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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?
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;
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 commericals can be viewed here. Only one up for now, but the rest will be up later I suppose.
If I wasn't so lazy, I'd have a sig.
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
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
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
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 would be hard to sell those gals as "starving" since they spend a considerable amount of time with their mouths full :)
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.
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.
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
"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
Scene 1: Narrator "This is the actor that got paid $20 Million to star in this really bad movie. The movie Cost $500 Million to make, and lost $100 Million at the box office."
Scene 2: (Cue pic of 3 people living in an alley, 2 adults, one 3 year old girl) Narrator: "This is the gaffer who worked on that movie. The studio cut him to save money on their next film. Now little Amy doesn't have a home..."
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
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.
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. )
Wow your right the filmmakers that make movies like American Pie really "dare" to tackle hard hitting subjects. You assume that if one filmmaker makes a movie that trys to address these subjects in a profitable way, that therefore all filmmakers must do the same thing. And if were going to talk about logical fallacies lets talk about dropping me into the category of "religious fundamentalists" to some how make my opinion less meaningful. All of a sudden if I think its detrimental to society that children are all listening to songs about raping there mothers, I am a religious fundamentalist, and my opinion has no place out of church. Postmodern culture: Everyone's ideas are right except people that don't agree that everyone's ideas are right
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 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....