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MPAA to Launch Anti-Piracy Commercials
cfish writes "The MPAA is launching expensive 30 second TV commercials to preach about movie piracy. Featuring starving artists in the movie industry."
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But wait, I saw Pirates of the Caribbean yesterday and the moral at the end was something like, "Sometimes you need a little piracy in order to do the right thing."
But the MPAA says it's bad. Why must Hollywood send me conflicting messages?
Mike
I wonder if they will count the costs of the commercials in the money they are loosing every year to piracy...
1 From the Article: Stressing the importance of copyright protection, the campaign begins with an unprecedented television "roadblock" on more than 35 network and cable outlets on the evening of July 24, with each network donating 30 seconds in the first prime time break.
:)
Beginning Friday, July 25, every major exhibitor in the country will donate time to play daily trailers on all screens in more than 5,000 theaters across the United States.
Sounds like a pretty huge campaign, gonna dwarf the EFF's efforts by a big margin.
2 Here is the website of the campaign. There's even some FUD: Network users have a back door to your hard drive while you're online, thereby seeing your personal, private information, such as bank records, social security number, etc.
3 The article first said (in the badly edited future) it was the RIAA doing it, when it's the MPAA...I think it was a case of RIAA on the brain.
Just don't pirate movies from the starving artists -- Stick to pirating movies from the filthy rich ones.
--
Is somebody going to make commercials about video/DVD hardware vendors that can't make new products sell as well since they have the extra expense of DRM?
You no the ironic thing about all this? You just KNOW someone will copy these commercials and throw them up on Kazaa and such.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
Since I've got TiVo, I ignore commercials, so can someone copy that to the web in some viewable format?
My other sig is extremely clever...
Now that is interesting. It must be nice to get free time on the major networks for a lobbying effort. JAV
The EFF has just begun a pro file-sharing. It is an awareness campaign which effectively cuts the RIAA out of the loop, called "Let The Music Play". Details here.
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
I'm sure the artists are starving because people pirate movies and not becuase only the big actors and execs make money while everyone else barely scrapes by.
Let's hope the ads focus on those film stars most affected by video piracy: Jenna Jameson, Devon, Asia Carerra, etc.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Hell, I want to see a commercial that shows starving Americans that were the result of the greedy corporations moving their jobs overseas.
How about that to "enlighten" people?
There's a bunch of free movies out there! All you need is a computer and an internet connection!
Now everyone will know that it's easy to get them.
Think like a man of action, act like a man of thought.
the war on piracy....it'll have the same results as the war on drugs, or the war on terrorism
Actually, the war on piracy has been going on longer than you thought! I have a video, and there are still posters of "Don't Copy That Floppy," an effort to prevent people from copying floppy disks of games. There are still quite a few of these posters in Gov't buildings, featuring a young, rapping Arsenio Hall look-alike, a couple dumpy kids, and an Apple][ E. Google for "don't copy that floppy video" and you can probably download it somewhere.
My local library has hundreds of movies on DVD, and thousands on VHS, that they allow anybody to view for free... does this mean that sweet little old lady at the checkout desk is a PIRATE???
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
- Just not getting it
- Delusional
- Playing games (i.e. laying foundations for more legislation)
I agree that piracy is a crime and folks who are engaging in it are making it harder for the rest of us, but honestly does the RIAA/MPAA expect that the people engaged in this are going to reform by looking at 30 second commercials?All you touch and all you see is all your life will ever be
Yeah right, I'll bet they are getting buddy buddy with the TV networks and telling them things like "Either you're on our side, or you'll stop showing our movies." Perhaps I'm wrong. Actually, I hope that I am.
A new Hollywood blockbuster starring Kevin Costner, about a lone movie pirate and his merry #movies men, who rip movies from the rich to drive click-through web site traffic to support the poor.
Pan out the windows of his dorm room
Show a copy of his bank account with $32 in it
Show you being a heartless bastard and him opening a subpoena
Show him getting really pissed off just because you think the world owes you because you managed to rip off some recording artist.
Show that, and I'll be impressed.
Fuck the RIAA
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
I can't wait to grab that off Kazaa and share with my friends!!
hey, that sounds pretty good. could you upload it to kazaa ;)
!(^((ri)|(mp))aa$)
Two kids are sitting at a computer. They are both listening to the CD. One says to the other, "Hey, that's a real cool CD." The other says, "Say, if you have a blank CD-R, I can burn you a copy." They put the CD-R into the machine. Suddenly...
...uh, I mean CD!" ...
.wma video of it at http://static.hugi.is/video/fyndin/dctf-1.wmv (dial-up user warning: it's a 15MB download).
Some black rapper reject from the PJ's jumps out onto the desktop screen and starts to rap. "Don't copy...don't copy that floppy!
For anyone who doesn't get the joke, there was a video released back in 1992 by (I think) the SIAA titled "Don't copy that floppy." It is the funniest 8 minute public service announcement video you will ever seen in your life. A rapper does this rap chanting "Don't copy...don't copy that floppy" after two kids try and use a Mac to copy a "cool game" onto another floppy disk. You just have to see it to believe it. You can watch a
Also, if you want the MPAA's message stright from the source, it's at http://www.respectcopyrights.org.
This is the AVI that Dan downloaded.
This is the sharer who hosted the AVI that Dan downloaded.
This is the cracker who sold ripped the AVI that the sharer hosted that Dan downloaded.
And this is movie star who shot herself for losing the money.
Downloading AVIs supports terrible things. If you download AVIs you might too.
Brought to you by the MPAA
Adbusters has been trying for years to run ads telling people not to buy crap... guess how much success they've had finding a network to carry the ads? Yes, they're willing to pay full rate card prices, but so far every major network has refused to air the ads. Good luck getting ant-MPAA ads on the air! (Hint: Unless you're willing to spend more on advertising the the movie studios, which spend at least $30 million promoting every new movie, media is going to follow the money and avoid pissing off bigger customers to makes a small group of "nuts" happy.)
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
She has written a few articles on her
expierence with the record companies.
The quick clumsy summary is that they exploit the artists badly.
She writes these days and plays in the band Loveless. I have seen them play a few times and they are great. Fun well written Pop/Rock. (I don't know exactly how to describe them)
lvls.com has a free MP3 to download with the bands permission so people can check them out.
A very different attitude towards file sharing!
--->Life is like that sometimes...
For those interested, you can view the commercials online. This was linked from a BBC article earlier this morning.
I think its hilarious that they want to use morality to try and persuade people to not pirate their movies. For years the entertainment industry has come out with morality killing movies, tv programs and music, now the monsters they have created couldn't care less about morality of it. I think its nice for them to have to eat it.
Nobody is telling them that they can't attempt to make a living through acting, singing or dancing. Make your living any way you can. But if your business model fails don't cry foul.
When you mass produce art it loses its value. Yet here is an industry that insists upon using any method possible to prop up a broken method of enrichment. So as far as I can see the problem is they don't understand that people don't value their work, and they need to adjust it if it is to be more than simply personal gratification.
I'm pleased the MPAA is doing it this way. I really can't say that being forced to watch a few extra advertisements (Okay - I don;t live in the US, so I won't have to do that either) is going to do me a lot of harm, and if they have a case to make against piracy, they're welcome to make it, and try to convince me that downloading movies off the internet (most of which watch at the cinema anyway) is causing them great hardship.
Personally, I think they've got a hard fight on their hands. I pay for plenty of cinema tickets and DVD purchases. They don't actually have to fork out for the movies I "steal" from them, and I make no profit from them, so I reckon they should just find a way to cope with my watching a few movies without paying, but if they have a strong enough argument, I'm willing to listen.
Schwartzenegger $30 million for T3
Jim Carrey $20+ million a film
Cameron Diaz $20+ million a film
Mid Tier actors make around $10 million a film
Lower Tier actors make around a few hundred thousand up to multiple millions
The at home user might dl a divx copy of a currently released film playing at the theaters only to go see it at the theater and/or buy it when it's released on DVD.
So the user at home spends around $9 to see the movie at the theater and another $20 to buy the DVD and the actors take many, many millions in salary to make the movie. How does this constitute taking money from the movie industry?
Who is actually taking the money (actors/marketing) and who is supporting the industry (user/consumer)? This is a very simple question without factoring in the obscene amount spent on marketing films. We're talking 10's of millions in marketing films.
It is not out fault that most movies these days are over budgeted and spend too much on marketing to turn a profit. This almost reminds me of the dot-com business model where they just spent to spend without having a sound business model in place.
Don't blame the consumer for your shortsidedness and/or lack of envisioning a film's realistic chances of making money.
This is definitely the day of scape-goating at the pc user/consumer's expense. They can get creative with the books anymore so now it's time to blame the consumer and spend money in support of the propoganda. What better way to distratct shareholders and such from realizing it's just bad business decisions and irresponsibility!
Once again I'm still exersizing my right to boycott because I refuse to support an entity that will only try to sue me into financial ruin with the money I give them.
You aren't free to do anything, until you've lost everything.
...if it stars Kevin Costner, then it has to make money, right?
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton
Says the chariman of the Fox group "We feel very strongly about the need to communicate that [. . .] illegally downloading movies is a blow to creativity"
This fron the people responsible for the term 'foxing' a show. I think Matt Groenig, Joss Whedon, and Ben Edlund, among others, may have a thing or two to say about what exactly constitutes a blow to creativity. Hint: It's not piracy. It's Fox.
I'm so mad I'm going to go off and dwonload a pirated copy of Daredevil and NEVER WATCH IT!
I want the fire back.
>> ...the terrorists have already won!
Yeah, you can bet Osama doesn't use bittorrent.
I completely support the (MP|RI)AA doing everything they can in the court of public opinion to lobby peoples' attitudes about copying. People can talk to me all they want, as long as I can change the channel or choose not to listen - or choose TO listen and consider their views.
Lobbying to pass laws to criminalize behavior is a whole different matter - that's the brute-force approach that leverages the State's monopoly on legal violence to achieve their aims.
Run as many ads and try to change as many minds peacefully and through reason as you want. Appeal to peoples' higher instincts. That's perfect.
Don't make using tools illegal.
-- http://frobnosticate.com
...as a starving Bill Gates in an anti MS piracy ad?
Sorry to suggest an unpopular idea, but I think this is a good move on the part of the MPAA. Let's face it, copying a DVD for a friend (of copyrighted material) is illegal. It is, even if you don't want it to be. Nothing wrong with pointing that out, either in a Slashdot post or a movie theater commercial. This is America, land of free speech. They have a message they want to get out, let 'em.
I would much prefer them to put their effort into PR rather than lobbying, anyway.
"Why must Hollywood send me conflicting messages?"
you need to see Amazon Women on the Moon if you want to see really conflicting. Some "pirates" seize the MCA/Universal ship and steal the movies and video discs. It's an absolutely hilarious segment...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I get $1.20 off of every CD I sell. With 12 songs on my CD it means every time you pirate a song it cost me 10 cents. For every hundred thousand of your downloads I lose $10,000 !
Of course, my record company gave me an advance of $100,000 that I have to pay back. And then they made me pay for the recording studio where I recorded my own music. That was another $100,000.
Oh wait, They also made me pay for their mid level marketers to pay that money-that-looks-like-but-isn't-really-payola to Clear Channel to get my songs on the radio. That was another $200,000. And of course I have to pay the rest of the band. Not to mention the cost of going out to tour to support this new CD.
Oh yeah, and I don't even own my own songs any more, or my voice, or the recordings of those songs, or the cover art, or anything. In fact, my music is now legally known as "Work for hire". And if I don't like how I'm being treated I can't leave my record label without their permission.
Oh, and the record company that sold those albums? They made about 3 million dollars of profit.
So how am I suppose to pay off my $400,000 debt to the record company if you keep pirating my songs? So stop it. mmm-kay?
Thank you
Probably because others have come to realize the unreasonable extremism of your stance. I concede that the current state of the copyright and patent systems is absurd and insane, but Ifind nothing wrong with reasonable copyrights and patents. A creator of a work, be it physical or intellectual, should be granted the exclusive rights to reap the rewards of their labor for a reasonable length of time. And while I think inventors should also be allowed a shoirt-term monopoly on their inventions, I do not think that it is reasonable in the least that someone can patent a sequence of genes that they found.
As for trademarks, I have no problem with trademarks at all. If I create a company I want customers to have a reasonable level of assurance that when they by Dogfart brand toothpaste, that they are buying my product and not some cheap knock-off.
The problem is not that intellectuial property is immoral. The problem is that the IP system in place in the USA right now is out of control and has been coopted by the interests of big business at everyone else's expence.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
If they put these commercials right behind the FBI warning on those VHS tapes and DVDs and didn't let you fast-forward through them, I bet that would deter all those scurvy pirates.
For the amount of movies that have been made that are nothing more then tired rewrite sequels, retread high budget updates to movies from the past, and just flat out lack any effort from the producers/directors/writers I refuse to pay for movies in the theatre anymore. Its one thing if the industry was creating original movies with creative and insightful writing, but anymore its about franchising and draining a genre until death. Rather then spend energy, effort, and money on countering piracy - I wish they'd spead it making original and quality movies.
http://static.hugi.is/video/fyndin/dctf-1.wmv
Okay, I'm going to get flamed for this one. Most people take an extremist viewpoint with respect to file sharing. One one hand, the MPAA and RIAA, along with their political lobby are decrying file sharing in general. On the other hand, the "information wants to be free" camp is decrying copyrights and reproduction regulations of any kind.
I take issue with both. Sure, you may not think it's cool that the MPAA and the RIAA want to make money off of music, movies, etc; And you may even justify this opinion by saying "well, they are exploiting the poor muscisians in the first place" or "they have been found guilty of price gouging", etc. But the fact is, if the MPAA wants to educate people as to the illegality of movie piracy, on the level of principle (and within the laws of this country) they have every reason to do so given their business model in a capitalist economy.
Don't get me wrong...I have nothing against P2P networks, file sharing, etc. Many forward-looking artists are encouraging the free flow of their music through these avenues. The notion of punishing all file-swappers because of the actions of the few, as some legislators have recommended, is assinine.
Balance is what is needed in this argument. The extremist arguments and knee-jerk reactions from the geek community at large will only make the big media companies more worried and more interested in blanket remedies, IMHO. Likewise, the blanket remedies proposed by the big media companies and their lobby will only make the citizens want to lash out all the more.
flame away
It's hard to tell the cool to chill, my favorite hotel room has a view to an ill.
the movie industry has starving artists? Where are these people, the north pole? like give me a break.
-- DuckWing
>with morality killing movies
What does that mean? Because a filmmaker dares to upset the socially conservative status quo by tackling subjects like sex, drugs, violence, bigotry, etc suddenly they have no moral standing?
Sorry but try as you might, you Christian Fundamentalists or whatever you are cannot co-op the word morality and throw it around in the use of a really bad straw man argument.
There's a lot of things to criticize the content industries about, but the content itself should be hands off. Maybe in your world everything should be a Disney fairytale, but don't expect to be taken seriously by those of us in the real world.
is it going to look like this?
http://static.hugi.is/video/fyndin/dctf-1.wmv
That's your whole reply? Okay... Your problem is your view of what constitutes valuable property. What about time? When a plumber fixes your house, should he be paid. He hasn't lost anything tangible. If I spend a year formulating an idea and you take it, you've taken advantage of my time just as you have for the plumber (or lawyer, or any service profession). I don't really expect you to get anywhere with objections, because your point is untenable; however, if you keep posting nonsense, i'll keep replying.
The safest way to approach lava is to have another person with you and he goes first.
Quote from the set painter in the ad:
... because we are not million dollar employees, at all. We are lucky if we can put together 12 straight months..."
"(piracy issue) well I don't believe it affects the producers. I mean it does affect them but it's miniscure to the way it affects me.
So the movie producers admit they are ripping off the workers? The workers get the leftover, which is nothing.
(Nice orange mustache, though. )
Then cut to an assembly line worker at Sony. "My company paid the DVDCCA license fee, in order to get a piece of the DVD player market. If it weren't for useful legislation like DMCA, you would be able to buy a DVD player from just anybody. That's not fair, and it's un-American."
Then cut to a a guy who sells timebase correctors: "When you pirate, you make it harder for the guys in LA to buy legislation that requires your equipment to implement Macrovision, the technology that keeps your video devices from displaying a bright picture on your TV when they're connected upstream from the VCR. If everyone did that and the laws were no longer funded, then nobody would buy my TBCs anymore. I would be out of a job."
Then cut to a grave headstone that says, "R.I.P. 1937" and a voiceover: "Though I died over sixty five years ago, thanks to the Sonny Bono extension act, my life still has meaning and I have incentive to have written all my stories in the 1920s. When you pirate, you undermine the funding for the laws that makes this possible. Don't let my spirit die in 2018. Don't pirate."
Then cut to Lars Ulrich: "As you probably guesses, The Industry is working on a successor to audio CDs as you know them. These will require proprietary licenses not just to play, but to produce as well. This will help to raise the barrier to music publishing. You don't want just any band to be able to publish music in the same format as the big labels, do you? The record companies help you, by filtering out the bad bands so that you are left with just the cream of the crop, such as my recent 'St. Anger' which all music afficionatos agree is a masterpiece. When you pirate, you undermine the format, thereby undermining this useful selection process."
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The same site has an even better link.
Use it to make them know exactly what you feel about their "campaign".
I suggest that you be very polite, just ask them some questions.
Yes, you are not accusing them of anything, in fact, you'll be happy to support their cause if they just explain certain issues that you find confusing...
Like, for example, wouldn't they agree that taking say, 5-10%, of the $30,000,000 that a single actor might get paid fro a single movie and distributing it among the poor, starving stage workers will help them much more than spending large amounts of money on dishonest advertisements?
Oh, and by the way, when a movie makes some X millions of dollars, how much of it is distributed among the workers and how much is kept by the middlemen (the studios)?
And one last thing, could they you how much the top 50 movies gross in 2002/2003 and what was the average stage worker salary at the time? And would they be so kind as to compare those figures to a time before the wide spread of DVD recorders and high-speed internet (say, 10 years ago?) - adjusted for the usual economy-strength indicators - just to show you what was the effect of piracy on the figures above?
Thank you in advance, best regards, merry christmas, yadda yadda,
Be creative!
Then, if you do get an answer, rip it apart, exposing all its flaws and fallacies (in an extremely polite matter, of course) and ask them for better ones, because it seems to you that they are the real "pirates" in this saga.
The way I see it, with movie piracy, biggest losers here are non-action flicks, comedy, and romance movies.
Personally, I cannot see how one could watch an inferior rip of Matrix Reloaded or T3 on his computer monitor or through Divx on a TV. The quality just isn't there anymore. You're not experiencing the picture and audio they way it was intended. When a studio throws hundreds of millions at some flick which has a decent plot, then $10/ticket is a no-brainer. In case of downloading the movie you are just cheating yourself.
For dialogue based movies which do not feature explosions, sophisticated camerawork, etc it would be fair to say they will suffer more piracy than action-based ones.
Due to this inevitable trend, studios usually have no choice but to upping the action movie production quota just to be more profitable in the box office.
The thing that irks me with the market today is the lack of diversity (below each title it shows how many screens the movie is playing on). Every theatre features the same pictures in proximity of 20 miles from each other. (HEY! Sort of like RIAA's with music distribution). The smaller, more thought out movies are not even on the radar. Take Man on The Train for example. I live in Hollywood, CA and would have to drive 300 miles north (Merced, CA) to watch this movie. That's the closest. But finding a theatre playing Legally Blonde 2 or Bruce Almighty would be easier than finding a Starbucks around here.
Then, we have the international opening dates sometimes several months away from each other. Hey MPAA, get a fucking clue. This isn't the 1920's anymore. When I talk to my friends in Holland, I should automatically assume they have the same roaster of movies playing at their theatres. We are connected globally nowdays. Bumping release dates of movies hurts the cause and encourages piracy.
So in conclusion,
music sharing = death of 1 hit/1 track wonders
movie piracy = death of dialogue based movies.
This is similar to showing the unskippable FBI warning on frigging DVDs. People who pay are further annoyed, pirates do not notice this at all. Great idea!
A rapper that tells me not to copy a disk ? When will he draw his gun ?
Well, about copying I can tell only one thing.
I copy MS windows : I don't want to use it, but MS made me need it to view some particular web pages and make use of some special services. I mean if they can't standardise, why should I pay for their inability to cooperate with others.
I find any reason why I should buy a complete OS for these few particular items that I need just a little too much to accept.
btw, the movie plays fine using xine.
...that someone would have taken the opportunity to take a jab at the MPAA and point out the error in the big splash graphic: "You're threatening the livlihood (sic) of thousands", but then I realized that it would imply that the typical Slashdot reader would
a. have read the article, and
b. know how to spell
The local cable companies have been running this ad for the past few months:
A young boy goes into a grocery/convenience store, and pockets some candy. He leaves, the shopkeeper catches him, and the next shot is the cops bringing the kid home. So Dad and Junior are having a heart-to-heart, Dad is asking "where did you learn to steal?" Junior replies: "But Dad! You steal satellite signals!".
The commercial then cuts to a message to the effect of "theft is theft. stealing satellite signals is a crime. Sponsored by your local cable companies".
The first time I saw this, I would have sworn it was going to be a commercial paid for by the satellite providers in Canada. Nope, looks like the cable co's are feeling the pinch of DTV piracy in Canada (arrr matey).
Blatantly wrong propaganda such as this turns my stomach, but they sure have my parents convinced - they now are very nervous about the cryptography course I'm taking next year, because I told them I could use that knowledge to help decrpyt satellite signals.
Nice world we live in, eh?
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
"Featuring starving artists in the movie industry."
Hey, We'll see Macaulay Culkin again!
Italicized are quoted from: http://www.respectcopyrights.org/popup/why-3.html
Have you ever had your computer crash and had to replace it or reinstall all the files due to a virus or other such problem? The nature of "peer-to-peer" file sharing sites like eDonkey, Gnutella, KaZaA, etc., open your computer to destructive viruses and worms and annoying pop-ups. Common Viruses: Apher, Benjamin, Backdoor, Duload, Fizzer, Hantner, Klez, Neuer, Nimda, Livra and Magic Eightball
The nature of peer-to-peer is NOT to "open the computer to destructive viruses and worms and annoying pop-ups." This is a common misconception. Peer-to-peer is a tool and technlogy. Peer-to-peer is a techology that is designed to evolve the distribution channel from the traditional server-client to client(also a server)-otherclients(also servers). There are advantages since it relieves bandwidth from the server. Peer-to-peer is a useful tool of distribution especially when the distributor does not have the manpower to distribute their work. It can especially be useful for independent musicians and amateur directors who do not have the resources. Since peer-to-peer is a technology, it can also be abused. I agree with that but peer-to-peer technology offers tremendous outcome. Though in many people's minds, peer-to-peer is linked to pirating, peer-to-peer is NOT pirating. It is simply a technology. The nature of peer-to-peer is not to open the computer for viruses/popups. Though Kazaa and several other programs do include malware/spyware into their programs, they are not the total of one technology. They are only one implementaiton of a technology. Kazaa also has many legal materials and offers an efficient method of distribution. Second, Gnutella is NOT a peer-to-peer site. Gnutella is a peer-to-peer network. Programs that implement Gnutella such as Gnucleus and others are programs. There are also many Gnutella clients out there that are open source such as Gnucleus. You can inspect the code to see if there is any relation of viruses or spyware.
You also become a distribution source for illegal downloading of movies, music and more, which makes you just as responsible if you had downloaded the movie yourself. Network users have a back door to your hard drive while you're online, thereby seeing your personal, private information, such as bank records, social security number, etc. Is the theft of your personal information worth the free movie?
Please show evidence of this. I do not have any knowledge of this. Most file sharing programs that implement peer-to-peer technology has limited access to the hard drive (usually a specified directory). Unless the user specified to share the files related to their personal information or there are no bugs in the file sharing program, I do not understand how they have a backdoor.
This just goes to show how completely and utterly out of touch with reality the MPAA is.
I AM a starving artist in the film industry, and it's not because of piracy, I can tell you that much right now.
Nobody has stolen my work. Frankly, I wouldn't mind if someone did, because at least I'd be getting exposure...
The main reason why artists in the film industry starve, is pretty simple:
THE STUDIOS ARE IN IT FOR THE MONEY, NOT ART.
So, they will hire those who make the most money, not the best artists. Why else do you think Michael Bay gets to direct? It's not because he's an artist (Far from it). It's because he knows how to stage action, and action sells tickets.
It's the same bullshit story as with the music industry. A handful of people get promoted to death so the corporation that they have a contract with can make as much money as possible in the shortest amount of time.
In the meantime, real artists, whose appeal isn't as bland and generic (read: mainstream) are left to fight for the crumbs.
So, these commercials do nothing to end the starvation of artists. They are primarily designed to further the wealth of the few that are already getting paid more than they're worth.
I'd go so far as to say they have a better chance of increasing the number of people who starve.
It's not because of piracy that movies lose money. Movies lose money if they don't have a marketing blitz promoting it. Even the biggest bombs at the box office still break even for the studios through video sales. The only movies actually LOSING money are independent features that might have something to say other than "hey look at that explosion, isn't that cool?".
The studios are not STARVING... not by any stretch of the imagination. The ones starving, are the people the studios screw over.
The attitude here is "we could be making more".
-- This sig for rent.
>> ..selling albums is not the optimal way for artists to receive compensation...
...artists often forget that once the unnecessary middlemen are cut out of the picture, there is plenty of money to be made in concerts alone.
Says who? In any case, how an artist wants to make money is a matter for that artist, and no one else.
>> Pre-recorded albums should be free promotional material and a service to the fans.
Self-serving bunk. People can try to sell whatever they want. Your use of "should" implies a moral judgment at work. Morality has nothing to do with this. As my mother used to say, people in hell want ice water. And you just want free CD's.
>>
First, it's a safe bet that every entertainer knows there's money in selling tickets to a performance. Second, what's with that "unnecessary middleman" stuff? You want someone to be a fullt-time entertainer and fly their own planes, do their own accounting, arrange their own bookings, run their own payroll, act as their own lawyers, write their own contracts, prepare their own taxes, etc.?? Without middlemen, those bands you keep referring to as "artists" would never break out of the college bar circuits.
In general, just one more immature post trying to dress simple greed in bogus moralistic rationalizations.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I'll be selling the ads on DVD on the corner of Broadway and 34th tommorow morning. Ask for Vito....
They stay in business by controlling and monopolizing the distribution channels. Take that away, and they are a worthless entity. We just need the artists to understand that. If they do, music CDs will cost $2-3, or online downloads will cost $.10 a song or less, which is what they should have been costing anyway. This is all about useless people attempting to justify their worth in an Internet-based digital economy. They will lose this war within five years.
The theaters already show about 20 minutes of advertisements before each movie, and this is after I already paid to see the thing! They waste 20 minutes of my time for what, a nickel? Now they're going to add a 65 second PSA to the wasted time. Don't forget, the people going to the movie are paying customers. If they were downloading movies off of the internet instead of seeing it in the theater, they wouldn't be there.
This makes as much sense as forcing patrons of a retail store to listen to a 65 second speech about how shoplifing is bad before they are allowed to pay the cashier.
I go to movies for the chance I may see something insightful. They don't deliver that very well, and they want me to sit through a bunch of commercials as well. What point is there in going to a movie anymore? The entertainment cartel just wants to waste my time no matter how much I pay. I used to go to some movies because I thought the companies who made them weren't so bad. I don't see how wasting the time of paying customers would help their cause--assuming stoping copyright infringement is their real motive. Then again, I suppose if you're paying money to a MPAA company, you're an unwitting collaborator to their fascist plots. Screw them all.