the cash cow for the MPAA, but control over content is where they really get their power jollies. Ego and hollywood are deeply intertrined, and the idea that some people from East Podunk Nebraska can live their dream, make a film, and make it equally accessibly to the viewing world at large frightens the bajeezus out of them. It simultaniously cuts off their stream of manna and exposes them as the unnecessary, wasteful, anti-creative, soul-sucking culturemongers that they are.
watching a movie in a theatre is way different than watching a movie on a computer monitor, on your TV, or on cable. If the MPAA has that all locked up, we are that much poorer culturally.
I don't know... multiplexes have been getting more and more impersonal for years. I remember when i was a kid there used to be an intermission in a lot of films. It was a lot more like the theater: you talk with people (sometimes *gasp* strangers) about what you're seeing and generally turn your attention from the screen to your fellow human beings.
This is the total bugaboo of it all. Corporate dominated american consumer culture is built on a platform of unhappiness. The widespread sense of social isolation and inadequacy indisuputably fuel the consumer urge. Ask anyone in advertising. The basic message is alwyas, "there's something wrong with you, and our product can fix it." Now, there's a lot of money standing on all this anomie, and it doesn't like being disturbed. It's been proven: when people connect with eachother in meaningful and fulfilling ways, they perform fewer empty consumerist experiences. And by god we'd better keep people lonely and isolated. What would happen to the economy?
Hopefully digital projectors will get cheap and easy just like the cameras have: I'll open my own f'ing cinema, with beer and coffee and social functions.
Howard Dean for president