Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets Leaked

huh12312 writes "Illegal piraters have done it again. On Monday, the second movie in the acclaimed series of seven was leaked onto the internet to the horror of Warner Brothers. With so many blockbusters due out this holiday season this problem will only increase in the coming months." Also note that it will make millions and millions of dollars anyway. I'll probably be there opening night.

Comments

Big deal

[Violet Null]

You've been able to buy the script at any bookstore for years now.

Re:Big deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh?

When did they make a book out of Harry Potter? ;)

Re:Big deal

[FortKnox]

So true.
I actually heard people bitch and moan at the end of Fellowship of the Ring, because the movie stopped in the middle of the story, and they'd have to wait a full year to find out the next part.
Eventually, someone yelled "Its a classic book! Go buy it and read it and you'll know the whole trilogy before the next movie comes out!"

Re:Big deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Eventually, someone yelled "Its a classic book! Go buy it and read it and you'll know the whole trilogy before the next movie comes out!"

Why do I suspect that in reality you overheard someone say something about the ending, to which you mulled over possible retorts for the rest of the night, finally coming up with the gem above. I find it highly unlikely that someone yelled out anything to begin with, much less such a verbose diatribe.

Re:Big deal

[Nintendork]

Yeah, but that would involve reading.

As a modern man, I demand that my only sources of entertainment involve moving pictures. I also demand that the fast food industry be held accountable for my weight problem.

-Lucas

Re:Big deal

[Bahamuto]

But my question is are they goign to make a prequil to Fellowship of the ring. I think I need some more back story about the ring, and Bilbo...

Re:Big deal

[Otter]

Yeah, if you saw it in Palm Springs and a woman jumped up up at the end and shouted, "What? That sucked!" -- that'd be my wife, who somehow managed to get a math degree without ever encountering Tolkien (or Star Trek, or Monty Python or...).

I'd carefully explained to her beforehand that it's a trilogy, but apparently hadn't made it clear that there were going to be three movies. Now, I'll be seeing The Two Towers on my own, but she said she'd join me for Return of the King. ("That ends with them throwing the ring in the volcano, right?" Well, it doesn't end there. They go home and some thugs have taken over the Shire and...I mean, yeah, that's how it ends.")

Incidentally, we finally got around to seeing the first Harry Potter a few months ago, and it is _terrific_! I don't understand why people were so ambivalent about it. I'd read the book but am hardly a buff, and thought it was superbly cast, written, acted, costumed staged and shot.

Re:Big deal

[macdaddy357]

Reading? That requires more effort than sitting on your ass infront of a screen, so most lazy slobs won't bother. They won't RTFM for their new gadgets, so some thing now include a how-to-use video.

Re:Big deal

[DrMaurer]

Because I, in reality, heard someone say, and it seemed quite sincere to me:

"Jeez, they left that one wide open for a sequel."

For the record, I think the MPAA has a lot less to worry about from internet leaks than the RIAA. The theatre is a good place to watch a movie, most of the time (if you wait a week or two or even three for the big releases, or your movie is a little more undeground, you have less people even.) Don't underestimate the environment. I listen to music in my car, mostly.

The avg. movie still is around 700 megs big and often has bad compression artifacts. An album is of course, smaller.

Unless, of course, it's a really bad movie, one of those that they don't show to reviewers first, and they download a copy and tell everyone it's shitty.

Of course, occasionally the power of people to detect crap is amazing. Only occasionally. The Cast Away movie with Madonna only grossed a couple hundred grand the first week. More money than I will ever make, but maybe it'll be a lesson to the studios.

Re:Big Deal

[2MuchC0ffeeMan]

welcome to last year... they already do that, just not movie releases cuase there's usually no dvd screener out.

Re:Big deal

[silicon_synapse]

Y'all got issues. =]

Re:Big deal

[ciscoeng]

" As a modern man, I demand that my only sources of entertainment involve moving pictures. I also demand that the fast food industry be held accountable for my weight problem."

-Lucas

George? Is that you?

Re:Big deal

[Wumpus]

I'd recommend Bored of The Rings to really slow readers. It's amazing how it captures most of the story (the important bits, at least), and crams the last two books into what seemed like the last few pages of a 176 page book. The jokes get tired after the 100th time or so, if you're patient, much sooner if you're like me. Still, I've read worse.

Re:Big deal

[AndroidCat]

You know how it is; when a movie is successful they get some hack to write an adaptation of the movie to milk it further. :^P

Re:Big deal

[Iffy Bonzoolie]

"It's probably better to say "faster than average" rather than better."

It's probably faster to say "It's probably faster to say 'faster than average' rather than better," rather than better.

-If

Re:Big deal

[Dyolf Knip]

Hey, great idea! I tell you, what this whole storyline needs most is a big smelly dragon. And a big battle. Oh, I know! Have the battle between than 2 armies, like three or four. Five would be just crazy, though.

Re:Big deal

[AndroidCat]

Don't tell that to Isaac Asimov. Wasn't his 100th book Opus 100?

Re:Big deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Because I, in reality, heard someone say, and it seemed quite sincere to me: "Jeez, they left that one wide open for a sequel."

My mother's response to "Shakespeare in Love" was that "they stole the plot from Romeo and Juliet."

Re:Big deal

[Washizu]

Someone I know said to me about Forest Gump, "Like that could ever happen."

Re:Big deal

[Nintendork]

Vroomfondle: I Think Our Minds Must Be Too Highly Trained, Magicthise

Re:Big deal

[Graspee_Leemoor]

"Same thing happens with TV. I'm so fast, I can watch "24" in 34 minutes."

So can anyone, if you cut the commercials out.

graspee

Re:Big deal

[dillon_rinker]

Ya know, what's funny is that you actually sound like a stereotypical clueless Hollywood producer prodding hack into writing Yet Another Screenplay...

=)

Re:Big deal

[macdaddy357]

Opus was that penguin from Bloom County and Outland. He was even funnier than tux!

Re:Big deal

[mellon]

Dude, Bored of the Rings *sucked*! They never got to the scene that's mentioned on the back cover, which was the whole reason I read it! The editing on that book was just terrible! :')

Re:Big deal

[Wumpus]

Which one was that? The one with the lady elf? In my copy, it's not on the back cover.

It is a cheap, nasty trick, though.

Re:Big deal

[mellon]

It's supposed to be funny, I think, but I was in the throes of puberty when I read the book, so it was a *major* disappointment when the elf lady never showed up in the actual book. :')

Re:Big deal

[Wumpus]

I'm sorry to hear that. This should make up for the disappointment...

Re:Big deal

[mellon]

Thanks, but that was a lo-oong time ago...

Re:Big deal

[Wumpus]

These wounds don't heal easily. I'm saving you years of therapy, buddy!

Re:Big deal

[Jouster]

Agreed with AC, bad moderation on parent.

J

Re:Big deal

[McFly69]

What is this book you speak of? I never heard of such a thing!

Trolling for congress?

[Roskolnikov]

call me paranoid, I do not think that these 'leaks' are
unintentional, I think the mpaa might be releasing them
in this fashion just to prove there is a problem, has anyone noticed the quality of the 'pirated prerelease' versions lately?

Re:Trolling for congress?

[CrazyDuke]

That thought occured to me, too. What better way to make sure even more restrictive laws are passed and ones that have already been passed (DMCA, etc.) stick. Its also a great excuse to use to justify paying 2x more and regional price fixing (see DVDs vs. VHS) on the 90% (that's an educated guess and estimate, stat trolls) of the target population that is not clueful enough to get the leaked version anyway.

Re:Trolling for congress?

[Theodore Logan]

Yeah, I do call you paranoid, if you don't mind. This is nothing but speculation. And poor speculation it is.

Sigh. That a movie has been leaked is bad. The MPAA is responsible for everything that is bad. Therefore, the MPAA must be responsible for the movie being leaked. That's the logic, right?

I can see why you would like to feel like you're standing on high moral ground when watching this movie on your box for exactly $0, and saying that the MPAA leaked it intentionally provides that ground. But merely wanting something to be true doesn't make it so. This is +4? Slashdot these days...

Re:Trolling for congress?

[capt.Hij]

If these people really believe that the internet is one big conduit to steal music and movies then there is no way on earth that they would release the movie. The money that they think they would lose would be better spent greasing the palm of their local congress-person even if the released movie is a horrible quality. More than that they must also realize that they would be running the risk of proving that they are wrong when a sure fire hit like this will make a gazillion dollars. If this was their plan they would have done it on a stinker that they thought wouldn't make any money.

Re:Trolling for congress?

[TheConfusedOne]

No, that's not the logic. The logic is more under the "self fulfilling prophecy" world.

The MPAA claims that they need ultra-strong protection to avoid movie leaks.

They currently don't have these protections and look... ...the movie leaked.

See? We need these protections.

Needless to say they could guarantee that the "crisis" occurred by leaking it themselves. (This is not saying that they did, but that's the logic of the original post, not leak == bad, mpaa == bad therefor leak == mpaa)

Re:Trolling for congress?

[jonnythan]

No, the logic is that we have been shown repeatedly that the MPAA and RIAA will stop at nothing to show that the internet is a huge problem and that laws need to be passed to limit it.

Re:Trolling for congress?

[saider]

You're paranoid. They're not that smart.

More likely, it's one of the following...
* someone at the replication shop who stays late from time to time.
* An exec's assistant who dubs the prerelease copy before handing it off to their boss.

What's the quote? Never attribute to maliciousness that which can be explained by incompetence. Heinlein? William of Occam?

Re:Trolling for congress?

[TGK]

I'm going to play the devils advocate and champion the "The MPAAA released it theory here"

Ok, your first major assumpion: If these people really believe that the internet is one big conduit to steal music and movies

Lets get real people. They don't belive this any more than Phillip Morris belived that smoking was healthy. These people are in the buisness of making movies based on the statistical sampling of a population (to determine what will sell). Don't you think they have access to the very same statistics you and I do?

They -=know=- just as well as we do that they're not loosing revenue to pirated movies. The numbers aren't there. They -=know=- that the overwhelming majority of their target audiance for every movie they release (execpt maybe Sneakers or whatever) is so technologicaly clueless as to require tech support to find the "any" key.

Given that, what would you do? Push Congress to enact tougher laws daming the P2P flow. Why? Because while your target audiance may not be tech savy today, in 30 years -=our=- kids (who are damn sure going to be recompiling the kernal when they're four are going to be the target audiance. And then they -=will=- loose money hand over fist.

Furthermore, creating this kind of situation does allow price fixing! If enough Senators and Congresscritters are convinced that the Movie Industry really does need to change $9.55 for a ticket to re-coup the costs of movie piracy then there is no way in hell the Justice Department will ever prosecute (yes, I know the JD isn't run by the Congress, I also know what log rolling is).

Remember, all the figures here are ethereal. HPACOS may shatter all box office records. But the MPAA can still point to Kazaa and say, "
Well, we can find some 1.3 Million copies of this file world wide, which indicates that we lost (9.55 x 1.3Million) 12.4 million in potential revenues."

As long as the MPAA counts every downloaded movie as a lost ticket sale (and probably a lost VHS sale, a lost DVD sale, and several more for the various special editions) they will never loose this argument. They will -=always=- be in the hole because the ASSUMPTION is that they are in the hole. No data can exist to disprove the assumption because in order to get that data you need to get 1.3 million people (or whatever) to admit to commiting a CRIME.

Re:Trolling for congress?

[gosand]

That a movie has been leaked is bad. The MPAA is responsible for everything that is bad. Therefore, the MPAA must be responsible for the movie being leaked. That's the logic, right?

Disregarding the original posters idea (I don't believe the MPAA would do this), I DO believe that the people who are in favor of DRM will use the fact that it was released on the 'net (read NOT leaked) to their full advantage. I don't download movies, anything I think is worth seeing I'll go see, or wait to rent it or even buy it. But this release is not anything new, and it does nothing to harm the business of the movie studios. It is a classic bootleg, distributed on the net. Big deal, ho-hum, nothing new. But they will use this as ammunition to get atrocious laws passed. That is bad bad bad.

Re:Trolling for congress?

[mark_lybarger]

they are guaranteeing this "crisis". maybe not directly, but they're the ones releasing it in a standard home format. it's either the producers or the mpaa. they go out and release a pre-screening DVD video. they know the technology is out there to rip the dvd in 30 minutes, and turn it into a (s)vcd in a few hours. the producers could certainly do themselves a favor and release it on good old fashioned reel-to-reel tape or better yet, DON'T RELEASE IT UNTIL YOU WANT PEOPLE TO SEE IT.

people can't copy somthing that's not available yet. if the movie is only released when it's ready for the theater, and it's released to the theater to display (in theater medium), then there's not going to be much copying. sure some people might visually record what they're seeing with a home video camera, but arguably, that's their production, not the movie studio's. the fact that they probably smuggled the video camera into the theater is a separate issue.

bottom line. if the studios are going to release a work in a home format, it's going to find its way into the homes.

Re:Trolling for congress?

[happystink]

But do you have even ONE TINY SHRED of evidence to support this theory? Is it totally inconceivable that someone walked into a movie theater and filmed this, and then released it online? What is there that is so at fault with that concept?

Re:Trolling for congress?

[schlach]

I gotta go with TGK on this one. If you want to play conspiracy theory, walk with me.

The number of people that are able to download movies P2P *

• the percentage that want to watch Harry Potter period *
  
• the percentage that want to watch a crappy version on their crappy computers *
  
• the percentage that won't also want to see it in the theatre *
  
• the percentage that would have seen it if it hadn't been leaked...

is probably going to cost them about $200 bucks.

Then factor in how much they'd lose in DVD sales eventually to the hard-core fans that aren't morally shy about downloading a DivX rip off Kazaa. If that would be substantial, they can release their own crappy-quality leak that will be instantly proliferated throughout the community, since it's the only one there at first. This will make finding the high-quality rip that will eventually be made from a DVD that much harder. It's much more insidious a way to spoof than just having void files that are the same size, ala the RIAA, because plenty of people will download and share it, thinking they've got the "real" version and not knowing there's a much better one out there.

Add to that the publicity value in the war against terrori^H^H^H^H err pirates to "Congresscritters" and the public. "Hollywood bribes Democrats, Republicans" doesn't capture the public headlines as well as "Hollywood campaigns to combat pirates" - "Avast, ye scurvy dogs" says Jack Valenti.

I'm not saying the MPAA is behind this leak, I'm just saying that, if they weren't, the might want to think about it...

Re:Trolling for congress?

[Schnapple]

They -=know=- just as well as we do that they're not loosing revenue to pirated movies.

Well this has been something I've pondered for a while now. Few if any people will bother to download this movie and watch it exclusively, as opposed to MP3's (i.e., a CD you burn using MP3's is close enough to the real CD for most people). Same thing with AOTC. I think the main reason they're going nuts (and I assume they are) is for different reasons:

1. The main way a movie makes money is not through viewings but through repeat viewings. Having a VCD kills this since you're less likely to go back and see a movie you can see on your PC or TV. In some ways this movie's release is worse since people will download this movie and teach their kids how to operate a DVD player - instant babysitter.
2. It could cut into DVD sales later. This is less of an issue for a CAM captured movie than a TV show. If you can download a TiVO Captured SVCD at near DVD quality, why would you buy a DVD of it in a season set later? Commentaries? Subtitles? Extras? Great for the hardcore, but for the casual fan just downloading it is plenty.
3. Part of the marketing rush for a movie is in its release date, but if the movie is available for whomever before that date, then that equity is shot. Mainly it just irks movie execs that people see the movie before its even in theaters (though since this movie is already in the UK its not quite the situation AOTC was).
4. IANAL, but the main reason, IMHO, movie companies go after this sort of thing is they have no choice. If they ignore it then they pretty much piss away their copyrights. If someone leaks Harry Potter onto the Internet and they do nothing to stop or combat it, then when they arrest a piracy ring for selling bootleg DVD's of Harry Potter on the streets of Hong Kong or something, they don't have a legal right to stand on since they didn't go after all of them. It sets a bad legal precedent because it says they ignore one kind of copyright infringement but not another.

Re:Trolling for congress?

[Cryptnotic]

They -=know=- that the overwhelming majority of their target audiance for every movie they release (execpt maybe Sneakers or whatever) is so technologicaly clueless as to require tech support to find the "any" key.

Sneakers was not an exception to that rule. Sneakers, you may recall, featured Robert Redford as a "hacker" who along with his gang, tracked down a magical decryption chip which automatically not only decrypted but cracked into any computer on any network in the world. Around that time, I remember talking to people who actually thought that type of thing was possible.

Hackers was far more technically realistic if you ignored the dial-in graphical nonsense. Sure, Hackers was a "teensploitation" film, but it had a great soundtrack, and it had Angelina Jolie topless.

Re:Trolling for congress?

[RollingThunder]

However, there's one facet you overlooked - and that's the movie theater OWNER, who for some reason enjoys allowing copies to be made.

I have heard it told - not witnessed myself, mind you - that some of the "theater tapings" have been made in completely empty theaters, with only the camera running, and often before the official release date.

The theaters HAVE to get the film before opening day, after all... well before it in most cases, because you do NOT want to have half a premiere because of some fedex delay.

Couple that advance availability with just one owner who feel philanthropic, and you have a very high quality theater recording hitting the streets in advance of the release.

Re:Trolling for congress?

[bfields]

Yeah, I do call you paranoid, if you don't mind. This is nothing but speculation. And poor speculation it is.

Hmm, I don't know. Consider; reasons to expect the movie company itself be responsible for the leak:

• They certainly have the ability.
• They have the motivation: besides establishing the "need" for digital rights management, it also creates buzz about the movie. (Look, Harry Potter got mentioned *again* on Slashdot, and this isn't the only free press they're getting!)
• They've got nothing to lose: I haven't tried to download a pirated copy myself, but I'm guessing the quality makes it no substitute for the theatrical release (or even for the VHS release, for that matter).

--Bruce F.

Re:Trolling for congress?

[malkavian]

So, in other words, the MPAA will start banning theaters from stocking the movies, as they're all pirates!!
As far as I read this, it makes no difference at all on the pre-release piracy (which, if it make a big dent on their earnings would do so if people watched before the proper release) if they put strong encryption on home movies or not. All this extra protection they pay a fortune for is completely worthless.
Well, we knew that anyway.
Maybe, one day, they'll realise what a clue is..
Incidentally, I'd rather not watch a crap version on rip; I'd prefer to wait until I can see it on the big screen. Read the book, know the story, just want the big screen experience.. :)

Malk

Re:Trolling for congress?

[MoneyT]

For the same reason the RIAA wants the DMCA

Re:Trolling for congress?

[uradu]

> they can release their own crappy-quality leak That's what I thought right away also. Leaking it first gives them a certain control over the quality of the leak, at least for a while. You would think that the mere availability of a crappy copy would reduce the motivation to create another better copy for a fair number of potential rippers.

Re:Trolling for congress?

[Dr. Spork]

Naaw, if this were deliberate, they would not have leaked Harry Potter 2 and Clones--Two movies that stink so badly that nobody could possibly want to see them in the theater after seeing the downloaded copies. Make no mistake--this is costing them, but that's only because the movies suck shit. The MPAA's real problem is that 90% of their productions have 0 talent.

I will not see a Harry Potter sequel ever again unless it's called "Harry Potter Gets His Annoying Ass Kicked In Various Ways By Classmates Annoyed With His Bullshit."

Re:Trolling for congress?

[MoneyT]

This may be a little over the top as a theory, but it's not entirely unlikely. In fact, you may be able to see a similar tactic in use today. Consider, the RIAA or at least the individual record companies are starting to flood the P2P networks with bogus files*. These files are in quite an abundance on the P2P networks. Anyone really think the RIAA takes these files out of the count when giving data about how much P2P is threatening their industry and the number of files being shared?

*If you want proof, try searching for any newly released song (i.e. the Bon Jovi song Everyday) and download a handful of the files there. 90% of them will download in a few moments (depending on your connection speed) and look just like a regular downloaded MP3. Yet when the file is opened it's roughly 13-15 minutes of dead silence with a handful of random pops and blips scattered throughout. A quick check of these files indicates they all come from the same IP block, and all are miraculously on a very very nice connection.

Re:Trolling for congress?

[jgerman]

Actually, not true, most movie theatres get the movie the night before the day it premiers, and the movie is usually put together that night, late, after the theatre closes.

Re:Trolling for congress?

[RollingThunder]

They cut it that close? I'm rather surprised... but I suppose they do it every week, so it would be old hat by now.

Re:Trolling for congress?

[invenustus]

If something happens, and one party can be shown to benefit from it, then that party is responsible?

If your parents get killed, there are no witnesses, and you inherit a large sum of money, that line of reasoning will put you in jail.

Re:Trolling for congress?

[jgerman]

Yeah, things may have changed but I doubt it, I worked in a theatre years ago, we had to put together all the new movies on wed nights for the following day. It kinda sucked, but at least we got to snatch a few scenes off of the reel when we were splicing them together.

Re:Trolling for congress?

[Lumpy]

Hmmm, the goodthinkspeak officers will be at your door any minute now.

it's funny how common sense like your's is completely lost and not understandable by our leaders or the movie/music execs.. it's as if the larger your bank account become the smaller your general IQ becomes.

Leaking this movie in it's crappy form, that nobody will even enjoy not only costs them less than a director's lunch. it will probably increase their profits.

Anyone that says a pixelated, nasty audio version of a movie costs anyone money is a complete and utter idiot.

Re:Trolling for congress?

[arivanov]

You should never be sure. I saw the Phantom Shit the week it was released in the US in one well known "fifth" world country available on DVD. At a price of course. That was before it even got to Europe, not even talking about the country in question.

We all know how anal is George Lucas about his franchise. Also, the movie was exactly as in the cinema form, no DVD shit and it was three days after a reel was stolen in California from one of the cinemas in the first wave to show it.

The interesting bit is that at least in that case it had nothing to do with the MPAA, RIAA or download leaks. It had something to do with organised crime. Which for some reason MPAA and RIAA do not seem to be violently opposed to... I wonder why...

So it is a "who knows"...

Re:Trolling for congress?

[agrounds]

Actually, not true, most movie theatres get the movie the night before the day it premiers, and the movie is usually put together that night, late, after the theatre closes.


Well, when I was working for a theater a few (ahem) years back, we got the movies two weeks in advance. This was at a Loews. We used to have employee night on Fridays after the theater closed and watch all the new stuff weeks before others got to see it. 'Course then downloading over the internet wasn't really a problem because 2400 baud connections to the local BBS was pretty cutting-edge in those days.

I just dated myself there didn't I...?

Re:Trolling for congress?

[tlk nnr]

The theaters HAVE to get the film before opening day, after all... well before it in most cases, because you do NOT want to have half a premiere because of some fedex delay.

Where is the problem? Send a sealed box, and disallow the movie theater to open it before the day of the premiere. Then hire one guy that travels across the country and randomly checks that the seals are not broken. I doubt that anyone would break a seal if you add a $BIGNUM fine into the contracts.

But I agree with the main point: I wouldn't rule out that MPAA doesn't even try hard to prevent leaks, because they don't hurt that much, and in the long run laws that (effectively) prevent private videotaping of TV transmissions will create more revenue.

Re:Trolling for congress?

[jgerman]

That's what I said wasn't it? The day before it opened, we happend to get our movies in the evening every week, I'm sure others got them earlier in the day. I've never heard of any other theatre getting them earlier than that (although there is a reply above this that claims two weeks). I find it hard to believe that a studio would be so stupid as to allow a movie in the hands of anyone prior to it's release, ... well intentionally anyway.

Re:Trolling for congress?

[RollingThunder]

Could be even easier... combination locks. Send the physical object out early, then distribute the combo on release day (or the night before).

It also occured to me that you can avoid vagaries of couriers by having local "staging points" - non-theater people, presumably your own employees, that recieve the movies a few days in advance, in the various towns (so no courier problems), then take them out the night before to the theaters.

Re:Trolling for congress?

[amarodeeps]

The problem is, theater managers have to check out the print before they show it, in case it's messed up or something, so they have time to send it back.

Re:Trolling for congress?

[mpe]

Actually, not true, most movie theatres get the movie the night before the day it premiers, and the movie is usually put together that night, late, after the theatre closes.

Which still leaves plenty of time for someone to digitise it. Especially if they have the co-operation of the owner and projectionist.

Re:Trolling for congress?

[mpe]

Where is the problem? Send a sealed box, and disallow the movie theater to open it before the day of the premiere. Then hire one guy that travels across the country and randomly checks that the seals are not broken. I doubt that anyone would break a seal if you add a $BIGNUM fine into the contracts.

35mm film is typically supplied in 20 minute lengths. This needs to be spliced together, to make a complete movie, typically with trailers and ads spliced onto the beginning. With a modern projection system the spliced film sits on a platter, not a spool. It is also possible to thread multiple projectors with the same print.
If the entire print were to be supplied all spliced together it would be difficult to handle.

The sound you just heard...

[slaker]

Was a million geeks all hitting Gnutella at the same time.

Re:The sound you just heard...

[n08ody]

Was a million geeks all hitting Gnutella at the same time.

I'll give you that. But, did they make a sound?

How many geeks does it take to ...

Of course...

[kafka93]

.. it will make millions, because nobody who really cares about seeing the movie will want to watch a grainy telesync with poor sound.

That movies are always going to be leaked and pirated should be no surprise to the studios. And it shouldn't worry them: even the pirates will pay to see the movies at the big screen - those who care about watching a flick will want to see it *properly*; those who would only pirate the film would doubtless have waited for the video release, at best, and the TV release at worst.

Re:Of course...

[cascino]

And it shouldn't worry them
Oh, but it will. This is the kind of stuff the studios make a big deal of on a consistent basis.
Simply ammunition in their war on digital rights.

Re:Of course...

[mrpuffypants]

precisely: my dad has gotten into downloading these movies through the various means but i just hate watching them. only two ways that i want to see a movie:

1) in the theatre, with big sound, good video, and a air-conditioned room and,

2) in my home theatre, with a pause button when i want a snack

however, i wouldn't discount suspicions that the movie biz leaks these movies themselves not only to get free press from it ( CNN will cover is as they are in bed with AOL/TW, and the others will probably do it too in the end) but these "constant" leaks will only provide more backing for any pending DMCA or other MPAA litigation

Re:Of course...

[b0r1s]

Keep in mind that Warner Bros. has an ongoing campaign against p2p USERS.

There have been a number of people who's ISPs were contacted after Warner Bros. planted false video files (I've heard they were avi-like files claiming to be Lord of the Rings, supposedly capable of connecting to some WB site and sending system information - probably by manipulating the 'codec needed' tokens). Anyone who really wants to watch this in theaters should stay far, far away from this file on p2p networks.

Re:Of course...

[Theodore Logan]

The preferences of a fair number of my friends disproves your statement. They think having watch it on a grainly telesync with poor sound is worth it, if the alternative is cashing up $8 to see it in a theater.

What you're saying sounds reasonable. But it isn't true.

Re:Of course...

[Anenga]

I hate it when I want to go see a movie and my friends say "Oh, just saw that. It was okay." "What do you mean? It comes out tomarrow?" "I downloaded it on Kazaa."

Or worse, they tell you what happens in the movie. I make sure I always get good seats and tickets a few days ahead of time to see a movie, and it becomes increasingly annoying when your friend thinks he's l33t because he saw the movie before it was released. That's probably my biggest annoyance. People who go to the theaters now are considered "Pigeons", at least in the teenager group.

That's why I love it when they AIM me and say "Shit! I spent 5 hours downloading a movie and it was blank!"

Re:Of course...

[mrpuffypants]

actually, i've had this corrected over and over by /.'tters but they both say it, just at different times

however my favorite actor out of the two would be morgan freeman, so i pick his version

Re:Of course...

[flameflash]

Like another thread above about the mpaa the reason the rhetoric "leaked" is even being used is so that they [mpaa] and for that matter the riaa, can both say "see, there's a problem, where are the laws to protect us from these nasty pirates! It was leaked before we could make our full profit!" The problem is, at least in the US, these people have a large voice thanks to lobbying and campaign donations. It doesn't even occur to anybody in government the hows of the pirating of the music or movie ie. radio broadcast recorded and then shared--basically Napster... or a telesync recording where some dolt carried a camcorder into the theatre and then hooked it to his/her computer. The hows aren't important... the fact that the mpaa and riaa are no longer in control of their copywrited works is the entire problem in their eyes. If there were no pirating, riaa would still be losing money because they're in need of some new talent to push, and the mpaa will still make profit because people have to see these movies right when they come out.

Re:Of course...

[Dephex Twin]

I would say, for your "pidgeon" analysis, I think your demographic (your friends) is a bit skewed towards the übergeek.

Your average teenagers go to real movies in the theater-- why? Getting together with friends and socializing. Going on a date with a girl. Getting out of the parents' house. These sort of things are as important to the average teenager as the movie itself a lot of the time.

Trust me on this. Movie-watching is one of those classic, tried-and-true places for teenagers to get together. It's not going away.

Re:Of course...

[JPelorat]

The next time someone spoils a movie for you, punch them in the face. Chances are good that you will only have to apply this treatment once or twice before they get the message and shut up about it.

Re:Of course...

[GlassHeart]

I hate it when I want to go see a movie and my friends say "Oh, just saw that. It was okay." "What do you mean? It comes out tomarrow?" "I downloaded it on Kazaa."

Somehow I still think that the solution to your problem is not some form of copyright protection, but new friends.

Re:Of course...

[echucker]

CNN will cover is as they are in bed with AOL/TW

Call it a quibble, but they're not in bed - they're owned by the same megacorp.

Re:Of course...

[isorox]

You'd feel different if the movie was released aarround the world a few months before you got to see it. For example, I like reading and posting on TrekToday. I'll have to avoid it over christmas if I dont want to be spoiled. Nemesis comes out in the U.S. on 13-Dec. It hits the UK on 3-Jan.

Same applies to TV. I want to talk about the latest episode of 24 - which I can do so if I wait until MARCH for it to air in the UK. However I dont want to find out what happens in the last episode. I got "Lone Gunmanned" on 24 series 1 - There was a story on slashdot saying something like "Dells are evil". I read it, halfway down it said "The mole used a dell". Didnt mention 24, but it was obvious. Of course after that I went looking for who was using a Dell. It was arround noon, and Alberta greene was using one - but she didnt last. I knew nina was the mole at arround 4PM.

Hence this series I download the VCD's, watch them in at least VHS quality, on my widescreen TV, with my girlfriend. No danger of spoilers on slashdot either.

Re:Of course...

[isorox]

(Drifters)
#Saturday night at the movies#
#Who cares what picture you see#
#When you're hugging with your baby in last row in the balcony#

Re:Of course...

[mgblst]

Sound like your greatest problem is the people you hang around with!

Re:Of course...

[mpe]

Same applies to TV. I want to talk about the latest episode of 24 - which I can do so if I wait until MARCH for it to air in the UK.

The reason for this is that US broadcasters want to have first showing of a series (especially after Babylon 5 slipped through the net). But US broadcasters want to be able to show 22-26 episodes in the same slot over all 52 weeks of the year. With things being fiddled to fit in with a ratings system unique to the US.

However I dont want to find out what happens in the last episode. I got "Lone Gunmanned" on 24 series 1 -

As far as the "Lone Gunmen" go you'd have a hard time finding episode 1 broadcast anywhere on the planet...

Re:Of course...

[JPelorat]

Do you always take everything posted on Slashdot at face value and in total seriousness? I feel sorry for you if you do.

mirrors please

[Pave Low]

why didn't you guys link to mirrors of like last time, with the doom 3 alpha?

you could have saved us the trouble of looking for it on kazaa.

This is old news....

[screenbert]

I've already downloaded Episode 3 off of Kazaa! ... Today is Friday, if you disagree then I don't care cause I'll soon be in Ireland and you won't. So there.

Much ado about nothing

[3.5 stripes]

I know my kid wouldn't settle for seeing some grainy rip of a movie at 200 x 180 (or whatever crappy res it looks least bad at).

Hardly a comparison to the movie on a big screen.

It's also not like you can't read the book to find out the ending, sheesh.

Re:Much ado about nothing

[capt.Hij]

I'll probably be there opening night. - Commander Taco

Not only that but you can't watch it with Commander Taco. I know my kid would be screaming if I tried to go a Harry Potter movie without the commander. Fortunately, the folks at Warner Brothers realize this and won't be too upset over the whole affair.

Now if I can only keep him from spilling his soft drink on me when he tries to get past us, then I would be happy...

Illegal piraters??

[easyfrag]

Illegal piraters?

Wow, President Bush reads Slashdot!

Re:Illegal piraters??

[sean23007]

Hmmm... as opposed to what? Legal pirates? What kind of pirate is not illegal?

What??

[Anonymous Coward]

Also note that it will make millions and millions of dollars anyway. I'll probably be there opening night.

Oh, okay, so piracy is okay. Thank you for your social commentary "CmdrTaco," I'll be sure not to feel bad when I download it and the company doesn't get my money for a movie ticket or DVD purchase.

Re:What??

[shaneb11716]

Hear, hear! I'll never understand this idea that if a company makes a lot of money from a quality product, that it's OK to steal it. Or better yet, if someone feels a company is charging too much for a product, it's OK to steal it. Or the best: if I can download this movie for free, it will encourage me to steal^H^H^H^H^H buy more DVDs!

The mind boggles.

-Shane

Re:What??

[Ho-Lee-Cow!]

No, piracy is not okay. However:

Profit = Revenue - Expenses.

Harry Potter will make more than the studios have invested in it. Lots more. The author will get her cut, the ecomony will get a Xmas boost from Harry Potter Kitsch. There will in fact be several hundred million dollars in profit, likely before video and DVD sales. The point is that the MPAA is bellyaching over it when they aren't really going to lose money at all on their investment.

So what is the point of stamping out our rights over the fact that someone made a grainy video recording of the movie and put it on the internet? This isn't DeCSS doing this. Whether the MPAA set this one up themselves or it was simple old-fashioned analog piracy doesn't have much bearing on the fact that the MPAA is going to trot their lawyers and Jack Valenti out to blame you, me, and our computers for what happened.

For years, they checked for recording devices at concerts. Frankly, if they want to stop this kind of job, then they need to do that for movies--and take the risk that people won't want to pay 8 bucks to be frisked.

When citizens became 'consumers', we lost our rights. Perhaps we should aspire to become citizens again.

Re:What??

[SirSlud]

> Or the best: if I can download this movie for free, it will encourage me to steal^H^H^H^H^H buy more DVDs!

Siphoning gas from your neighbours tank is dead simple. But people don't do it. Why? It's stealing.
But explain to me why people don't mind steal^H^Hcopying movies/music/etc when clearly there are so many other things that can be easily stolen in life? Gee, maybe because its not stealing. Its copying. And yes, it can be terribly immoral (ie, selling bootlegs for profit, or downloading movies to circumvent renting or theatre going altogether.)

Also note that copyright holders' rights have never been 100% protected. If you listen to a CD at a friends house, I could easily make the case that you're stealing the music because _you_ didn't buy the CD.

If you wanna build a case for the immorality of copying content without paying for it, at least respect that a majority of peoples' behaviours dictate the morality. Morality isn't simply somebody or some group passing a law; that doesn't make breaking that law intrinsically immoral. I'm tired of folks using whats set in law as the yard stick of morality. There are plenty of legal things I can do to you that is immoral, and there are plenty of illegal things I can do that are moral.

> Or the best: if I can download this movie for free, it will encourage me to steal^H^H^H^H^H buy more DVDs!

That might be a valid point if you had any real (not annecdotal) evidence backing it up. I can understand your reasoning (if you can have it for free, why would anybody rent the DVD) .. but it flies in the face of so many other cases of observed human behaviour. There are plenty of things that are easy to steal, and people don't do it nearly to the degree that people copy movies and music. This is the key point that folks postulating your line of reasoning seem unable to explain.

If you want to convince anybody that copying movies and music is bad, you might start with explaining why the amount of people stealing music and movies is so much higher than people who steal ungaurded physical objects. You'd probably also want to make sure that you viewed the rampant cassette copying of the 80s as highly immoral as well for consistancy (in addition to recording TV, recording the radio, etc).

Re:What??

[nutshell42]

The point is that the MPAA is bellyaching over it when they aren't really going to lose money at all on their investment.

Indirectly they are, because film-making is like digging for gold. You have to work through tons of dirt to get just a little gold but if you're lucky it's worth it (of course watching movies works that way, too =).

The point is, while Harry Potter is a guaranteed success the studios need all the money they can get from the block-busters to finance all the movies which flop.

I completely agree with the rest of the posting

Re:What??

[jeremyp]

One reason why it is bad to copy music/films instead of obtaining them legally:

It's quite expensive to make a film or cut a music CD. At the point where so many people are copying it *instead* of paying for it that it is no longer profitable, then people will stop making them. You won't be able to download HP7 because the film company won't be able to afford to make it.

Re:What??

[siskbc]

If you wanna build a case for the immorality of copying content without paying for it, at least respect that a majority of peoples' behaviours dictate the morality.

You're right, and that's exactly why if you say you're a thief, decent people won't hang around with you, but if you admit to downloading things off Kazaa, peolpe don't care. But does that make it OK?

Personally, I think that the general public has such a crappy understanding of copyright that they can almost be excused for their ignorance. But you should know better, /. reader. So you're basically hiding behind the ignorance of others and using their ill-defined morality as a crutch for your own theft. Not good, I think.

Morality has historically shifted. If you were around a bunch of idiots in Deutschland in 1942, you would probably get a medal for shooting a Jew. But you'll have a hard time convincing anyone now that it's ok (and with reason!). The difference is we know better. And your arguments for rationalizing piracy don't work much better.

That said, you could make a fair case that the music industry is so damned corrupt, and use their influence in Congress to stifle fair use rights, to feel a bit more legitimate about it. I feel like I've gotten gouged for enough CD's that ripping off a few songs doesn't even make us even yet. But what the hell.

Re:What??

[GlassHeart]

its not stealing. Its copying.

Actually, it's just "time shifting". As you all know, it's completely legal to tape a TV program so you can watch it later. Since the movie will enter the public domain in 70 years, I'm just exercising my right 70 years earlier to watch it now.

Imagine what a real time machine (open source, of course) could do to the RIAA and MPAA.

Re:What??

[Cryogenes]

Good for you! I certainly won't :-)

Re:What??

[coupland]

Siphoning gas from your neighbours tank is dead simple. But people don't do it. Why? It's stealing. But explain to me why people don't mind steal^H^Hcopying movies/music/etc when clearly there are so many other things that can be easily stolen in life?

Oooo! Ooooo! Pick me! Uhm, is it because my neighbours aren't money-grubbing thieves who charge me $13.50 for a movie admission and $10 for a cup of watered down soda and a bag of popped air?

Re:What??

[uberbrownout]

Oh, okay, so piracy is okay. Thank you for your social commentary "CmdrTaco," I'll be sure not to feel bad when I download it and the company doesn't get my money for a movie ticket or DVD purchase.

I don't feel quite so bad when I go to the theater and see they want $9.50 for a movie ticket. We're talking about capitalism at its best here. I'll take a look at what you're selling, and if I like it, I'll pay you what it's worth - whether it's $9.50 for a ticket to a movie I've been anticipating, 4 bucks to rent something I was kind of interested in but missed, or whatever the studios get from HBO out of my monthly fees. I give the various entertainment industries a pretty good chunk of my disposable income, and no - not every movie is worth my $9.50. Not even CLOSE. If the industries don't like me making an informed decision as to the quality of their product, maybe they should outlaw film critics too, and maybe make us sign a gag order before we can watch.

I don't know anyone who collects ripped movies. The few that I've downloaded, I erased after watching, and I eventually ended up paying to see the ones I enjoyed again. I'd have most likely never seen the rest. We're not talking about me taking something off a shelf and depriving someone else of the opportunity to buy it. We're talking about me knowing the quality of what I buy. Nearly every other industry is required, morally and usually legally, to give my money back if they sell me something of inferior quality. So what makes me a thief in this case?

Re:What??

[SirSlud]

> 250 years ago, the majority agreed that slavery was decent and moral.

Actually, your majority here doesn't include the votes the people being exploited would have had (ie, the slaves .. and presumably wed include the family and friends of the people being exploited - ie, the population of the colonated countries.) The majority in the 'is it okay to recreationally copy copywritten works for non-profit' would include the exploited, and maybe you might find the majority thinks its okay.

> 400 years ago, the majority thought it would be ok to light people on fire because they thought that they were witches.

Uh, really? I thought mobs of people burned the witches, but I wasn't aware of some overreaching concensus by which people not involved in witch hunts felt morally okay with burning people at the stake. Are you sure you're not confusing the majority with the participating majority here? This brings me to the next point ..

You seem to want to know how many people _engage in that behaviour_. Useless. How many people _feel okay with that behaviour_. People get scared, cause they equate a majority saying its okay with a majority actually doing it. Well hey, I think its morally okay to be gay, but I'm not going to be gay. I think its morally okay to do mushrooms, but I don't do mushrooms. So, you can't say that just because most people dont do it that most people wouldn't say that the act itself was morally okay. (In fact, the very notion that lots of people dont do it is often a reason people thinking its okay to do. See: littering. Works the other way too of course. See: homosexuality.) I'm not going to fetch you some numbers, because thats a pretty easy google: how many unique people were charged with theft last year vs. how many unique users there are on Kazaa. It doesn't really matter tho. (I just want to add that rights are a means of addressing the point you bring up; there are certainly some fundamental rights that the moral majority should not be permitted to infringe upon, which is why I claimed the moral majority is right with respect to copying. I recognize that there are certain aspects of life which you must protect from the moral majority, although usually only in situations where the majority shares a cultural homogeneousness .. where the notion of protecting somebody else in order to protect yourself in the future is void.)

As for the cassettes:

a) You still can't unless you invest heavily in bandwidth, disk storage, etc. You can't do much damage with a thin pipe and 3 songs on your hard drive. The damage you can do to the market is a function of the hardware you have. Same with cassettes. Yes, on a greater scale. Then again, cassettes could do it on a greater scale than the player piano could. So I guess cassette copying hurt the industry _way_ more than the playerpiano. Except, oops, the industry got more power from cassettes too (you could bring cassettes with you, some people bought tapes because they heard a cassette copy, etc.) EVERYONE benifits from the power of new technology. A producer choosing not to empower themselves (not through regulating behaviour but by adding value to product and opening up new markets and opportunities thanks to the nature of new technology) is no reason for the consumer market not to use said power. But again, everyone gains from new technology. The increase in power to the consumer is no excuse; the producer has access to that power too. The Big 5 just seem to think its a better idea to mandate behaviour instead of strengthen their offerings. Tough shit .. they won't go out of business soon enough, unless they wake up, in which case .. maybe in a year or two I'll be singing their praises for offering me content in a format and way that I want.

b) this point is true, but the likelihood that shared copies online come from ONE legally obtained copy is silly. for a file to become widely available on the net, there has to have been demand for it; in which case there were probably lots of 'nodes' your computer knew that had the original copy. as usual, the stuff that gets copied the most is usually the stuff that sells the most .. in most cases, of course. This doesn't work for 'leaked' previews (I am in complete disagreement with individuals who leak advance copies of work - way more important than money is the disrespectful act of leaking an artistic work before the artist is finished with it) but I'm not prepared to allow the actions of a few spoil the recreational rule bending of the many.

c) true, but there were ways of cleaning the signal, and it wasn't impossible (maybe 40$ a month) to get your hands on a DAT machine to make unlimited copies from a digital copy. I had cassettes that were copies of copies of copies, and when you start working exponetially, you can get thousands of listenable copies from one master tape (as in 1x8x8x8x8x8 ... before the copy started to become unlistenable.)

All I see is that technology has empowered the consumer and the producer. However, the producer chooses to not utilize that power, and then prevent people from using it.

Look, my arguments are usually construed for an A-OK to mass copying. No! My argument is like jwalking, littering, homosexuality, alcohol/prohibition, etc. Trying to control people's behaviour 100% of the time is more expensive to EVERYBODY than simply allowing those who _want_ to circumvent the law (in which nobody is physically harmed nor absolutely prevented from earning a living (because, as per above, and as you note, not everybody copies.))

I have no issues with enforcing copyright law. I have issues with attempting to disempower consumers when history tells us that you needn't put people in handcuffs in order for them to behave in a non-destructive fashion as a whole. The few will act irresponsibly, but I place blame in the hands of providers who refuse to service the many for the misdeeds of the few. Thats what a business plan should include; how to ensure that the few won't spoil it for the many. Fucking the many for the few gets a -1: Irresponsible and Stubborn in my book.

All that said, I don't napsterize (I belong to the paying mp3 site: emusic.com, all legal, everybody gets paid), I don't copy music, and I honestly believe that folks who leak advance copies are scum. I just will not accept that todays copying technolgoies are the stakes in the heart, never before seen, unparalled threats to business that some people claim they are .. nor that we shouldn't tolerate some level of 'deviant behaviour' .. because that deviant behaviour often has unforseen consequences that benifits everybody, even those that sought so hard to disempower them.

Your points are not without merit, but they echo of a certain familiar "the sky could fall" attitude that _always_ surrounds new technology. As for the morality debate, rights are meant to protect certain things from the moral majority and I wont argue that the majority can want to infringe upon those rights. I'd simply contend that in many cases, the majorities held up in examples are participating majorites (or worse yet, priviledged majorities), and not the absolute majority of everybody affected by those actions. Thats much more difficult to prove tho, and I'm willing to accept that I shouldn't have held up the moral majority case without better defitions and axioms upon which to build off of.

A good reply tho; certainly the most worthy of attempting to rebuke.

Re:What??

[SirSlud]

er, two things:

1. The GPL doesn't bar anybody from making money off it. But yes, I can make a licence that does (although I dont believe I should have right right, see below). Point made.

2. > be prepared to loose everything when some mob decides they want the things you've produced

Prepared? I simply don't believe that mob would exist were I offering my works at a fair price and by a means, in a format, people want. (Important to note price isnt the only thing here. If I use the exclusivity of my content as a means of prodiving it in a format or way people dont want, I have no right to complain when they pillage me. The key here is subjecting _YOURSELF_ to market forces by avoiding exclusivity and format advantages in order to influence the market. Its the equivilent of the 'invisible hand' slapping me upside the head for my stubborness in meeting the demands of the market.)

And morality *is* up for vote, as soon as youve protected peoples rights. So yup, you've hit the nail on the head.

I challenge a producers right to his work for two reasons:

1. That 'right' has changed over the course of 500 years, from 20 years to 90 after his death. Personally, I believe the owner has a right to payment, but not a right to licence his work exclusively. It'd keep labels from securing exclusivity clauses that allow them to abuse the market place with scarcity (ie, by restricting distribution and copying, one can artificially inflate the value through scaracity, the very opposite of the intended effects of capitalism and an open makret.) I readily contend that were a right to copy copyrighted works (provided royalty is paid) given to consumers and would-be distributors, we wouldn't be in the situation. SOMEBODY would have started selling music online and paying the artists for it. The only right an author should have is the right to fair compensation. The right to control publication, distribution, and format are all rights granted by virtue of producers and distributors recognizing that these factors allow one to artifically affect the value of the coyrighted work.

Good reply.

Re:What??

[isorox]

if you can have it for free, why would anybody rent the DVD

I curse the internet - I downloaded SG1 episodes a couple of years back, Then realised I could comfortably watch TV on a 17" monitor. Then I bought DVD's. Tons of them. Then a DVD player, and DVD Rom's, and a widescreen TV, and surround sound and amp. I've got about 75 DVD's now. That s big bucks for a student. I download SG1 epsidoes, then I buy the DVD. I download 24, then I buy the DVD's. I download family guy, futurama, etc.

I own 10 films on DVD that I previously downloaded.

In my case, at least, downloading (even VCD quality) leads to buying more DVDs. Sue me.

Re:What??

[oops]

Amen

Re:What??

[mgblst]

Yes, it is perhaps one of the worst social justices, that we still allow in our society, when a film only makes $300million rather than $500million.

Re:What??

[evilviper]

Nice to see someone here isn't brain dead.

I will admit to downloading a number of movies... mainly because I'm not willing to pay $4 to rent it once, or more to watch it once in an uncomfortable theatre. Now, when I see the DVD for $10 at a local store, I buy it without even thinking about in.

The moral of this story? If your prices are too high for the demand, then people will find other ways. If the price is kept in-line with demand, then coypright infringement would be nominal.

If a tomato cost $8.50, people would either use something else (i.e. watch another movie if they didn't all cost the same), or grow their own.

The internet hasn't changed anything about the nature of supply, demand, and illegal copying. It's just big, mysterious, and makes a good red herring.

Re:What??

[coupland]

I will admit to downloading a number of movies... mainly because I'm not willing to pay $4 to rent it once, or more to watch it once in an uncomfortable theatre.

I'll go one up on you here. I will admit to downloading a number of movies because I own them yet some greedy suit wants me to buy them a second time for twice the price on DVD. And yet to manufacture the VHS tape costs many times as much as the DVD disc. Why is the DVD double the price? If when I bought the VHS tape I didn't buy the film, I only licensed it for home viewing, then obviously I still have a license for home viewing from DVD. The MPAA would call my burned DVDs "piracy", I call it "one good turn deserves another."

just a cam

[Anonymous Coward]

it's just a CAM release (DV camera without direct sound input, i.e. decent picture + hollow sound). i doubt that this affects their dollar intake.

Not the fault of P2P.

[onion2k]

This has nothing to do with Kazaa, WinMX, Limewire or any other P2P network. Its got nothing to do with pirates, or filesharing, or DivX. Its not the fault of DeCSS, or broadband, or the cost of cinema tickets and videos. It is totally, entirely, and completely the fault of poor security at the film distributor. There is blame on the part of people using filesharing, and no law will ever make that the case.

Re:Not the fault of P2P.

[clickety6]

From the hackers file in the link:

Quality :: CAM

Reads to me like it was a camcorder version copied in a cinema showing and nothing at all to do with poor security at the film distributor.

Re:Not the fault of P2P.

[tmark]

Certainly the widespread distribution of it is something made possible by P2P, isn't it ? Certainly the people who are distributing and "sharing" this/these files are partly to blame for the illegal distribution. And given that there is no way they could fairly own the content, NOONE could possibly be crying "fair use" here, now, could they ? Could it possibly be that some P2P users are "sharing" content they don't own and have no "fair use" rights to ? Heavens to Betsy !

Re:Not the fault of P2P.

[Anonymous Custard]

It is totally, entirely, and completely the fault of poor security at the film distributor.

So by your logic, in every case where an abused woman doesn't know enough karate to fend off an attacker and she is mugged, dateraped, or worse, you think that is her fault? Are stores that get robbed to blame for not having armed guards posted at the door?

Sorry, but theft is totally, entirely, and completely the fault of the THIEF, never the fault of the victim.

Re:Not the fault of P2P.

[plover]

-1, wrong.

The actual act of copying the film to video probably took place in a movie theatre in England, where it's already been released. The distribution channels are probably secure, but they're delivering media to thousands of untrustworthy theatres.

In the past, the studios have used unique-by-theatre editing to identify the the leaky theatres. They may have done so this time as well. With a guaranteed blockbuster like this movie, they'd have been irresponsible if they didn't take some precautions. Don't be surprised if you see an offending theatre up against the wall in a multi-million pound lawsuit, and criminal charges filed against the owners.

Media theft is one of the driving motivations behind George Lucas' attempt to build a fibre-optic movie distribution network in America. It will ensure that the only pirated copies that come out are ugly camcorder-in-the-theatre recordings that aren't fit to be viewed. And technological tricks such as dynamically varying the frame rate (possible with a digital projection system) will render most of those tapes unwatchable.

(I'll drop the phony British accent now, Rupert.)

Re:Not the fault of P2P.

[Wiwi Jumbo]

I'm not sure about that... If it wasn't distributed by P2P it would be distributed by something else...

I don't think P2P is any more to blame then anything else, it's just faster.

Re:Not the fault of P2P.

[anthony_dipierro]

Sorry, but theft is totally, entirely, and completely the fault of the THIEF, never the fault of the victim.

Sure, but what does this have to do with theft?

Re:Not the fault of P2P.

[Erasmus Darwin]

"If it wasn't distributed by P2P it would be distributed by something else..."

If "something else" were just as good at distributing it, P2P wouldn't be nearly as popular as it is. Face it -- P2P makes things available on a wider scale and a greater level of convenience. That's why Napster was popular even outside of the geek crowd. Everything was available and at the user's fingertips.

Re:Not the fault of P2P.

[perky]

It is totally, entirely, and completely the fault of poor security at the film distributor.
Except that the film was pirated by someone taking a camcorder into the cinema and recording it. Which seems to me has FA to do with security of the distributor. Now go talk nonsense elsewhere.

Re:Not the fault of P2P.

[Wiwi Jumbo]

I can see you point, but I think the Genie is out of the bottle here... if P2P where to "go away" other options would be created...

But then again, what the hell do I know? :)

Re:Not the fault of P2P.

[nolife]

Certainly the widespread distribution of it is something made possible by P2P, isn't it ?

There are quite a few things between a rogue security gaurd sneaking a copy of a movie and me at my desk half way around the world. Any and all paths that movie took is equally to blame. The security companies background checks, the lack of DRM in his camcorder, the camcorder tape maker, his computer, the software he usd to convert it to Divx, the firewire card maker, his phone company and or ISP, software used to connect to the internet, modem maker, P2P application, web browser, TCP/IP protocol, routers, switches, and then same exact thing on my end including the divx player and my speakers. What makes the P2P app the bad guy? Getting rid of P2P is one very small part of this process. This is why the RIAA/MPAA will NEVER be able to stop or prevent this from happening. There are too many things with legitimate uses that would have to be taken away from the citizens to prevent an end round run past it.

Re:Not the fault of P2P.

[Anonymous Custard]

>>Sorry, but theft is totally, entirely, and completely the fault of the THIEF, never the fault of the victim.

>Sure, but what does this have to do with theft?

The way I see it, the movie was "stolen" by the person with the camcorder in the theater. Like any stolen good, the person sells it/ gets rid of it, etc, through a "fence" or a distributor (aka The Black Market).

In this case, the video pirates were the distributor, and they distributed it over the internet Black Market (although they did not make money from it, but probably gained respect among fellow software pirates).

I'm not sure how all this translated into law or whatever these days, but that's how I'd apply existing law to this situation.

Re:Not the fault of P2P.

[jafuser]

So by your logic, in every case where an abused woman doesn't know enough karate to fend off an attacker and she is mugged, dateraped, or worse, you think that is her fault?

Comparing an abused woman to an obsolete exploitive international conglomeration of billion-dollar revenue companies backed by hundreds or thousands of lawyers is obscene.

Are stores that get robbed to blame for not having armed guards posted at the door?

If I write a new game, and then share my first copies with a few of my closest friends to try out; only a week later to find out it's all over the net, then who is to blame?

But while we're making poor and unfair analogies, how about this one?

If a fool-proof procedure of ending nicotine addiction is written about and shared with the world for free, should the tobacco companies be allowed to sue and/or kill the author?

Blah.. as you can see, analogies are useless in debate. They are not much unlike statistics; everyone can find an analogy that fits their preference, and all of them are wrong.

BTW, violoating copyright law != theft. It's called copyright infrigement They are separate laws, with entirely different legal definitions and punishment standards.

Re:Not the fault of P2P.

[anthony_dipierro]

The way I see it, the movie was "stolen" by the person with the camcorder in the theater. Like any stolen good, the person sells it/ gets rid of it, etc, through a "fence" or a distributor (aka The Black Market).

The way I see it, stealing means taking something away from someone.

Re:Not the fault of P2P.

[Dyolf Knip]

What is a movie theater if not a film distributor? Just have to imaginative in how you define 'film distribution'.

Re:Not the fault of P2P.

[Anonymous Custard]

>>So by your logic, in every case where an abused woman doesn't know enough karate to fend off an attacker and she is mugged, dateraped, or worse, you think that is her fault?

>Comparing an abused woman to an obsolete exploitive international conglomeration of billion-dollar revenue companies backed by hundreds or thousands of lawyers is obscene


I wasn't comparing an abused woman to a multinational corporation; I was making a point on victim's rights and how we should not blame the victim. A victim is a victim, whether it's an abused woman or a movie company or anybody. The blame falls on the perpetrator, it is obscene to suggest otherwise.

If I write a new game, and then share my first copies with a few of my closest friends to try out; only a week later to find out it's all over the net, then who is to blame?

Your friends are to blame, and so are you. You are the game's owner, and you are the one who intentionally caused the leak. So you can sue yourself if you want. Or you could have been more careful with the people you let use your game, probably by having them sign a non-disclosure agreement contract that includes penalties should it be proven that they breach the contract. Did you make your friends legally promise to not share the game? If so, then they should be punished as stated in the contract. If you didn't come to a legal agreement with them in any form, then you can't use the justice system to recover any damages from them.

analogies are useless in debate

"Legal Precedence", used by judges to uphold the law in a consistent manner, is nothing more than a legal analogy. When you're debating something where there isn't a well established legal precedent (as with internet copyright infringement), you either need new interpretation and analogy of existing laws and cases, or you need completely new laws with wording specific to the issue at hand.

BTW, violoating copyright law != theft. It's called copyright infrigement They are separate laws, with entirely different legal definitions and punishment standards.

True, but it's still illegal in the form we're talking about here (taking a camcorder into a movie theater in the UK).

Re:Not the fault of P2P.

[Anonymous Custard]

>>The way I see it, the movie was "stolen" by the person with the camcorder in the theater. Like any stolen good, the person sells it/ gets rid of it, etc, through a "fence" or a distributor (aka The Black Market).

>The way I see it, stealing means taking something away from someone.

Haven't the guy and his partners taken away the movie company's status as sole distributor of the film? As another post suggested, maybe it is technically "copyright infringement" and not "theft"; but either way, you still can't justify the crime.

Re:Not the fault of P2P.

[isorox]

True, but off topic, please mod as such. The story isnt about theft, its about copyright infringment.

Re:Not the fault of P2P.

[isorox]

unique-by-theatre editing

50,000 edits? I guess you mean cinema[theatre] chains (UCI, Odeon, etc), instead of a different edit for Picture house Exeter, Odeon Exeter, Odeon Exemouth and Odeon Torquay.

Re:Not the fault of P2P.

[StuartFreeman]

So should we outlaw cars because they make possible vehicular homicide? You can't just outlaw things that have a valid legal use just because they can be used for something illegal.

Re:Not the fault of P2P.

[plover]

I mean thousands of edits for the initial distribution of a film I heard about a few years ago. (It might have been 'Titanic'.)

This was done when they got very serious about discovering which theaters were leaking copies.

I remember it being tremendously expensive, but I may not have all the details right. I think they may have started with one movie distributed uniquely by region and theatre chain, and once they saw which chain was responsible, they then distributed unique copies of another movie to the indivdual theatres within that chain.

I don't think they were interested in the guy on the sidewalk with the TV tray full of videos. I think they were after a theatre that was taking the film to a shady duplicating house and making a full copy for misuse elsewhere. I don't remember whether or not they ever succeeded in busting anyone, though.

Think about this: Lucas' digitial distribution scheme will enable individual theatre by theatre editing. Think of it as digimark using scene length and/or frame order. Odeon Exeter will get scene 28 with three extra frames and scene 7 with four fewer, that sort of thing. They could even do it unique by showing, enabling them to identify individual screenings that are pirated. And even from a crappy videotape, they might be able to use visual artifacts in the tape to determine the whereabouts of where the camera was located. Couple that with in-theatre security cameras and IR lighting, and they'll probably have a photograph of the bad guy at work.

Who knows? Maybe we'll start seeing FBI warnings at the start of the Star Wars: Episode III: Swarm of the Lawyers?

Re:Not the fault of P2P.

[Anonymous Custard]

>>As another post suggested, maybe it is technically "copyright infringement" and not "theft"; but either way, you still can't justify the crime.

>Sure I can, because I don't agree that copyright infringement should be a crime.

Well, that's a different argument altogether :-) You can believe what you want to believe. I agree with you that copyright infringement shouldn't be illegal, at least not in the form that it is now.

But good luck if you ever find yourself as a defendant in court facing serious copyright infringement charges, because what you believe happens to contradict with what current (US) law says...

Re:Not the fault of P2P.

[evilviper]

Sorry, but theft is totally, entirely, and completely the fault of the THIEF, never the fault of the victim.

Yeah, I remember when I left a wad of cash sitting on a counter at a local store. When I came back for in an hour later, some theif had stolen it. Oh, woe is me. It was all the fault of the theif, and there was nothing I could have done to prevent it.

I just thought I should throw in mine since we are obviously sharing our terribe, horrible, pointless and irrelevant analogies.

Re:Not the fault of P2P.

[Anonymous Custard]

Yeah, I remember when I left a wad of cash sitting on a counter at a local store. When I came back for in an hour later, some theif had stolen it. Oh, woe is me. It was all the fault of the theif, and there was nothing I could have done to prevent it.

Ok, so you're an idiot for leaving it there, but whomever now has your money is still a thief for taking it.

Oh, judge, it was just so EASY I couldn't help myself! It CAN'T be my fault, waaaahhhhhhh! You mean I have to take responsibility for my OWN actions ?!?

It's out...

[wangi]

"Opening Night", huh? It's been playing around here (Edinburgh) since last Thursday/Friday... Must be hard for you Yanks to lag behind!

Re:It's out...

[mrpuffypants]

i think it's about time for another world war...against Europe! ...wait, bush is already starting to do this....is "The Chamber of Secrets" avaliable in Iraq?

Thank goodness

[BigGar']

I really enjoy watching a poor copy of a film on my small computer screen and 2" speakers, day's before going to see it in the theater. I was worried I'd have to see it for the first time on the big screen with surround sound. Thanks for saving me, kudos to you!!!!

Re:Thank goodness

[Rew190]

Speaking generally about screeners and disregarding ethics...

I think there's a novelty to just having a copy of a movie isn't even out in theatres yet, to be watched at your leisure.

A lot of folks don't want to pay the price for a theatre either (coupled with cell phones, kids, etc).

Some people don't really care about the quality of the picture. I watched the screener of Episode 2 when it first came out. Sure, the quality was crap, but generally it's easy to get past it... especially if the storyline is good. Lots of screeners are plugged right into the sound on the flick, so that's not usually painful either.

If these people know how to sniff around the internet a little, they can probably dig up a copy of whatever they know is out there. P2P programs make it easier than ever to get illegal flicks like these- type "screener" or "divx" in your favorite program and see what you get. I'm sure people will stumble on this without even meaning to. At that point, obtaining a copy is only a double click away.

Why not?

Re:Thank goodness

[Proudrooster]

Offtopic, regarding your .sig

"Shop Smart. Shop SMART!"

I just watched "Army of Darkness" for the first time tonight and thought it was funny and ok, but how did this move get "cult" status?

yes

[squarefish]

Also note that it will make millions and millions of dollars anyway

Of course it will, they may even help.
I'm still not completely convinced that the studio isn't doing this on purpose to (1) bring more attention to the movie in general (2) hype the threat of pirates to encourage bad legislation

News for Pirates. Stuff to Download.

[Cirrius]

Forget trolling IRC for pirate info, just start come to Slashdot for all the news on the latest pirated releases! Doom III, Harry Potter, keep em coming Slashdot!

(sarcasm btw)

Why go to the cinema to watch the movie...

[Dot.Com.CEO]

when I can download a shaky, crap quality divx off the Internet?

Also, wtf is a pirater?

Re:Why go to the cinema to watch the movie...

[Nintendork]

The copy of LoTR that I had in DivX was excellent quality. Maybe you're downloading the RealPlayer format???

I did buy the LoTR DVD the day it released, BTW.

-Lucas

New DVD standard

[Overzeetop]

I can hear the back room conversation now:

This is exactly why we need better security on DVDs. I mean when you can just rip it straight from the disc and put it on the net its no wonder... ...um... ...oh, I guess copy protection has nothing to do with it.

Damn, somebody's gotta fry for this!

Re:New DVD standard

[Dot.Com.CEO]

Studio President: Well, this has to stop!

Exec 2: But sir, what can we do?

Exec 3: How about making all films in 3d? This way everyone who enters a theatre will have to wear these red/green glasses!

(silence)

Studio President: Give the man a cigar!

This is Harry Potter.

[traphicone]

It's more like four geeks.

Ewwww!

[Anonymous Coward]

Harry's Chamber Pot of Secrets has leaked? Gross!

Currently previewing

[Chrimble]

It's been on extensive previewing in the UK, since last Friday - it's amazing it took till Monday for it to become downloadable, really.

In my opinion, the quality of downloadable films in general is sufficiently poor such that the fact a downloadable version is available won't affect revenues in the slightest. Those most inclined to see the movie will go and see it on the big screen anyway.

The only reason I can think of to download a movie like this would be as a stop-gap till the DVD came out...

I would just assume see it in the theater...

[Camulus]

From the info file linked to:

Release: 11/09/02
Quality: CAM

Some how I think I would rather pay and see it with none of the screen chopped off and in full quality (esp sound). Just because it exists, doesn't mean it is really worth having.

OMG!

[GMontag]

It starts small, theivery by sneeking popcorn and cokes from "the street" into the theater, then it just gets worse...
reading the script in the library or bookstore years before release...
stealing the whole movie before it appears magically on the silver screen! it is too much! we are a lawless society!

Re:OMG!

[cei]

Now we just need a P2P popcorn distribution system so we can watch our pirated movies with pirated snacks and drinks. Of course, the popcorn would probably be of an inferior quality (not sure how that's possible some times, but still...)

I wonder if authorities doing raids on suspected pirates are tipped off by sticky floors in the suspects apartments? Hmm....

But you forget...

[jmu1]

that the new state of lawmaking is to take away all responsibility from everyone and place it all squarely in the hands of the government. Once that responsibility has evaporated, along with it goes liberty, freedom, and the ability to choose to ignore the laws made by disconnected legislators.

Do We Really Need..

[asv108]

A slashdot story for everytime a movie is leaked? I can understand Star Wars, but Harry Potter? What is the criteria for allowing leaked movie news to be posted on slashdot since its a pretty common event anymore? I can see the stories now, "Ya Ya Sisterhood 2 LEAKED!"

Re:Do We Really Need..

[Mandi Walls]

So true, so true.

Sorcerer's Stone was the second-highest box-office take worldwide, after Titanic, which ran twice.

CoS is going to make money hand over fist, and is poised to break box office records in Britain.

So yeah, that probably puts it right in there with "Ya Ya Sisterhood 2" or maybe even "XXX^2".

I don't really think WB has anything to fear for their pocketbook on this one getting leaked. Maybe they should fear that JK Rowling will want to renegotiate the contract for the rest of the series based on the outrageous popularity of the initial and sophomore releases.

--mandi

Re:Do We Really Need..

[Valdrax]

You call yourself a geek and you can't even enjoy a good kids movie about becoming a wizard? What's wrong with you, anyway?

Seriously, it's news here because there's about as large and obsessive a geek following of Harry Potter as there is for Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. You can see people cos-playing as Hogwarts students at most sci-fi/fantasy cons now. The books are just a good fun read, and the first movie was remarkably true to the source. Read them -- you might be surprised. I didn't expect them to be worth the hype considering the quality of most popular fiction, but they're pretty entertaining.

While you're at it, rent the movie. Unlike "Ya Ya Sisterhood," it's worth the money.

Does it really matter?

[Ost99]

The amount of money I spend going to the cinema and buying DVDs is mostly a fixed number: the rest of my money. No matter how good quality the Harry Potter II rip I probably will find on DC the next couple of days is, I'll still show up at the cinema, atleast twice. And I'll probably buy the DVD as well. I don't think *good* movies loose much money to piracy at all.

The not so good movies might loose some of their marked if they are heavily pirated. If I'd downloaded Reign Of Fire before I went to see it at the cimema, I would probably have seen another movie instead. That way Hollywood would still get all its money, but I wouldn't feel ripped of. I can't afford to see all movies (I don't even have time for that), so there is no money *lost* if that was the way it happened.

Now I bet the quality of the copy released on the net isn't that great, and even watching it might ruin the whole experience. Fitting punishment for beeing so silly.

- Ost

Re:Does it really matter?

[spectecjr]

The not so good movies might loose some of their marked if they are heavily pirated. If I'd downloaded Reign Of Fire before I went to see it at the cimema, I would probably have seen another movie instead. That way Hollywood would still get all its money, but I wouldn't feel ripped of. I can't afford to see all movies (I don't even have time for that), so there is no money *lost* if that was the way it happened.


There's no money lost if you see it in the theatre either -- IF you leave before the end. Just go out and ask for your money back.

They're typically very good about that in any theatre worth going to.

Of course, I'm not sure quite what you do about The Ninth Gate... has to be some method of recourse for a film that doesn't end properly.

Simon

Noooo.... it's all PR

[simetra]

They let these things leak to create interest in the product. As nifty as your computer system may be, it's very likely that it's nowhere near the quality of a movie theater.

Re:Noooo.... it's all PR

[pizza_milkshake]

I disagree, after watching the pirated Attack of the Clones I decided not to go to the theatres because the movie was so god-awful.

Re:Noooo.... it's all PR

[analog_line]

I decided not to go to the theatres to see Attack of the Clones because I knew it was going to suck, and the people I know who've seen it didn't say anyhting that would convince me otherwise. Still haven't seen it, downloaded or otherwise.

No big deal...does piracy hurt film anyway?

[droopus]

The release of Harry Potter is a crappy cam, and won't affect Theatrical revenue. It's almost unwatchable.

The bigger question is, does film piracy affect revenue at all? A film is not like music: Nevermind and Sticky Fingers will be just as valuable to me in ten years, and I'll listen to them a lot as a soundtrack to whatever else I'm doing. A film takes 100% of my concentration, (well most of it anyway) and you can't watch a film while you do something else..so film and music piracy are vastly different things.

Let's look at a few examples: In the Theatrical Window, Spiderman both broke box office and piracy records, hitting tens of thousands of copies a day at its peak.

In the Home Video window, the Spiderman DVD was released on pirate channels more than a month early and yet it still is going to break all sales records. 28 MILLION in preorders, which blows away anything before it.

The exact same thing happened with Shrek last year..most pirated film - most pirated DVD - best selling DVD.

While it would be difficult to quantify, it's possible that piracy acts simply as promotion when it comes to film: it certainly didn't cause the films above to fail on any scale, and probably won't affect Harry Potter either.

The million dollar question: could the use of piracy channels as a promotional venue actually increase film revenue?

Everyone assumes Valenti and Rosen are right: that piracy is damaging the film and music businesses. But Valenti was dead wrong about VCRs in the 70's and I suggest he's wrong about digital delivery and piracy in the 21st Century.

Re:No big deal...does piracy hurt film anyway?

[PigleT]

"It's almost unwatchable."

[catty comment] It's Harry Potter - it's unwatchable anyway! ;8)

"Everyone assumes Valenti and Rosen are right: that piracy is damaging the film and music businesses."

Agreed. I don't like seeing "illegal" copies, or premature leaks of media, but when it comes to previewing one or two tracks off an album in advance of buying the CD, I'm not going to waste half my lunchtime walking to $supermarket and listening to a few select noises when I can download someone else's copy of those tracks - and then I'll decide whether to go out and buy it or not (and delete the crap as need be).

This makes it apparent that there are at least two factors in the "does it cost us money?" equation - those folks who are freeloaders and will never buy a CD of even a proportion of the tracks they have, versus those who'll use it as a means of exploration and actively add more to the companies' profits.

I see it as simplistic to take either position - "it loses us money" or "it adds to the revenue!"; there's a mixture of both, and I've yet to see a calculation of the ratio of both phenomena.

While I'm passing, I'm of the opinion that milking that extra potential profit-margin (the freeloaders - who also exist in non-Internet-related realms) is pretty much the definition of greed.

It also seems increasingly apparent to me that the movie (and record) companies are simply trying to enforce an old marketing model - "you must get your crap here", rather than embracing an opportunity to expand to new horizons (FFS - think of the patent capabilities of helping invent a new distribution mechanism!). That's positively asking for rip-offs, IMO.

Re:No big deal...does piracy hurt film anyway?

[droopus]

That's why I said "it would be difficult to quantify" in my original post. As the troll said above, correlation does not imply causation. Totally correct of course.

Same thing in your case. You suggest that if piracy was not possible, 40 million would buy the DVD. You are assuming that piracy is a negative revenue generator.

But in my hypothesis (and it's nothing but a hypothesis) piracy might actually drive revenue. If this is true, then it's possible that without those twenty million illegal DVD downloads, Dreamworks might have only sold 10 million Shrek DVDs.

Be tough to prove it either way, but remember that the MPAA said the VCR would destroy the film industry back in the 70's. Now? Home Video is the number one revenue stream for ALL seven major Hollywood film studios.

I'm not insisting I'm right. But what if it's true? Could Jack Valenti possibly be wrong ...twice?

Re:No big deal...does piracy hurt film anyway?

[hcduvall]

This is sort of tangential, but piracy has devastated the Asian movie industry. This doesn't mean it would do it in the US or other parts of the world, but when the society at large is willing to see the movie in less than auspicious circumstances- in asia, I'm told that the theaters aren't as generally good as ours, so the incentive for the movie going experience isn't as persuasive.

Many a film in asia has been devastated by the piracy there. There's a movie called Hero that I'm really really looking forward to that had armed guards during the first week of screenings- the ratio of guards to audience members being something ridiculous like 1 guard per six watchers.

In any case, I don't believe that scenario is a likely in the US or most of the world at all, but its not entirely a toothless specter.

And the Quality?

[Anenga]

Over at VCDQuality there are screencaps up. A little too bright, but not bad. The quality seems to be improving since I've last seen a VCD Release.

The VCD Community is growing larger and larger everyday. It's common now at school to watch in-theatre movies on "Movie Days" because students bring the DVD's to school. (I've witnessed around 10 kids huddled around a PC in amazement on how some "l33t schoolmate" obtained the movie)

Though, a problem with the VCD Community is they release over IRC. They should do it over Gnutella2, eDonkey or another good P2P Network where each downloader also uploads to other users using Partial File Sharing. Releases can get out waaay faster on P2P than IRC.

Re:And the Quality?

[Anenga]

Errr. It seems they have anti-leeching on their images. Try this.

"Intentional" Leaks

[Cirrius]

I know this theory always crops up, but look at logistics. Leaked material of ANY kind, be it movies, music, or software, equal lost sales. Sure it sounds like a viable thing to do to people not in the industry, a staged disaster to try to get laws pushed through to prevent piracy, but no one connected to leaked material ever wants to see it happen. Why? Money. They made their product to make money, and I don't think they are going to be altruistic to their industry and lose lots of money intentionally. Losing money would be the exact opposite of what they want to achieve. Sure it makes for a great conspiracy theory, but it's just not a practical idea.

here, here, here....

[tiedyejeremy]

Could someone please post that to alt.binaries.svcd ?

thanks kindly. I'm not big on IRC and the usenet structure is so friendly.

Re:here, here, here....

[Chundra]

It's already on alt.binaries.movies.divx.

Not that I give a shit. I didn't particularly like the first one.

Re:here, here, here....

[tiedyejeremy]

Thanks! It's decent for a Uti release

no need

[krokodil]

Also note that it will make millions and millions of dollars anyway. I'll probably be there opening night.

No need to reassume movie studio that this is no
big deal. They are going after movie sharing on
the net anyway.

Heave to, and prepare to be boarded.

[Anonymous Coward]

Avast ye scurvie wenches. I've never seen such a pathetic and pasty white bunch of pirates in all my sea-going days.

Why don't ye grow up? Ain't ye got anything more intelectually stimulating to do with yer time?

it's the end of slashdot as we know it (AIFF)

[Pfhreakaz0id]

This paranoid speculation with no evidence whatsoever gets a 5.

I'm speechless.

Damn!

[NeuroManson]

Just checked alt.binaries.movies, it's already posted as DiVX...

Movie companies seriously need to revise their policies on security, including preventing cameras from review theaters, this is simply sloppy when there's already been ample examples of leaked movies...

Movies from P2P

[SoSueMe]

I've seen a couple downloaded movies which have a note that pops up stating "This copy property of Warner Bros..." and others that say "...if you are watching this, please call 1-800-...".
This, to me, shows that there is as much distribution from inside as from Pirates.
Of course, this won't be the line put out by the MPAA.

Re:Movies from P2P

[ceejayoz]

Those are usually DVD preview copies sent to people to review the movie (i.e. major news sources, movie critics, etc).

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secret *CAM*

[fluor2]

It's nuked for bad sound. Thus it suck! Guess we'll all have to go to the theatres if we would like to see this kiddie-movie.

Some people still don't get it...

[Andy Smith]

Also note that it will make millions and millions of dollars anyway.

So that's okay then. And if you make $100,000/year then it's okay for someone to steal $100.

<insert "silly_old_piracy_isn't_theft_excuse.h">

Re:Some people still don't get it...

[Xeger]

"Look, someone's leaked the new Harry Potter movie onto the Internet! Geeze, being as how I'm such a tremendous fan, I think I'll download it."

(days pass, as the movie is slowly and painfully downloaded, in pieces, from any number of p2p networks)

"Boy, the movie was awesome, but the pirated copy sucked ass! The picture was lopped off at the edges, someone didn't adjust the camcorder and the colors were washed out, the dialog was basically incomprehensible, and people kept standing up and blocking the screen."

"I'm SUCH a huge Harry Potter fan, but since I've already seen the crappy camcorder rip, I guess I don't need to spend $8 to go see the movie anymore. And I certainly don't need to drop $30 on the DVD, nosir. 'Cause the noisy, incomplete DivX-encoded version was enough for me. Come to think of it, perhaps I'll stop buying Harry Potter merchandise as well."

I'm not going to argue that it's *right* to distribute copyrighted works over the Internet. But you cannot by any means claim that Chamber of Secrets being leaked is somehow going to cut into the movie's box office gross. At best, the camcorder rip or the telesync (which is what they call it when they pipe the sound in from a theater-supplied hearing aid) is a pale imitation of the real cinema experience. People who were going to see the movie in the first place, won't be satisfied.

Re:Some people still don't get it...

[jonr]

Well, gee, if I could fscking print my own money, you could have 1 or 2 bucks...

Re:Some people still don't get it...

[anthony_dipierro]

And if you make $100,000/year then it's okay for someone to steal $100.

That would explain taxes :).

Movies these days

[scotay]

It seems that all the Hollywood movies I've seen recently are going for that washed-out, slate gray look of Saving Private Ryan. I'm thinking these cinematographers are now filming these things on budget camcorders in darkened theaters just to reproduce Spielberg's look.

Some are even resorting to adding a pixelized 'NB' or scary watermarks as a cheap play on audience emotions. Heck, some of these hacks are even adding audience reaction to the soundtracks or overlaying eerie back outlines of audience members on top of the primary action. I think we can blame Woody Allen's Purple Rose of Cairo for this new trend in filmmaking.

If these Hollywood hacks can't come up with some new visual ideas, I'm staying away from news servers altogether.

Actually...

[frank_adrian314159]

the second movie ... was leaked onto the internet

Leaked, hell - it was magic, I tell you... MAGIC!

Who defeated the interlock?

[jolshefsky]

Usually sealed chambers, such as those containing secrets, will have a double door system to prevent the contents from leaking out. In all secret chamber systems I've seen, there is an interlock that prevents the inner door and outer door from being open at the same time.

I think it is most important to determine who defeated the interlock system. I'd be willing to bet that person is also the pirate, or could lead to the capture of the pirates.

Nice blanket statement

[Theodore Logan]

Also note that it will make millions and millions of dollars anyway. I'll probably be there opening night.

As always Taco, you are right on the mark. They'll get a lot of cash anyway, and this clearly justifies piracy. That it's their product and that they should have the right to choose whether or not to share it with the world prior to its release, even if it was proven that it could boost revenue, is of no importance. Nevermind the tenets of capitalism. Who needs basic IP property right when you can have movies for free?

Re:Nice blanket statement

[kindbud]

As always Taco, you are right on the mark. They'll get a lot of cash anyway, and this clearly justifies piracy.

Where did he say it justifies anything? Can it be said that maybe the movie studios are over-reacting, while at the same time not condoning piracy? Can I shoot Jehovah's Witnesses who trespass on my property? Do property rights trump all other rights?

Who needs basic IP property right when you can have movies for free?

Exactly.

Re:Nice blanket statement

[Ektanoor]

That's interesting... But think... Where America would be if people in the XVI and XVII centuries would be so straightful?

America belonged to only and EXCLUSIVELY to Spain and Portugal. Right? And that was an international agreement recognized at the biggest European authority of the time - the Catholic Church.

How many Europeans would manage to reach the America's if everyone considered King Filipe's gold and lands as his rightful property?

What would have happen to Europe if they gave Carl V, the Filipes and his descendents the right to choose whether or not to share its "product" - the conquer of America's?

Re:Nice blanket statement

[Theodore Logan]

Dude, are you trying to compare the American revolution with pirating Harry Potter movies off KaZaa? If not, I have no idea what you're trying to say. If so, then Gawd help you.

Re:Nice blanket statement

[anthony_dipierro]

Judging from Taco's comments regarding Alterslash, I'd say he falls in the "against piracy" department.

Re:Nice blanket statement

[Theodore Logan]

If you're making millions already, then you don't need protection, you're already making millions.

Can I use this quote when I explain to people why I try to avoid any non-technical discussion on Slashdot? Thanks.

Guard sleeping on job?

[TibbonZero]

What would you say to the US government if they posted all the information (private) that they have on you online accidentally. What if Mastercard or Visa accidentally put your credit card # online when someone screwed up in administrting their network?

What if an admin leaves the password files as 755 and in plaintext for everyone to see?

What about a guard sleeping on the job? If something gets stolen is it his fault?
Accountabilty... I think that it can be the victim's fault. Sometimes, they were asking for it.

Re:Guard sleeping on job?

[digitalsushi]

755? If they were able to execute my password file, they'd be in for a big surprise- my password file, when run as an sh script, will mail me their shadow file, add an account for me, mail me their IP, and then flood ping their gateway. Sure, I got a funny log in, but it's worth the 4 to 5 IPs I get a year of machines I hackback automatically.

Re:Guard sleeping on job?

[Anonymous Custard]

>What would you say to the US government if they posted all the information (private) that they have on you online accidentally.

Gov't is responsible for all damages as a result of their negligence. Anyone who stole my information should be brought to court on any applicable charges.

>What if Mastercard or Visa accidentally put your credit card # online when someone screwed up in administrting their network?

Mastercard or Visa pays for any unauthorized charges, and/or sues the thief who used the credit card without my authorization.

>What if an admin leaves the password files as 755 and in plaintext for everyone to see?

The Admin (or Admin's employer if applicable) is sued for any damages caused.

>What about a guard sleeping on the job? If something gets stolen is it his fault?

As with the other cases, you're bringing up another "sloppy security" situation. Just cause it's easy to steal something doesn't stop it from being illegal to do so. The guard gets reprimanded according to company policy, and the company gets sued for damages, and the thief gets brought to court if he is caught.

>Accountabilty... I think that it can be the victim's fault. Sometimes, they were asking for it.

Then you need help, especially if you would apply this belief to abuse cases, and claim that battered/raped women are responsible for being battered, and not the person who abuses them.

I'd be wary of letting my friends or family be around someone who thinks "it's the victim's fault." Too many abusers, thiefs, and criminals believe that their own actions are someone else's fault; when, really, if it weren't for them, the crime wouldn't have been committed in the first place no matter how simple the security was.

Re:Guard sleeping on job?

[TibbonZero]

If I put a $100 dollar bill unguarded on the hood of my new Benz (no I don't have one) with the carkeys sitting there.... whose fault is it when I don't have a car or $100?....
I am not trying to say that those raped are at fault.(although I think sometimes when people don't get out of abusive relationships it's partially their fault, but rape is never the victim's fault)...

Hell, anyway, if they were actually WATCHING instead of sleeping on their asses, those work worked at the theatres would probaly notice cameras and microphones being set up...

Re:Guard sleeping on job?

[Anonymous Custard]

whose fault is it when I don't have a car or $100?

I'm not saying we can live in a utopia where no one steals anything. I think you should do what you can to protect yourself and your assets. But it still doesn't make the stealing right (or the copyright infringement).

So in that case it was EXTREMELY bad judgement to leave those valuables unguarded, especially since all you had to do was put the $100 in your wallet, lock your Benz, and walk away with your keys in your pocket. But it's also definitely the thief's fault, becuase no matter how easy it was, it was still stealing. And if it weren't for him (or some other thief), you wouldn't have lost the money and car.

God Hates Us All

[disc-chord]

God hates Hairy Potter fans now? WTF? Dude this god fellow needs to lighten up and relax. What's he getting all pissy about everything for? If he's going to get all worked up about everything, maybe he ought not have made it to begin with.

Let's check the score board... So far god hates:
jews, women, homosexuals, anyone with a tan slightly darker than anglos, and now Hairy Potter Fans.

It's time we ask ourselves does god like anyone? Are you even sure he likes you?

value added

[fermion]

Like any industry, the amount of money that one can make depends on the perceived 'value added' to the product. The movie industry 'adds value' to the books and expects to make a profit on that addition. The question is how. If the theaters can 'add value' to the viewing experience, then the cinemas and the movie makers make a profit. If the cinemas do not, then perhaps the movie companies can make a profit through video rental and sales, at the expense of ticket sales. Or, perhaps the movie is such a dud that no one wants to pay for the movie and will just watch the grainy pirated copy, shadow heads and all. Or, perhaps, the movie is so bad that the leaked copy, which should be a prime advertising tool, so sickens people that they swear never to see the movie. We all have wasted money on movies that made us sick.

The fact is that the entertainment industry does not take 'value added' seriously enough. They put two good songs on an album (blues traveler 'four' comes to mind) and expect the populous to pay $20. Why should they, just download the two songs from the net(or, for those who can remember, record it from the radio, anyone got albums from the late night full play?). The same is true for movie theaters. They have 30 screens, 5 movies, only of which one are worth seeing at the theater, and the staff antagonizes you the whole time. How much money do they expect make. And yet I do not see the movie industry, those great champions of legislating profit from intellectual property, doing a thing to help the poor suffering movie theaters. Rather the studios leave movie theaters to fend for themselves and legislate for copy protection in hope of making money on the DVD release.

Harry potter has buzz, is probably a good movie, and is squarely directed at the annoying child demographic. The leak will certainly affect ticket sales in some minuscule manner, but isn't going to make anyone homeless. It is too effective of a method to keep generally undisciplined children quite for an hour or so.

So it's ok...

[Call Me Black Cloud]

Also note that it will make millions and millions of dollars anyway.

So it must be ok! Thanks Taco...I think I'll put up a /. mirror but with my own advertisers. I know you won't mind if I take your work and profit from it.

Heh, in a way, I'm already doing the equivalent of p2p trading wrt slashdot. I'm running The Proxomitron which wipes out all the ads. So I'm benefiting from your work without making you any money.

Now here comes the part where all the Taco lovers mod me down without considering the point I'm trying to make...

Re:So it's ok...

[nagora]

Now here comes the part where all the Taco lovers mod me down without considering the point I'm trying to make...

Whatever point you thought you were making collapsed when you made it clear that you agree with Taco's implication. You're either against stealing people's work or you're not - make up your mind.

TWW

Best point I have heard in a while...

[TibbonZero]

If you statistics are true (which I have no reason to believe elsewise), then this is the best point that i have heard all year.
Too bad we can't mod you to like +10 or something :)

If the studios would listen to the pirates...

[RobertB-DC]

If the big studios are keeping such a close eye on the effect of illegal trading, why don't they use that information for marketing purposes?

I got a bootleg copy of Kiki's Delivery Service (the dub shown on JAL flights, IIRC), and it immediately became a hit with the kids and their friends. So when Disney finally got around to releasing it, did I say "Pfft, I've already got that one"? Heck no, I bought it as soon as I could find it! So why won't Disney make it available again?

But I don't want to get carried away about Disney (that would be a whole other discussion)... can I safely assume that this myopia is not specific to just one big studio?

I AM A BIG FAT TROLL!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're not paranoid.

I'm the guy that did the screen cap. I worked as an independ contractor hired by the MPAA.

They has a special section roped off for me at the sneak preview, and stressed that I wasn't too careful about the quality -- they just wanted enough of a teaser to get people into the theater. The bigwigs figure that for the price of a crappy download that nobody will be able to watch all the way through, they get advertising that can't be beat!

Re:I AM A BIG FAT TROLL!

[McFly69]

Pssss... Buddy.... Have a link to download the whole thing?

Re:Not the fault of the theatre employees

[*weasel]

the theatres can't actually do anything to you for cam'ing a film.

they can ask you to leave - but they have to give you a refund. the only time they can deny a refund is if you are disrupting the experience for other guests.

they cannot take your camera, they cannot take your film.

they also dont have the authority to search you.
if they think you're packing - sure they can 'ask' to search you, and turn you away if they want.

so in this system, the cam'er just has to keep trying. eventually he'll get through when no one is looking (with 90-100% of ticket sales going to the production companies, most theatres don't adequately staff nor train).

and really, is my cam'ing the film illegal? absolutely not. just like my recording nfl games onto vhs is legal.

redistributing -is- the illegal part.
saying p2p isn't to blame isn't entirely wrong either. holding the software to account for this is like holding ups accountable for shipping god-knows-how-many illegal copies of vhs movies across the country.

those people distributing the film are breaking the law. this tends to be the cam'er, but isn't necessarily. so you can't just crack down on the cam'ers because 1: they're not breaking any laws, 2: it doesn't work

of course... then there's the nebulous argument of: is it illegal to distribute a cam if you are not profiting from it? it's not actually the transfer of possession of a copy of something that's illegal, it's the sale.

so is it really illegal if there's no sale? and is that why cam'ers and p2p distributers don't actually go to jail? i mean, the gov't tracks down computer criminals all the time and jails them. but when have you ever heard of a cam-circle getting busted?

The Truth about film piracy

[DaveOf9thKey]

Film piracy is never going to cut into box office dollars, period. No computer setup -- not even one with a projector screen and 5.1 surround sound -- will ever duplicate the theater experience, especially with a grainy telesync. The big screen and crowded theater hold too much fascination for us as human beings, and it won't go away any time soon.

The place where film piracy will hurt the most is in the home video market, because DivX rips of DVD films are at least VHS quality, usually better in some cases. Still, the movie industry has an advantage over the music industry here, because DivX rips are hard to download and DVDs are cheap. Hell, it's easier to rent a DVD and rip it yourself then to hunt down a film on Gnutella, and even then, you're still supporting the filmmakers in some small way, because you're paying the rental fee.

If the movie industry can improve the video quality and service quality of sites like MovieLink and CinemaNow, they'll have the one thing the music industry never really created -- a convenient, inexpensive alternative to piracy in the marketplace. Gee, is that all it takes? Who knews?

Sort of like playing songs on the radio?

[iabervon]

At some point, the MPAA will realize that these things actually serve to promote the movies. People will go to see the movie (provided it didn't suck, which they'd probably have found out from reviews anyway) to see it with quality that isn't terrible. Consider how many people buy DVDs of movies they have on VHS for the difference in quality there; now consider the difference in quality between a camcorder and a movie theater.

The MPAA has some clever people; it seems like they could figure this out. Or they could ask the RIAA about it; they've been paying ClearChannel tons of money for decades to distribute low-quality versions of music before it is widely available. Maybe they're afraid the pirates will start charging them millions of dollars to pirate their movies?

Re:Sort of like playing songs on the radio?

[NeuroManson]

Definately, I've bought DVDs of movies I previously refused to view in movie theaters (such as South Park, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, The One, The Emperor's New Groove, Princess Mononoke)...

Frankly I've had my movie viewing experience ruined (for example, Lord of the Rings) with people talking on their cel phones, talking through the movies, walking back and forth since they couldn't handle sitting still for 3 hours... Either way, the MPAA gets my precious money...

+4 Interesting my fat, hairy ass

[RatBastard]

Copying work without the owners permission is theft. No amount of self-serving rationalizations will change that. You are not stealing your friend's cd of the Back Street Boys when copy it, but you are stealing money from the record company that owns the rights to the music (and Lance and his little friends).

Hide behind semantic hair-splitting all you want. It won't make a difference.

Re:+4 Interesting my fat, hairy ass

[Jardine]

Not in my country it isn't. If a friend buys a CD and I make a copy of it for my personal use, that's legal.

Re:+4 Interesting my fat, hairy ass

[mao che minh]

Preach on brother. Most of these people arguing for the act of piracy never simplify the problem and view it for what it is: illegally obtaining copy righted material for free.

Re:+4 Interesting my fat, hairy ass

[Jonny Ringo]

I can tell you work for the Recording industry by

1. the nature of your post defending large record industries.
and
2. your handle is "RatBastard"

Re:+4 Interesting my fat, hairy ass

[GlassHeart]

Copying work without the owners permission is theft.

Killing someone is murder.

Oh, wait, except when the fetus isn't born yet, then it's abortion. Legal in some places.

Oh, wait, except when the guy is a murderer being executed by the State. Legal in some places.

Oh, wait, except when he's trying to kill you and you shoot him first, then it's self defense, and legal probably everywhere.

Oh, wait, except when the guy is really old and sick and would rather die. I don't know if euthanasia is legal anywhere yet, but it's at least being argued.

Oh, wait, except when you kill yourself, then it's not a crime nearly everywhere.

So no, it's not theft the same way shoplifting is. The damage (lost potential sale) done to the victim is simply not the same as if the CD was shoplifted. In fact, the damage you make may be less than setting up a website to say how much the album sucks. Think about that, because it's protected free speech.

Note that I'm not saying it's right, just that it's not black and white like physical theft. Specifically, there should be a difference (in law) between someone who "pirates" for personal use, and someone who distributes, because they cause different damages.

Think of a paper book. You can buy it, read it, and give it to your friend to read. In fact, two people read the book, and only paid once. Now, how is that substantially different from beaming an ebook to your friend before you're finished reading? What about after you're finished reading?

It is different, by the way, because your friend could potentially want to read it so badly he buys his own copy - potential lost sale. However, the act of beaming the ebook is not the same as shoplifting, because its impact on the copyright owner is not the same. Think of the difference between murder and suicide, and while some people consider both immoral (perhaps even equally immoral), only murder is generally an actual crime.

Re:+4 Interesting my fat, hairy ass

[enjo13]

This is the most insane argument I've ever heard.. and I hear it over and over again.

Lets look at this from an economics stand-point. If you are willing to put the time and effort into downloading and watching the movie then you obviously place some *begin economics word* VALUE *end economics word* on it. If you truly didn't care, then you wouldn't have downloaded it.

Its true that you may not place $10 worth of value on it (what it takes to go see in the store), but at some basic level you value it because you are willing to give your time and effort into obtaining and consuming it.

What you want to do is receive that value without paying for it. You want to consume, without compensating the producer. That my friend is stealing.

Apply it to something physical: Its ok the Winona Ryder shoplifted, she never had any intention of paying for it anyways. That's stealing...

The only difference is that the product here is digital, and thus easily reproducable. The argument put forth by the Media people (and one that I agree with) is that by downloading a piece of media you are effectively getting something of value without any type of exchange. At some point the piece of media would be inexpensive enough for you to purchase, but because you have access to it for effectively free.. you have no economic incentive to ever pay for it, even when you value it enough to pay for it at some price point. You can't rationlize this behavior with this argument, it simply doesn't make economic sense.

Re:+4 Interesting my fat, hairy ass

[Tim Browse]

Killing someone is murder.

I think you'll find that murder is the unlawful killing of a person.

Therefore, by definition, your points are irrelevant.

Theft has an altogether more interesting definition in this situation though - perhaps the word stealing is more appropriate.

Tim

Re:+4 Interesting my fat, hairy ass

[SirSlud]

> At some point the piece of media would be inexpensive enough for you to purchase, but because you have access to it for effectively free.. you have no economic incentive to ever pay for it, even when you value it enough to pay for it at some price point.

WRONG. The food riots showed that people were far more interested in paying a fair price for something than stealing it outright. Faced with the recognition that looting and pillaging food producers for free would cause said producers to be able to make food for the future, people rioted .. and damanded a fair price for the food. Mobs of people could have just gotten the food for free, but we're animals; if we can tell if our behaviour is going to destroy the producers of the things we value, we wont seek said product for free. AKA, we do have an incentive not to get said product for free. Anybody that denies this is saying that humans are _incapable_ of recognizing the need not to destroy the very systems we depend on for our lives. Thats patently untrue, as we can see in everything from p2p behavior to the food riots of earlier centuries in the UK when the price of food rose above what a majority of the population could afford (one of the unfortunate results of the implementation of capitalism in feudal times.)

The incentive for people to pay is to keep folks producing this valued content. You yourself say people place some value in the product, so WHY THE FUCK WOULD ANYONE WANNA RUN THE PRODUCT OUT OF BUSINESS. Nobody.

So people 'copy' when they feel they are not in danger of causing the producer to go out of business. But they _WONT_ pay for shit just for the sake of _garaunteeing_ that the producer wont go out of business.

I mean, risk is part of business. Whether or not you go out of business because people won't pay your asking price or because people circumvent your asking price because they feel its too high .. ITS THE SAME THING. THe key difference is in the sake of the physical realm, youve deprived the original owner of product. In the digital world, you havn't in any way affected the producers ability to sell to other people because *each one of those people will either pay what you're asking for or won't*.

Re:+4 Interesting my fat, hairy ass

[jgerman]

at some basic level you value it because you are willing to give your time and effort into obtaining and consuming it.

Ok I've just paid everything I'm willing to pay then, the VALUE of that product (and I use the term loosely) has been met as far as I'm concerned.

The only difference is that the product here is digital, and thus easily reproducable

That is certainly not the only difference, but even if it were it is an important one. I have not, by downloading a movie, removed the ability of a media company to make money from it. I have not lowered the amount of inventory they have. I have not taken ANY money out of their pockets. I have NOT stolen.

It's not an insane argument, it is a completely logical one. By the definition of the word theft, I have not stolen. That doesn't make it right (or wrong I could care less) but it is not theft.

Re:+4 Interesting my fat, hairy ass

[nathanh]

Copying work without the owners permission is theft.

Copying a copyrighted work without the owner's permission is copyright infringement.

Re:+4 Interesting my fat, hairy ass

[nathanh]

What you want to do is receive that value without paying for it. You want to consume, without compensating the producer. That my friend is stealing.

This is a silly definition of stealing. It manages to cover gifts, charity, lotteries, etc. If you're going to play silly word games to win the argument then there's no point arguing with you.

Re:+4 Interesting my fat, hairy ass

[SirSlud]

The absolute funniest part about all this is that copyright law was introduced because the act of theft wasn't synonymous with copying an authors work in the days when copying technologies started to become more widespread (ie, the printing press.)

If its so _obviously_ stealing, why the fuck did copyright law come into existance when laws covered the act of theft in the first place.

Do you see the stupidity of your argument? If its so obviously theft, why have copyright law in the first place? Why not just tack on "copying the work of an author" to the laws pertaining to theft and abolish copyright law altogher?

Oh gee, I wonder if its because the act of copying something is a FUNDAMENTALLY different effect within the economy, and thus we must handle copying authors' works in entirely different ways than we handle the act of theft?

So explain that: why have copyright law at all if copying an authors work without their permission is simply 'theft'? Why don't we just say that an authors work is tantamount to a physical object, and they have eternal ownership and complete control over copying mechanisms, exclusivity, etc ...

Here's one clue: It _is_ different, and giving authors' property-like rights to copyrighted works (unlimited inherent ownership of creations, treating copying of said work to theft) has been shown time and time again, over the course of hundreds of years, as being bad for the producer, bad for the consumer, and bad for culture altogether.

This was the _REASON FOR COPYRIGHT LAW_. Its not the same as theft, and thats the reason for its very existance. And ironically, now you claim that its theft because its copywritten. In reality, its copywritten for the very reason that copying it is not theft, as lawmakers discovered centuries ago. All this is notwithstanding that copyright was introduced to weaken the 'ownership' argument content producers, publishers, and distributors claimed they had (as granted by the king at the time) on cultural works because said claim was shown to damage both the industry they operated within and the social culture at large. Get with the program, or at least read a book on the nature of copyright, its history, and how market forces operate differently on reproducable artistic works than they do on physical property.

Re:+4 Interesting my fat, hairy ass

[Hrothgar The Great]

I had never noticed this before:

Note: To constitute theft there must be a taking without the owner's consent, and it must be unlawful or felonious; every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief.

I stole that from dictionary.com. ;)

Good point about the difference between the two words, by the way.

Re:+4 Interesting my fat, hairy ass

[isorox]

only murder is generally an actual crime.

Actually suicde is a crime, you get put on death row if found guilty.

Re:+4 Interesting my fat, hairy ass

[GlassHeart]

It is different. If you give the book to your friend, you no longer have the book.

Yes, I had hoped to be clear that it is different. However, I was asking the reader to consider the relative damages to the author and publisher. In both cases, the end result is that two people read the book (let's simplify the discussion and assume that this is a book you'll only ever want to read once), but only one payment is made. Why is one completely legal and the other not?

The beamed ebook is indeed a violation of copyright laws, as you point out. However, I'm asking how this act damages the author or publisher over just lending the book, compared to stealing the book off a shelf.

If you beam an ebook to your friend, you've made a copy. You both have use of the book.

Let's make it interesting, then. What if he promises not to read it until I'm done, delete it from my reader, and give him a call? Who does that hurt now? In fact, his promise makes the case identical to the lent paper book case, but our act of beaming was still illegal. Why is that?

After all, if ebooks didn't exist, one of you would have had to buy a paper copy.

You're absolutely right. However, ebooks (and more to the point, MP3s) do exist, and they can be copied at no out-of-pocket cost to the author. Thus, it makes sense for the author to charge a smaller fee for the second copy to get the same profit. Thus, if the second copy was not paid for, the author lost less than if he lost the first copy (shoplifting).

Let me be clear: I'm not opposing copyright. However, I am arguing that copyright violation is not equivalent to theft. It causes less damage to the owner, and should carry a lighter penalty under law. In fact, in an age where copying is never cheaper or more convenient, it may be time to rethink how else we can protect artists, rather than cripple the technology we already have.

Imagine if the printing presses were artificially limited to the rate of production that the monks had copying by hand.

Re:+4 Interesting my fat, hairy ass

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Apply it to something physical: Its ok the Winona Ryder shoplifted, she never had any intention of paying for it anyways. That's stealing...

Acctually. It would be more like if Winona Ryder had went into the shop, took lots of photos of the cloths, then made some cloths that look identical to them.

She did not steal anything. She violated a copyright law.

Re:+4 Interesting my fat, hairy ass

[timster]

Somebody needs a dictionary. Here's a sample (Merriam-Webster's unabridged):

1 a : the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it b : an instance of such an act

If you want to help the copyright industry modify the definition of the word "theft" by improper usage, go right ahead, but there will always be a meaning of the word "theft" that _doesn't_ include "partaking of culture in such a way that is not approved by a large corporation, whether or not such action impacts the revenue of said corporation"

Re:+4 Interesting my fat, hairy ass

[Sabriel]

It is different. If you give the book to your friend, you no longer have the book. If you want to read it again, you must either get it back from the friend (in which case they no longer have the book) or you must buy a new copy.

Unless of course you have an eidetic memory (perfect recall), in which case the Book Publishers Union sends thugs to follow you around and beat you with clubs every time you go near a book.

Seriously, what happens if we find the genes that control memory and it turns out to be real easy to make our kids eidetic? Should we ban that too so that media companies can continue to make the profits they currently enjoy without fear of having to change, adapt or grow?

Re:+4 Interesting my fat, hairy ass

[Sabriel]

In the U.S., suicide is a crime. [...] In the U.S., if you commit suicide, the State takes your possessions.

Yuck. If it's also illegal to profit from a crime in the U.S., then the State should be forced to prosecute itself! ("sorry your son hung himself, Mrs X, now we'll just list him as a criminal and we'll take all his stuff too!") That just feels so wrong. What's the govt's excuse?

You mean sound of 8 year olds, right? Not geeks...

[Viewsonic]

Unless yer still living in your parents basement, which you probably are...

Re:just an observation

[nagora]

why, then, is it not fully released yet?

It is. It just set the box office record for a preview in the UK via more than 500 screens. That's pretty well released in my book.

TWW

Worse yet

[ucblockhead]

Hearing two geekboys complaining about how the Two Towers trailer "ruined it" by showing the "spoiler" that Gandalf wasn't dead.

Re:Worse yet

[ucblockhead]

Well, yes...

But the whole fucking world has known about it since the sixties.

Re:Worse yet

[Tim Browse]

Maybe, but not everyone has read LotR - and maybe, just maybe, they'd have liked to have watched the films without being told the plot in advance.

I did know about Gandalf, but I was still quite surprised that they revealed his return in the trailer.

For the dumbest trailer ever though, check the the US trailer for Goldeneye.

On the off-chance that you haven't seen the film, do not read any further.

The US trailer went something like this: "This time, 007 faces his greatest enemy - 006!"

Doh!

Tim

Re:Worse yet

[GMontag451]

That did ruin it. I was looking forward to seeing the expression on my little brothers' faces (who haven't read the books yet) when they realized that Gandalf wasn't actually dead. I mean, that would be like showing the part of "The Sixth Sense" where you realize that Bruce Willis is a ghost in the trailer!

Re:Worse yet

[susano_otter]

I guess they figured everyone has read the books already which a very dumbass mistake.

It's actually a lot worse than that: The people who produce trailers are invariably clueless fuckwads who apparently get paid a living wage to violently rip the newness out of any movie they work on.

Your only hope is to keep reminding yourself that it's the producer's fault, not the director's.

Re:Worse yet

[susano_otter]

On the off-chance that you haven't seen the film...

I didn't need to see the film: I saw the trailer.

Isn't it funny how movie trailers are always either Early Warning Systems ("That movie will obviously suck"), or Defilers of All That Is Good ("Gandalf survived?")?

Give me movie teasers any day. Enough footage to build interest and suspense, and not nearly enough time to work in a decent spoiler--let alone all of them.

The troll has a point, though wrong.

[RobertB-DC]

Wouldn't it be great if dweebs wrapped their tiny criminal minds around the fact that correlation does not imply causation?

I know it's not good for my Karma to reply to a troll (and be ignored along with him), but he/she/it makes a good point. Even if it's wrong.

Roughly translated from TrollSpeak, the poster is trying to point out that the huge popularity of the films is not a direct result of their being pirated. Shrek would have been a hit whether it was pirated or not, and the troll would like to think that the pirating is therefore completely unrelated to the film's success.

Since there's no causation, we should prosecute the pirates like the scum they are, right?

Well, hold on a sec.

If you extend that argument that correlation does not imply causation, then you've just blown away the entire advertising industry.

Say Proctor & Gamble advertises their new Demonic Tide on the TV show Friends. The next week, sales of Demonic Tide spike. That's a correleation, but is it there causation? What if it was just such a "hot" product that it would have sold big anyway?

Prosecute those who are making money from your IP if you must, but as far as the P2P networks and such... call it a "cost of doing business", and charge it to the promotions budget.

old, old, old

[ucblockhead]

When I was a teenager, a friend called me up, ecstatic, about getting his hands on a videotape of The Last Starfighter, which was opening in a couple of weeks.

I sat there watching, squinting, trying to make out the plot through grainy video and wavering camera, wondering why the hell we were bothering.

It did, indeed, cost Hollywood $6.50, though, because the movie sucked, and there was no way we'd pay to see the real thing.

But funny, this taping, which has obviously been going on for twenty years now, has not killed Hollywood yet.

Re:Big deal (SPOILER!)

[10Ghz]

"That ends with them throwing the ring in the volcano, right?" Well, it doesn't end there. They go home and some thugs have taken over the Shire and...I mean, yeah, that's how it ends.

Actually, that's exactly how it ends. There is no retaking of the Shire in the movie. Saruman dies in The Two Towers

Re:just an observation

[macdaddy357]

As Marlon Brando said, moviemaking is not art, it is just a business.

The industry hurts themself

[Flamesplash]

Film piracy is never going to cut into box office dollars, period

What I wish the industry would realize is that they are hurting themselves. People are not not going to the movies because of piracy, they aren't going because for 1 things, the experience sucks half the time. What with adolescent teenagers running back and forth in the theatres during the movie to be with their different set of friends who can't all just sit the f*** together, and when they do, they are talking to each other not watching the movie.

Additionally, the concession prices are way to expensive, though they don't seem to really care if you bring a backpack in so I just load up before hand.

And finally, just like pro sports people, Actors do not deserve 10M for a single movie. How about paying the actors less, making the ticket less, and actually end up with more profit? :O There is no reason an actor can't live with making 1M for a movie, and a theatre only charging $4 a ticket, other than WE put up with it.

Made possible by P2P... puh-leeeeeeeze

[Kjella]

I remember warez on l33t BBSs (No, not web boards. I mean in the stone-age, before Internet).

I remember Warez CDs from the only guy around that had a CD-burner.

I remember alt.binaries.(warez/mp3/gamez/appz)* (still there, for that matter)

I remember irc traders.

If anything, it was stopped by the 14.4k modem people were sitting on, not the lack of P2P programs.

Granted, it's a little easier and has made the general public aware now, but really. It's all a matter of convienience. If you really want it to end, shut down Internet. For that matter, better outlaw modem connections altogether.

I think P2P is overrated as the "killer app". Copyright infringement was the "killer app" not of P2P, but the killer application of broadband, P2P only being the most identifiable target.

Kjella

er, not really

[cascadingstylesheet]

"Opening Night", huh? It's been playing around here (Edinburgh) since last Thursday/Friday... Must be hard for you Yanks to lag behind!

Er, not really. Those of us "Yanks" with lives and wives will probably rent it in a few months for the price of a candy bar.

Amusing -- Not a bad problem

[werdna]

Let the content providers whine -- it will ultimately undercut their chances in the relevant marketplace.

Imagine how MPAA will scream beforehand how this will kill their business. Imagine how few actual pirated copies will be released or available, PARTICULARLY if they do an even moderately decent job of policing.

Then, watch as the film in fact sets industry records as a blockbuster hit.

Thus, proving ultimately by clear example that the claims of DAMAGES from piracy are hopelessly overblown. Sure, a few potential future DVD sales may have been lost by such releases. (Count 'em on your hand!) So what? They will make a fortune.

Moreover, consider how absolutely ineffective anything but the most draconian technology regulation would be to slow or stop this minor dribble of piracy -- it will happen regardless of the fundamental social changes the content industry attempts to foist upon American and international technology markets, will accomplish little, and wasn't needed in the first place.

As they saying goes...

[uradu]

Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean you're wrong. While there's no proof that this is what happened, it would be a very clever tactic indeed. And while they often get accused of being greedy, rarely do they get accused of not being clever.

I think people DO know it's theft

[Goldenhawk]

... to copy a movie or CD, but they just don't care the same. For one thing, you don't siphon gas from you neighbor's tank because you know your neighbor, and you know he'll get hugely torqued off at you, and maybe call the cops, if he finds out. After all, every car now sold has some form of anti-siphon fuel neck, because PEOPLE DO SIPHON GAS. For another, it's messy and smelly and you can simply get gas cheap enough at the corner store without getting your neighbor headed your way with a baseball bat or tire iron.

No, I think folks know it's stealing in the same way they also know that going 65 in a 55 zone is breaking the law. "It's okay, everyone does it." "I'm not hurting anyone (at least that I know and care about)." "It's cheap and painless." "Nobody will ever know." "Nobody will bother me for doing this, so I can do it with impunity."

This doesn't make it right, it just makes it common.

See my .sig below for my thoughts on right and wrong, and you'll understand my viewpoint on theft of intellectual property.

Re:I think people DO know it's theft

[guacamolefoo]

No, I think folks know it's stealing in the same way they also know that going 65 in a 55 zone is breaking the law. "It's okay, everyone does it." "I'm not hurting anyone (at least that I know and care about)." "It's cheap and painless." "Nobody will ever know." "Nobody will bother me for doing this, so I can do it with impunity."

This doesn't make it right, it just makes it common.

No bickering on your point, just the language.

Your last statement intrigued me. This whole debate has little to do with what is "right" and "wrong". It is rather a debate over what is "legal" and "illegal". The distinction being that right and wrong have some sort of (probably) subjective moral sense underlying the determinations. The latter debate is simply a decision resulting from the existing political power structure that has happened to come to govern each of us.

That being said, I think that unauthorized copying is morally objectionable to me, and I disapprove of it. Is it "right" or "wrong" to do so, or will some hypothetical god send me to hell for doing it? I dunno. Clearly, the Ten Commandments are a little vague on P2P file sharing. My knowledge of the Torah and Koran is limited, so I can't really render anything but a guess, so I won't. Perhaps some other ecumenical peanut galleries can speak on this one -- anyone got the Buddha's cellphone number? What about Vishnu?

Is it legal? Clearly, no, it isn't. Right or wrong? You see the obvious problems.

Yeah but do they really need protections...

[sterno]

Fine, yes, the movie leaked. So, the question that needs to be asked here is this: does the move studio lose money from this action?

I tend to believe that the loss of money is negligible. How many people are honestly going to spend the hours or days it will take to download the complete film? Now, out of those people, how many are going to watch it on their computer and then not bother to go to the theater or purchase it later on DVD. Finally, out of those who do this, how many would have gone and paid for a ticket or bought the DVD had this movie not been available on-line. I'm confident that this is a pretty insignificant percentage of movie viewers.

If they aren't losing money and those "pirating" the movie aren't making money, then why do the studios need protection? Copyright law is intended to protect their ability to exclusively profit from their work, and that is indeed happening. So, screw the studios, they've got all the legal tools they need to legitimately defend their copyright as it now stands. So let's just leave it at that and move on.

Re:The industry

[DaveOf9thKey]

Well, the experience is always going to vary from theater to theater. A few chains where I am get it right. One small chain where I live that shows a lot of well-regarded indie flicks doesn't overcharge for tickets and popcorn, offers great seating arrangements, and actually sells beer at the concession stand. Try getting away with that at the local dodecaplex.

As for actors making millions, that's just capitalism in action. Sure, we don't think Julia Roberts should make $20 million for Erin Brockovich, but that movie netted somewhere between $50 million and $75 million in theaters alone, and residuals from home video are probably still coming in. Any studio exec will see $20 million as a relative bargain.

Of course, filmmakers are starting to see some real value in low-budget films by talented filmmakers, too. "Memento", "Barbershop", and "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" cost a combined $22 million to make. They grossed a combined $284 million (!) in theaters.

Oh yeah, that's what I want to see...

[Mysticalfruit]

Gee, spend 16 bucks (My wife and I) and go see it with full surround soung in a theater of fellow cheering Harry Potter fans OR instead, get to watch it from the perspective of a midgit in the back row of some crappy theater while someone in the throws of tuberculosis coughs non-stop in the foreground.

Now, if someone can get a good setup in an empty theater and get tied right into the sound board, that might be different... Maybe I just have bad warez connections...

I agree, therefore we disagree

[Kjella]

No computer setup -- not even one with a projector screen and 5.1 surround sound -- will ever duplicate the theater experience

Yep, nothing like

• Waiting for the movie you want to see to show
  
• Having to order ahead to get the best seats
  
• Actually having to get to/from the cinema
  
• Buying overpriced food/drink
  
• ...and it's not even what you like
  
• See thirty minutes of commercials
  
• The latecomer that needs to get past you
  
• Him or her asking around for what has happened
  
• ...and somebody answering, in great detail
  
• The crunchy snack-munchers
  
• With obligatory noisy snack wrapping
  
• The one who still forgot to turn off his cell
  
• And answers it...
  
• The two that are talking about everyhing but the movie.
  
• The two who've seen it 100 times before and are discussing the ending already.
  
• A so crappy movie that you'd rather just stop and see something else
  
• Wanting to pause the movie to go to the bathroom
  
• And I don't want to get started on why you might want to watch pr0n or other exciting movies at home, alone or in company...
  

Yep, I'm sure there aren't any good reasons to sitting at home in front of a good home cinema.

Kjella

Re:I agree, therefore we disagree

[NeuroManson]

"Not if the home theater is wasted on a fuzzy, grainy telesync of a film in theaters at that moment, no. If you'd rather wait six months to watch the DVD release at home, that's your prerogative. I'm talking about bootlegs like this Harry Potter bootleg that's out there now. Nobody's going to pick that over going to the theater to see it on the big screen. Either they'll go see it now or wait for the DVD."

Sit 2-3 rows back from the screen, then you'll have the full "Camera Rip" experience right there in the theater! Grainy, and heavily distorted sound in two audible channels, and you'll save $8 in the process, while spending $49 on your broadband fee, w00t! Whatta bargain!

It will only be worth it...

[jonr]

It will only be worth watching if it is the Seinfeld version!
J.

This sounds like a promotional stunt

[Animats]

I suspect the studio wanted something like this to happen. The new HP movie hasn't been getting as much press as the first one. So it opened in the UK last weekend. Although it's billed as a "preview", it's not. Look at this show list. 19 screenings each day last weekend. That's a multi-screen booking at a multiplex, not a reaction preview. Quite a number of UK locations seem to have been running that movie last weekend.

There's a big Bond movie opening in a week, and so the marketeers for HP have to get attention on their product before they get run over. So anything that gets people talking about the movie...

Re:This sounds like a promotional stunt

[KidSock]

There's a big Bond movie opening in a week, and so the marketeers for HP have to get attention on their product before they get run over.

Keewwl! A NEW James Bond movie! Err, what marketeers? Uhhh ... what were we talking about?

I saw it last saturday in the cinema!

[muffen]

Leaked must be the wrong word. This is a screener, and it started in cinemas last Thursday in the UK/Ireland.

I don't call this leaked. Instead, I would asume this to be completly normal. This what happens to all big movies. First you get a screener, and then someone manages to produce a decent copy. Finally you get the DVDrip. As far as I know, this is the normal thing for all movies...

Anyways, in regards to the movie, I must say that I liked it. I think it was better than the first one, as more things happened all the time. It is fairly long, roughly three hours, but definatly worth seeing. See it in the cinema, as watching the screener (in my opinion) completly destroys the experience. The sound is really good and really helps you get into the "Harry Potter atmosphere".

Two quick comments

[mbourgon]

1) One of the only times I've downloaded Telecines/CAMs/CAPs, whatever, was "Episode I - The Duel". It had this file in it: "No frog men, no kids who can't act. Just THE DUEL.". It was great. I think it was either 2 or 3 minutes long. I'd seen the movie already, and there was absolutely no way I was going to see it again. But the Duel itself was sublime. Between the music and the poetry, and without any dialog... wow.

2) That scene was more impressive in the theater. Yeah, seeing it on my 17" monitor is cool, but 75 feet across is better. With some movies, you want to be wowed by the effects, since the story sure as hell ain't going to do it. Witness Godzilla, Mission Impossible 2, Star Wars I & II - a blast to see in a theater, but MAN it would suck to see on a tiny screen.

The one killer app theaters have is that they can create a better experience than you can get at home. Huge screens, GOOD sound systems (not LOUD! but good quality - I saw Fifth Element 13 times, in 5 different theaters. ALL of them had bass issues during the opening scene. My NHT sub/speakers performed flawlessly), no cell phones, no idiots talking through the movie, etc. Then you're not paying for the movie, but the experience of having watched the movie.

All that being said, I also downloaded part of Battlefield Earth. There's no way the movie could be any worse, big screen or not. I loved the book, but Ebert's review (http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/2000/ 05/051202.html) was on the nose.

Re:in america....

[spectecjr]

Am I the only one who sees that? If you think that pirating a movie is just like stealing, then remember that NOT WATCHING IT is almost the same. There are plenty of 'free' sources of entertainment (public libraries, going outside, talking to people).

No, it's not 'almost the same'. It's completely different.

One act (pirating) is going against someone else's wishes, which just so happens to be backed up by copyright law, and is illegal.

The other act (not going to see the movie) is going against someone else's wishes, but there isn't a damn thing they can do about it.

It has an effect; good or bad is hard to say

[FreeUser]

The bigger question is, does film piracy affect revenue at all? A film is not like music: Nevermind and Sticky Fingers will be just as valuable to me in ten years, and I'll listen to them a lot as a soundtrack to whatever else I'm doing. A film takes 100% of my concentration, (well most of it anyway) and you can't watch a film while you do something else..so film and music piracy are vastly different things.

Copyright violations of films definitely affect revinue, at least in the details. Whether or not it affects the overall bottom line, and if so in which direction, is debatable.

I've been actively boycotting Hollywood since the DeCSS debacle, and have talked several friends and family members into doing the same. That having been said, I do see movies on HBO (condo association pays for it, so I get the channel whether or not I want it), and I have downloaded a couple of movies just for the wow factor. I later deleted them, as that is not an activity I want to be involved in, particularly if and when the entertainment cartels start sending jackbooted thugs around to people's homes.

So, my anectdotal evidence as one datapoint among millions, which may or may not be representative of any trends, pro or con, on this issue, but certainly demonstrate that copyright violations do impact revinue:

1) Spiderman. Good movie ... I saw it on a crappy, cam avi. Good, but not good enough for me to go to the theatre and violate my boycott.

2) Star Wars II: a movie I was actually going to go see (in its 3rd or 4th week, to minimize the percentage of my money that would go back to Hollywood vs. what goes to the theatre). A crappy CAM version that sucked, though not nearly as much as the movie itself did. After seeing how BAD that movie was I avoided it like the plague, and will never buy it on video, dvd, or pay to see it in a theatre. That act of copyright violation cost Lucas not just the one movie ticket sale, about $9.50 here in Chicago, but all the movie ticket sales of my friends whome I warned not to go see such a shitty movie. It is debatable whether we all would have gone on the same night, so some of those sales were lost anyway, due to the crappy quality of the movie, including probably my own, since I would have seen it much later than my friends. Difficult to know exactly now that would have played out, but clearly it did affect who went to see what, or didn't, and when.

2) Lord of the Rings: a beautiful movie. Absolutely brilliant (and a high quality DVD rip). I just purchased the director's cut collector's box, my first DVD purchase since the DeCSS debacle (and quite possibly my last, at least for a time) because the movie was so good, I enjoyed it so much, and I did want to reward and support the creators of the movie with my money, despite boycotting their industry in general. This was a $50.00 sale that would not have happened had I not downloaded and watched the movie illegally, as I never would have gone to see it in the theatre (indeed, I didn't anyway) and would have been content to wait for it to come out on HBO in a few months/years.

Taken together, do these three copyright violations help, or hurt, the industry? Difficult to say (more difficult, because I don't do that sort of thing anymore, indeed I stopped shortly after I began, once the 'wow, neat!' factor wore off), but affect it they certainly did.

Re:Big deal (SPOILER!)

[guacamolefoo]

"That ends with them throwing the ring in the volcano, right?" Well, it doesn't end there. They go home and some thugs have taken over the Shire and...I mean, yeah, that's how it ends.

Actually, that's exactly how it ends. There is no retaking of the Shire in the movie. Saruman dies in The Two Towers

Uh...what about Frodo and Bilbo and Gandalf departing from the Grey Havens? And Merry and Pippen, etc., riding back to Hobbiton without them? That was one of the best parts of the book -- incredibly sad, poignant, and CUT OUT OF THE FRICKING MOVIE?!?!?!?!?!! Come on!!

You mean that Glenn Yarbrough won't sing the Road goes ever on and on? Are you telling me the animated fricking Kasey Casem version has a better ending that the Peter Jackson one?!?!??? I feel so betrayed! Galadriel had better show her f-ing tits, or I'm definitely not going to see Return of the King.

Apply cmdr taco's logic to the GPL

[batkiwi]

Well, I'm using gpl'd code in my commercial/closed source product, but millions of people can still get that gpl'd code from the original source, so it's alright.

While you're up...

[dr_dank]

I'll probably be there opening night

If you're going to the snack bar, can you get me a box of Snowcaps and a Mountain Dew? Thanks. I'll pay you later.

Re:Bad analogies.

[nagora]

Most of your analogies all describe new items that are BETTER and/or MORE INTRIGUING than their predecessors

In fact most of them were not better in any clear way at the start; even aircraft were too dangerous for most people when they started off. "Intriguing" is subjective.

The point is that you are taking a very static view. In five years bandwidth will allow better downloads and your grainy 10 hour download will be a thing of the past. I agree with what you said now but I don't think that's important to the principle involved.

Besides, wasn't it a team of human beings who wrote Deep Blue's algorithms?

And some human designed the Triumph motorcycle, but that doen't mean it should be permitted equipment in the 100m sprint.

TWW

RTFN

[neoThoth]

read the fs'cking NFO file people.

Quality :: CAM

This means that someone captured it using a CAMera in the theater, most likely in the UK where the movie was released publically. This also means that if the piraters were really *good* they would patch into the sound board. otherwise you'll hear the difference (audience noise, room tone) Also the screen will be cut off on the sides and picture will have a grainy look to it. For it to be *leaked* like LOTR would involve someone with a screener copy (in this case a DVD sent to the Oscar's panel) releasing the data to the internet.

Before the movie goes to home video another release will occur that will be of much higher quality. (sorry to spoil it for those of you playing along at home)

just like

[SomeOtherGuy]

Watching a grainy, wobbly, bad sounding prerelease of a (soon to be) classic movie recorded with a camcorder is about as anticlimatic as losing your virginity to a farm animal. Get real -- this will hurt the movie industry about as bad as 16KB mp3 encoded from a tape of a new cd optained by placing a boom box in front of a speaker with a short in it will hurt the music industry. It will do nothing more than spoil a good experience for the consumer.

Illegal Pirates???

[Snaller]

As opposed to Legal Pirates? Which would be... what? The IRS? RIAA?

Well,

[Washizu]

The Jerk store just called and they're all out of you!

Re:Big deal (SPOILER!)

[nelsonal]

They will save all those parts for the extra special trilogy 15 disc set, which will bereleased after the third movie's special edition with the extra hour of special added footage not included in prior versions, of course.

Re:Big deal (SPOILER!)

[cheese_wallet]

"Galadriel had better show her f-ing tits, or I'm definitely not going to see Return of the King."

LOL That was classic.

NO, It's COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT

[JohnDenver]

First, I do have to agree with you on one point. Intellectual Property balanced with Fair Use and Unregulated Use is very promising...

I'm not just be a semantic prick here, you are being obtuse equating two very different things.
Equating copyright infringment with theft is like equating manslaughter with murder. In both examples, the similarities make you want to equate them, but there is that one semantic difference that changes everything.

Is it theft when there are no copyright laws?

Is it theft (copyright infringement) when a teacher photo copies an newspaper article for the class to read?

Is it theft (copyright infringement) when copyright law allows for non-commercial copying (selling unauthorized copies)?

Is it theft (copyright infringement) when you videotape a party with copyrighted music in the background, and send copies to your friends? (Assume the quality is near perfect)

If copyright is theft, why don't you enlighten us, when situations ARE and ARE NOT theft?

consumer gets fucked again

[A Vengrow]

you know its shit like this that gives the MPAA and the RIAA their cannon fodder when buying laws in congress. why don't people have some fucking resposibility? shit! we're making the case for the RIAA and the MPAA by pulling shit like this!

What a tragedy...

[seanscottrogers]

Sneaking into a theater with a camera is nothing new. This wasn't any more of a leak than borrowing your movie critic friends VHS tape was 10 or 15 years ago. It's sad that such powerful software progress like P2P will pay the price for "leaks" that have existed for years. And I'm still under the impression that with movies this big, "leak" publicity stunts like this only serve to promote the movies release, not hinder it. I'de have to agree with schlach that we are talking about a very small demographic that would cut into movie sales.

Re:What a tragedy...

[MikeBabcock]

I'm surprised theatres still allow the carrying of any personal effects into the theatre at all; giving out locker spaces with your movie ticket (or charging an extra $1 for it) to put anything you brought with you in would make sense, until people bring in fibre optic cameras :)

Re:Big deal (SPOILER!)

[ebbomega]

How's that work?

"Well, we need to trim it down a little bit, so rather than bringing down the 45-minute battle scene, we're just cut out a MAJOR JOSEPH CAMPBELL PLOT POINT."

*sigh*

Another spoiler:

So if they cut out the Shire-saving, when the hell is Frodo going to actually be a hero? When he doesn't cast the ring in the pit and puts it on and runs away? Pretty damn heroic if you ask me.

Seriously, it seems pretty silly to have your main character go through all that and not end up a hero in the end. The Shire bit was what made me think so highly of Frodo. I thought it was pretty anti-climactic the way that the ring was destroyed, and the Sharkey/Shire bit really salvaged the character IMO.

Oh well. Two Towers will rock...

It's really easy to complain, isn't it?

[ebbomega]

Y'know, with all the people bitching and moaning "moderation this moderation that", has it ever occurred to you that this site is (primarily) Taco's site so he can do whatever the fuck he wants to within the bounds of what OSDN lets him do? I mean, seriously. If you're not paying subscription, maybe you should march up and demand your $0 back. If you are paying subscription, the site hasn't changed at all in the last 3 years and you should have known what you were getting yourself into.

If you dislike it so much, leave.

Just finished watching the first half...

[NeuroManson]

It's a fairly clear picture with a minimum of bobbing from camera adjustments (though the clunking of the buttons and lens is audible throughout the video). The sound quality is bad, really bad, sounds like they stuck a microphone in a bathroom right next to the theater. Still, for a sneak preview it's good, I would advise those interested in it to catch a matinee at least. As far as cam jobs go, it's adequate, but I agree with those saying it comes nowhere beating the theater experience.

The MPAA obviously won't care since it argues against their stance, but they're going to get their money irregardless.

Hrm.

[ebbomega]

This was a lot funnier the first time!

*sigh*

So?

[xenoweeno]

With so many blockbusters due out this holiday season this problem will only increase in the coming months.

I give up. Why is this a problem? This is not a rhetorical question.

Re:Spiderman doesn't think so

[octalgirl]

I don't know why the MPAA gets so freaked about this. Spiderman was leaked and it may have even helped sales. According to DVD Store, Movie Studio news: "Spiderman continued to break records. It finished second over the four days to take $US 36.5 million from a record high 3,876 theatres to push its 25 day total to a mammoth $US 334.3 million." That's 334 mil in less than a month. According to this site The DVD just came out, and guess what? DVD sales crushed Spiderman's theater opening weekend by raking in millions in just one weekend!

"Spider-Man" set new records in sales for its first day and week on DVD and video, earning an estimated $245 million-plus in gross rental and sell-through revenue during its first five days in release."

It only proves that when they put out a quality film, people will go to see it, maybe more than once, and they will buy the DVD.

Re:Why is free distribution of media "pirating?"

[Qrlx]

You make a good point -- if there is no profit where is the crime?

Well, unfortunately Congress already thought of that. Under the current laws, which were passed in 1998 I think (around the time of the DMCA), you don't need to be actually selling warez for it to be considered piracy. Simply handing them out is a crime. Burning a CD with warez and passing it out to strangers can get you *20 years.* Really. (Someday, when I come to love Big Brother, I will see how the punishment fits the crime.)

Another thing that got changed with the law: Profitless piracy is a *Federal* *criminal* *offense*, not a civil one. That means that the FBI kicks in your door with guns drawn.

I think most Americans, if the question were put to them, would NOT support the FBI enforcing Sony or Microsoft's EULAs. However, those few Americans with gobs of money who buy and sell congressman ARE in favor of having the government (aka the taxpayer, aka little people, aka 99.9% of people reading this) do that work for them.

It's pretty clever, and it went pretty unnoticed at the time. And the media (surprise) every now and again runs a "success" story, like how warehouse X in LA was raided by the Feds and U.S. Marshalls, and how piracy costs U.S. businesses $billions per year. No mention of the cost to you and I to keep Sony profitable.

While I and many others agree with your point about copyright being a "private" affair, good luck getting a court to look at the issue on the Constitutional merits.

The criminalization of profitless piracy along with the DMCA et al are some scary first steps towards turning the FBI into the Bureau of Thoughtcrime. Think about it, while it's still legal.

Why the expanded *police power* for the Federal Government, swallowing up a legal matter which was historically dealt with in civil law?

I'd ask you to remember this before you vote, but both parties are whistling Walt's tune on this one.

The Revolution will be webcast.

Re:Big deal (SPOILER!)

[L0rdJedi]

While there is no retaking of the Shire (what we saw in Fellowship is all we'll probably see of it), it has not been confirmed whether Saruman dies at the end of TTT or sometime in ROTK. If you'll remember from the books, the Ents let Saruman leave Orthanc because he didn't seem like he could cause any trouble at that point. There's no reason why PJ couldn't have the Ents kill him as he is, perhaps, trying to escape Orthanc.

From all the news I've been reading on theonering.net, even Christopher Lee doesn't know Saruman's fate at the end of TTT. He has however mentioned a couple of times that "Saruman will be back for ROTK". He has also mentioned that several (as many as 9 I believe) different scenes have been filmed for his death.

In any case, no one will know for sure until December 18th. Unless of course TTT is leaked to the internet before that date (that should keep this post OT).

Ever tried prosecuting a suicide assailant?

[raehl]

I can't even get them to enter a plea!

Re:Morality up for vote (was: Re:What??)

[SirSlud]

> Isn't the producer's right to his work a capital-R 'right'?

I'm a musician. I write music. But you are going to have to be the one that tries to explain to the masses that I get a Right to my creations like people have a Right to a fair trial or a Right not to get slaughtered by their government.

Shit dude. My Rights, whatever they are, pale in comparison to those Rights. My only Right should be to be awarded compesation for publishing, not determining who can use my music and in what format its presented. I can't believe how closely people relate economical 'rights' to human Rights. I mean, c'mon.

> without him, the product would not exist, so why shouldn't he reap the full benefits?

Because if everybody followed this logic, in every situation, we'd all be complete assholes to each other.

Re:Big deal (SPOILER!)

[10Ghz]

Uh...what about Frodo and Bilbo and Gandalf departing from the Grey Havens?

Ummmm... What does that have to do with saving the shire? They can have Grey Havens just fine without fighting in the Shire.

The reason why Shire-thingy is out is pretty simple: movies must have a climax. There's the big finale, and then the movie winds down. In LoTR, that finale is the destruction of the ring. If we had the rape of Shire in the movie, it would diminish the destruction of the ring as THE event of the movie. It works in the book, but it wouldn't work in the movie.

Re:The industry hurts themself

[mpe]

Additionally, the concession prices are way to expensive,

IIRC most of the ticket price goes to the studio/distributor. The money to keep the place running needs to come from somewhere.

And finally, just like pro sports people, Actors do not deserve 10M for a single movie. How about paying the actors less, making the ticket less, and actually end up with more profit? :O There is no reason an actor can't live with making 1M for a movie, and a theatre only charging $4 a ticket, other than WE put up with it.

Movie studios like the idea of "star" actors. Even though in many cases, especially those adapted from popular books the only real criteria to the audience is that they can act decently.

also

[BiOFH]

this is one of the few (I said "few", nitpickers) "crimes" in US law where damage does not have to be shown. It's implied damage with the plaintiffs being allowed to make up the damages off the top of their heads.

Well..

[Steveftoth]

you're still brain washed. Maybe someday you'll realize that when you copy information that you don't lose value, but rather value is created. Didn't anyone teach you about the magic penny? Next you're going to say that people shouldn't read books from the public library or something.

Digital information turns normal economics upside down, making what was scare now common. Since value is based on scarcity, it changes the way we must think about things.

Re:Well..

[spectecjr]

you're still brain washed. Maybe someday you'll realize that when you copy information that you don't lose value, but rather value is created. Didn't anyone teach you about the magic penny? Next you're going to say that people shouldn't read books from the public library or something.

Digital information turns normal economics upside down, making what was scare now common. Since value is based on scarcity, it changes the way we must think about things.

If that's what you believe, then let's break it down to the kernel of your argument.

How does the information creator get paid for their work?

Yes, they deserve to have control over their work -- after all, it took time, effort and potentially money to create.

And yes, they need money - everyone needs to eat. And don't tell me that you don't want a flashy car or a nice house -- because there are some creature comforts that everyone wants.

Value is not based on scarcity *at all*. Value is based on the value it has *to the person who wants or needs it*.

Big difference.

If you copy a movie, and you wouldn't have gone to see it anyway, that's a bit of a problem. Why did you copy the movie? Obviously you must have wanted to see it. Therefore it has value. *bzzzt*.

If you didn't want to see it, you wouldn't have copied it.

Hey presto - welcome to the new not supply-and-demand based value system. Not to mention that the argument of 'it costs nothing to copy' ignores one crucial fact -- it may cost nothing to copy, but it does cost money to create. And that, in part, is what you're paying for.

Simon

Re:Well..

[Steveftoth]

If you copy a movie, and you wouldn't have gone to see it anyway, that's a bit of a problem. Why did you copy the movie? Obviously you must have wanted to see it. Therefore it has value. *bzzzt*.
I never said that the movie didn't have any value. That would be foolish, I'm saying that digital technology makes the cost to copy much smaller then it has been in the past. I think that this is widely regarded as true, before the internet and computers, it was impossiable to get a movie on demand, now you can get many titles within a couple of hours by using p2p. If there was a was to setup a legal server with a bunch of movies, then it would be very close to instant. We have the technology, just not the legality.

What the hell does the creator of Who's the Bosses need/want for a new BMW have to do with the value of his work? They are totatly unrelated, if he produces good work, and conviences people to pay him, then he can buy his car. But me feeling like I should pay him just because? I don't get it.

If you create a piece of art, there is no rule that you MUST let people see it. In fact you don't have to do anything with it at all. That is control, not releasing it to the public. The act of movie/music/etc.. distribution, by its very nature means that you as the artist are giving up control of your work. People who you don't like will watch your movie, they will misintrepret your music and they will misread your words. You may say that's fine, just as long as they don't make any money off the hard work, blood and sweat of the creator of the work? Well even if they don't directly rip you off, they will work within the system we have created to steal your ideas.
Which is how it should be, ideas should not be locked in a cage by any system. Which is why I don't like any sort of IP protection.

The whole reason for copyright protection is to prevent technology from 'stopping' people from writing/creating new works of art correct? To make sure that if someone wants to make the next matrix, seinfield, LOtR, mary kate and ashley olsen , brittiney spears, n'sync, or whatever, they will be compensated 'correctly' for their 'hard work'. Maybe you're right and these people deserve to be treated like gods for creating something so unique, so precious, so undenyably great that if you even think of going against their wills, and copying it, then you could be thrown in jail (yes, in jail where people who murder and rape also go). Or at least fined, because well you're stealing moneys from rock stars and that makes baby jesus cry.

With people like you arguing that we should be protecting the rights of the publishers (because they are the ones with the copyrights), it's no wonder that the Disney act was passed.

feh, I'm done arguing this topic. Maybe I'm talking to deaf ears.

Re:Well..

[spectecjr]

The whole reason for copyright protection is to prevent technology from 'stopping' people from writing/creating new works of art correct? To make sure that if someone wants to make the next matrix, seinfield, LOtR, mary kate and ashley olsen , brittiney spears, n'sync, or whatever, they will be compensated 'correctly' for their 'hard work'. Maybe you're right and these people deserve to be treated like gods for creating something so unique, so precious, so undenyably great that if you even think of going against their wills, and copying it, then you could be thrown in jail (yes, in jail where people who murder and rape also go). Or at least fined, because well you're stealing moneys from rock stars and that makes baby jesus cry.

With people like you arguing that we should be protecting the rights of the publishers (because they are the ones with the copyrights), it's no wonder that the Disney act was passed.

feh, I'm done arguing this topic. Maybe I'm talking to deaf ears.

I know I'm certainly talking to deaf ears. Or at least highly biased ones.

I did not say at any point that they should be treated like gods.

And yes, jail is where you will go. Why? Because it's where you go for breaking the law. Come up with a new punishment, and I'll be all for it.

And yes, publishers should be protected. Artists can assign their rights, and unfortunately, it's the rights that are protected, not the individual. Laws scale up -- badly, in some cases -- but they're written in a lot of cases to protect the individual, and are then applied across the board.

Otherwise you end up with a legal code that no-one can understand (we're getting there anyway), because you have to extrapolate the rules ad infinitum, detailing them for every single possible circumstance.

Including the circumstances that haven't yet been invented.

As for the BMW comment -- look, it wasn't a statement that they deserved that. It's rather that the work itself has innate value - even if it has value to no-one other than the author. And, by the way, it's not evil to profit from it -- today's non-utopian society means that you need money to get by - or to get cool stuff. It also means that depending on its value to *you* as a customer of that person, you can quite happily give them the finger and *not* buy it from them.

Supply and Demand isn't necessarily dictated by scarcity of resources to make new things; it can also be dictated by things that people want. If you want something, and I have that something, we can come to an agreement over it. That's supply and demand.

I really hate this victim culture we have here.

"Oh woe is me... I can't have my music... I can't have my movies... I can't have my X, my Y and my Z -- and I DESERVE THEM ALL!!!!".

Hang on while I pass out the Government Cheese.

Did you know that really poor people in the US typically have at least a car, basic cable, a telephone and two television sets?

In the UK, however, they have a roof over their head and some way of cooking and refrigerating food. No car. No cable. Possibly no television. No phone. End of story.

This country seems to be all about me me me without wanting to work for it these days.

They did the graphics on a Cray! You wasted it!

[billstewart]

If you were watching a grainy pre-release bootleg video tape of The Last Starfighter, you were missing some of the best stuff in the movie. It's been long enough since I saw the movie that I don't remember _which_ Cray they used - I think it was the XMP - but they burned more CPU than just ab out anything else to date, and the graphics really rocked, at least by the standards of the day. Sure, you can do better on your $2000 desktop today, but you've got more CPU and lots more memory :-)

I also enjoyed the movie itself, but then I expected a B movie.