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MPAA Opens Anti-filesharing Website
PontifexPrimus writes "The MPAA's new advertising campaign against movie piracy has a home on the internet. Did you know that '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.'? Learn about the dangers of filesharing!"
The be-all and end-all word: FUD.
Need I say more?
Bash script for FP whores
For those of you who *always* wondered what happens When you download movies illegally:
:)
#1. You're cheating yourself.. absolutely, I divorce myself!
#2. You're threatening the livelihood of thousands.. just the MPAA member company shareholders/execs
#3. Your computer is vulnerable.. avi/mpeg/mov can carry a virus? Learn something new everyday!
#4. You're breaking the law.. >:]
The best part of their site was their "Music Games & More" section where they say "Did you know that you can download the latest songs", I wonder what the RIAA would think.
"Don't cheat yourself (the poor shareholders/execs) out of the magic (new yacht/ferrari). Movies - They're worth it (HONEST!)!"
I don't know about other people, but I know that all of the movies have downloaded in the past I had actually paid to go see them before/after I had downloaded it and/or bought the dvd if I thought it was good. Not even Kazaa can beat Dolby 5.1 and a dvd picture
...of the movie "Truman Show" where Jim Carrey is in the travel agency, and one of the posters on the wall shows a jumbo jet being hit by lightning. The caption on the poster read "This could happen to YOU!"
LOL! Sometimes FUD is funny.
Most of the time, the movies available for download on the Internet are obtained when someone sneaks a camcorder into a theatre and illegally records the movie up on the screen. The sound isn't right, the picture isn't in focus, people are walking in front of the camera, and scenes are missing. Is that any way to experience the magic of the movies?
Is what any way to experience the magic of the movies? Free? I think it's a great way.
Only 4 out of 10 films turn a profit.
6 out of 10 films suck.
Do you really want fewer movies to choose from?
Gladly. Maybe they'll be forced to make movies that aren't complete shit.
Am I the only one that is glad that my well being, that "cheating myself" is so much more important than "breaking the law"?
I won't bother debunking 3 or even talking about 2... but don't you love how they try and manipulate priorities?
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
Here's an idea MPAA. You can use this one for free, and I'm putting it in the public domain for you. Because you have such high opinions of movies such as "TITANIC" and "SPIDER-MAN" and "JURASSIC PARK", I have some news for you: Don't make movies that suck.
There is nothing that compares to the silver screen. Well, there wasn't, but home theaters are starting to come close. So, make movies that don't suck and people will still go to see them.
4 out of 10 movies don't recoup their investment because they suck. Gigli isn't going to recoup it's investment because it sucks. 4 out of 10 movies are going to suck. The other 6 are just going to suck less. Stop automating your script-writing, and be more stringent with what movies you actually produce and then people will still go see them in the theater and you will still make money. People will still pirate them, but so what.
The biggest thing people use pirated movies for: To find out if it is worth the $8. If it sucks, it isn't worth $8. I'm not cheating myself, I'm saving my damn money.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
With movies taking in more money every year and with DVD sales growing by leaps and bounds, if those thousands of Industry employees aren't getting enough money I would think the problem does not lie with illegal downloads.
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
They don't say that your system is insecure "while filesharing". They say that your system is insecure "while online". While some would call me a nitpicker for pointing this out, I think it indicative of the general anti-technology fears that the MPAA/RIAA "higher-ups" (Valenti/Rosen/etc.) hold.
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
It's all about "we want it for free."
That's all. All this discussion of copyright reform and the "artists" is a non-issue. What it is really about is "we want everything for free."
People really think that if copyrights were repealed completely, that somehow the marketplace wouldn't change at all: that $200 million movies would still be made, people would devote 3-5 years to writing a book, and animators would spend tens of thousands of man-hours on television and home video.
Here's a hint: they won't. Sure, you'd have the odd street performer and concert in the park, but by and large, all professional creative effort would be pointless, and the people who are now making a living at it would have to find other work: probably a minimum wage fast food job, because as we all know, arts degrees are worthless in the "real world."
"All for free" is just as extreme, and just as absurd as "pay per play." But the argument will never be taken seriously, because it isn't about fixing things, it's about "we'll just take it, and then rationalize it with some bullshit straw man argument over the meaning of the word 'theft.'"
If copyright is repealed, it will render millions of man-years of effort totally worthless, and put tens of millions out of work. Dozens of industries will become pointless. That's not progress.
How about a real discussion of copyright reform instead of half-assed "nyah nyah nyahs" at the MPAA?
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
As I remember it, if the member companies of the MPRIAA see the same type of stuff (whenever one makes a purchase or buys a subscription), they enjoy the legal right to collect any such information a customer must give them and "share" it with marketers for money.
How come they only "seem" concerned when they're not the ones doing it?
OK, it's fairly simple stuff here.
1) The MPAA would recoup its investment MUCH faster by encouraging people to come to the movies more often, and by reducing costs. How can they do this?
a) Reduce ticket prices. Lower tickets mean more movie-goers.
b) Quit paying the stars so fucking much money!!! Ben Affleck made TWELVE AND A HALF MILLION DOLLARS for Gigli, one of FOUR movies released this year that he starred in. In other words, he made roughly one THOUSAND times as much as a skilled professional with a post-secondary education. (Notice that the MPAA site doesn't link to any stars' opinions--just the grips and the stuntmen, making a thousandth as much as the stars)
c) QUIT MAKING MOVIES THAT SUCK BADLY!!!
How many times do you need to hear it? How many brainless sequels to brainless movies do you need to make before it sinks in that you SUCK, and that your movies SUCK?
Imagine this: A movie where stars are treated as skilled employees and paid roughly $200,000/year (hey, their careers aren't as long as some of ours--they deserve higher salaries for that), the writers are required to come up with original and innovative ideas to earn their pay, and the tickets are $5/seat, with affordable popcorn.
Why they might actually make a profit, and DESPITE all of the file sharing (that doesn't take away a single ticket sale), get people out to the movies.
As an aside, you might ask how does this NOT relate to the RIAA?
1) The RIAA actually is hurting (some) from filesharing. Most people are as happy with a burned MP3 as they are the original quality song, whereas nobody would seriously miss a good theathre movie just because they had a really crappy camcorder copy they can watch on their TV.
2) The artists don't get paid millions--they get paid SHIT. They get about a tenth as much as the tech staff, instead of a thousand times as much.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
(from the "music, games & more" page)
:D
Browse the links below to discover a whole world of entertainment available to you - legally - right at home.
Gotta love how they don't link to project Gutenberg on the books page.
Remember who these ads and websites are aimed at. The average /. reader knows the "truth" about back doors in software, and, more than that, knows how to share directories with granularity. The average computer user, I would posit, does not. Don't believe me? Hop on KaZaA, Gnutella, whatever, and do a search for '.xls' or '.wpd,' etc. See how many personal documents you uncover. We did that once and found a CEO's copy of the salary breakdown for his dot-com... No names to protect the clueless (and shareholder value ;)). So, it's FUD, but it's (if there is such a thing) justifiable FUD.
geek. lawyer.
OK, Movies are making more money than ever(the good ones anyway), DVD's are selling like hot cakes, and the movie indistry is losing money HOW? Even if they were losing money, I can't feel to sorry about it when you hear about the leading actor(s) making 6 to 8 million dollors to star in it. Here is an idea, instead of getting some famous actor and paying them all that money how about trying out some NEW actors to play the part.
Getting a camcopy or a DivX complete can take days - if your time is worth anything (mine is), it's cheaper to get a couple tickets for a real cinema, or rent/buy the DVD. Goes better with girls too, they do not appreciate watching movies off the computer screen :)
Relax, MPAA, it's the RIAA who's in real trouble.
I'm in a Unix state of mind.
I suspect that this article was submitted here precisely for this reason!
Etc, etc, ad nauseam, and so on and so forth.
Secondly, most of the releases that come out on IRC, newsgroups, bittorrent or whatever are crappy cam recordings that people don't like anyway. Who wants to watch some washed-out version of a movie with bad sound anyway? If it's any good you'll go see it in the theater to get the real experience.
Third, most of the movies you find on the internet are in divx or some other format that generally only plays on a computer. Most people are not savvy enough even to burn a VCD to play in their DVD player, what to speak of building a dedicated home theater pc to play the divx movies. Most people do not want to sit in their computer room in front of a 17" monitor to watch movies. They would rather see it on the 42" widescreen in the living room, or in the theater.
Finally, movies is a social thing. People take dates to movies, they take their kids to movies. They like to eat the candy and sit in the theater with the big screen and surround sound.
So MPAA, take a chill pill. We're not going to drive your poor key grip and dolly boys into homelessness. WTF is a 'key grip' anyway???
Notice how baseball seems to be suffering the same problems as the RIAA and the MPAA... inflated salaries, and less and less return on their investments (Only one major league team turned a profit last year... one) but MLBA can't claim piracy is causing their losses, because... well, that would be retarded.
Interestingly, however, the reasons for baseballs, and the RIAA/MPAA decline are identical:
1. Overpriced... seats/cds are too expensive.
2. Salaries, stars seem to want more and more lately...
3. THE MAJOR REASON: Recession! People don't buy cds, movies, or go see baseball games because THEY DON'T HAVE THE MONEY.
Baseball is adjusting, because it has to, RIAA/MPAA are fighting tooth and nail for legislation so they can retain their current business model....
STFU RIAA/MPAA.
umm no, 2 windows vulnerabilities in the last month. 9 potential linux vulnerabilities axed in the last month.
The fact that vulnerabilities get found and fixed on linux is hardly a blackmark.
Most of the time, the movies available for download on the Internet are obtained when someone sneaks a camcorder into a theatre and illegally records the movie up on the screen. The sound isn't right, the picture isn't in focus, people are walking in front of the camera, and scenes are missing. Is that any way to experience the magic of the movies?
...
Funny, I could swear the last time I went to see a movie in a real movie theater that
* The sound was off (too much treble, no bass)
* Lots of "muching" sounds by people in the audience pigging out on snacks
* Random noise/chitchat
* Cell phones/pagers going off
* The picture wasn't in focus (it was slighly out of focus until the last 15 minutes)
* People would walk across my field of vision (in order to get more snacks or to use the bathroom)
* I missed scenes when I went to the bathroom
Now, what am I gaining by going to an actual movie theater? They need to come up with a better arguement than the one they're using, that's for sure...
Are you willing to pay an extra $5 per ticket?
The fact that vulnerabilities get found and fixed on linux is hardly a blackmark.
I'm not looking to get involved in some battle of the zealots with you or anything, but what you said of course, doesn't make any sense. Of course it's a 'blackmark'. There is always a period between when a vulnerability is discovered, and when it was fixed that the machine was - guess what - vulnerable to compromise. Also, the more bugs that are found on a regular basis, regardless of wether or not they do eventually get patched is bad. With that many holes known to the public and security communities, you can be sure there are more that are unknown with exploits being traded in private. And using your logic, why harp on Microsoft then? After all, they eventually patch all their major security holes. Bleh.
Maybe that's why I use Kazaa Lite Instead! :)
"It takes a very long time to count to 2 in binary." ~'Fourlegged'
....your Microsoft O/S is completely secure.
I think it's funny you're responding cynically to their FUD-laden scaremongering about backdoors and viruses being spread through file sharing programs with equally FUD-laden scaremongering about security holes in Windows.
Though I'm sure the irony will be lost on you.
NO CARRIER
No, you are guilty of contributory infringement. Having a filesharing program running, and sharing copyrighted files from it - you are knowingly distributing copyrighted materials. By the law, you do not have that right, only the copyright holder does, unless they have specifically given you that right.
It is in no way comparable to loaning someone your car, because the primary use of loaning your car is legal. If you knowingly give people access to resources that you are aware they are using to commit a crime, you are generally guilty of a crime as well.
The key word there is knowingly. You pay someone to kill someone: you have broken the law. You give them a gun knowing that they are going to use it to murder someone, you have broken the law. You give them the keys to your neighbor's house, knowing that they will use them to rob their house - you have broken the law. If you loan them your car knowing that they will use it to rob a bank, you are not only incredibly stupid, but also guilty of a crime.
You'd have to be pretty naive to think that people aren't going to use your filesharing of "J-Lo and Ben Affleck Cavort Around, Pay Us Money" to download it illegally, and stupidity is not generally a legal defense. In otherwords, you are knowingly facillitating the commission of a crime, and would be extraordinarily hard-pressed to argue otherwise (unless you were distributing licensed, or free media - in which case the **AA isn't your problem).
In the least, all these actions are "Aiding and Abetting" or criminal negligence. In the worst, they are conspiracy. Filesharing of copyrighted works is no different, although of considerably less gravity then the above crimes.
Please people, a little sanity here. The **AA are overblowing things, but distributing copyrighted works with normal, restricted distribution rights is illegal. Period.
With the exception of the few who are "important" enough to get cut in on a percentage of the net, these are union people who get paid by the hour and get paid rather well while work lasts. Their payment does not depend on whether or not the movie sells or is pirated.
You are saying that no more movies are going to be made if somebody downloads a low-quality copy of the next Matrix movie? What are you smoking?
The RIAA argument you're trying to make also requires you to demonstrate that significant losses in sales are occurring due to broadband downloads of movies.
EVIDENCE PLEASE, other than studies paid for by the MPAA to PR firms.
Your argument also, carried to its illogical conclusion says we have a moral obligation to buy even movies we don't like or these poor, starving industry employees will be out of work. Do they have the obligation to buy software from companies that employ us whether they like it, want it, or need it?
Or how about computer people just like us, who work on the special effects, or just install and support the computers for the people involved with a movie?
You either expect to make enough from your share of the profit to afford to take the risk of their not being any or are getting the certainty of a pretty good paycheck. Either way, you are not my problem, any more than any failed dot.com I wasn't personally involved with is.
Tech Public Policy stuff
If I'm trying to decide whether or not I want to go see The Hulk, the question of how much it will cost me comes into play. I may go see it at a $4.00 matinee price, but definitely not at $8.00. $8 is way too much money to spend on an hour or two of disposable entertainment; I'd rather go pick up a couple magazines or a book for that price... I can go back and re-read those over and over again, long after I've initially purchased them. Now, if somebody offers to take me to a movie (ie, it's free for me) and pay the $8 admission for me, then the chance is much greater that I will go.
What I'm getting at here is that there isn't money in my budget to go see a movie that costs $8 and leaves me at the end with nothing more than break-room gossip. There is however room in my budget for what is free. If there were no sources available for me to get a movie from for free, I'm still not coughing up the 8 bucks to see it in a theater, though, and I believe that's where the MPAA's reasoning has gone awry.
The MPAA seems to believe that for every time a movie is downloaded off the internet, there is at least one person not paying the $8 that they would otherwise pay if the movie were not available for download; but this is just not the case. If the movie isn't available for download, it doesn't get downloaded; however if people don't have room in their budget for an $8 movie, they still won't spend the money on the movie even if they can't get it for free.
Now, if I downloaded some movie and I gave it rave reviews to all of my peers, maybe some of them will have the $8 required to go out and see the movie in a theater; or the $3.50 to rent it; or the $20 to buy the DVD, or whatever. I'm just pointing this out because I know that it does happen from time to time, and it is probably a phenomenon that the MPAA is ignoring. This puts movie downloaders in the same seat as movie critics; people who see movies for free and then pass on their opinions. If I tell a buddy of mine that I know is into sci-fi movies that there's a sci-fi movie that I saw that he might enjoy; he may just rent it and check it out, because he respects my judgement of sci-fi films. It would probably never stand up in court, but if each movie downloader can drag some witnesses up onto the stand to testify that the movie downloader's recommendation is what solely motivated a ticket / dvd purchase, that might take the ball out of the MPAA's court.
So back to the subject of the comment: theft. What am I stealing? There was never $8 set aside to go see a given movie in the first place, so by my downloading it and watching it, what have I stolen from anyone?
Reinvent the wheel only at either a lower cost, greater effectiveness, or your own personal enrichment and satisfaction.
If they are Linux vulnerabilities they _must_ be in the kernel, because that is the only thing Linux is!
The theaters are so filthy, we go there early to find a clean seat. We used to be able to hold a conversation before the movie. While the theater showed a slideshow accompanied by music, it was quiet. Now, there's 20 minutes of commercials, followed by 10-15 minutes of trailers before the movie, and it's so loud you can't talk over it.
The sound systems are always broken or set improperly (front speakers only). The movie is never in sharp focus (no, it's not my eyes). If there's a problem, you have to wait 15 minutes for the projectionist to show up. We recently watched part of a film burn up, because there was no one in the booth. When there is a problem, they skip ahead to keep the movie on schedule, so you miss part. Sure, if you complain they will give you another ticket, but that's two hours of your time.
I've called the THX number and emailed the theaters to complain, but nothing is improving. Of course, the admission price is going up. It now costs less to buy the DVD than it costs for my wife and I to see the movie in the theater, and we get several hours of extras on the disk.
We obviously loved going to the movies, but with the increasing cost and reduction in quality, it's hard to justify. I can see why people are bootlegging the movies.
If the MPAA wants to stop the bootlegging, they should just release the DVD at the same time as the movie is in the theaters. Let the market decide how they want to see the film.
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
"Men may not get all they pay for in this world, but they must certainly pay for all they get."
- Frederick Douglass
Translation: It's OK for us to rip you off, but you can't rip us off.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Yeah, I went to a preview of American Wedding and they showed it then too. I cracked up. Aren't those guys all union members anyway? I don't see them taking a pay cut anytime soon. The only possible way that movie piracy could affect them is if people simply stopped going to movies and just downloaded them instead. I would have to happen on a scale that caused the industry to just stop making movies (and thus not hiring all those union guys). That ain't gonna happen. The quality is generally (very) inferior and you don't get the big screen/big sound system effect either. Sure, some people have home theaters worth more than a nice car, but they're few and far between. Then there's rentals. I could possibly see this impacting those, but even then it's a long shot. You don't get all the extra features and stuff that a lot of people like (and one of the few things that the movie industry is doing right). So I think the poor guy will still be able to put a crust of bread on the table for his wife and kids for a long time to come. Hollywood needs to handle this a lot differently and quit pissing people off. If they would simply create good movies and keep improving the package deal you get when buying a DVD, then they should have no problems.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
MPAA is as responsible for content being pirated, as are those who pirate after the fact of an initial illegal copy hitting the 'Net. I say this because apparently the MPAA is ignoring the fact that *TEST* coppies of movies which wound up on the cutting room floor actually make it to the 'Net before the final production release. Are you telling me that it's *our* fault, and not the keygrip, or the sound man, or whomever that works on the movies that are at fault for that as well? It seems a blind eye is turned to that by MPAA maybe? I mean, how is it possible that many of these movies they complain about are actually released on the 'Net *days* before the actual release date? How's that I ask of those bastards at the MPAA!!
--SuperBug
The one thing about movie piracy is that it is not very easy to reproduce the whole theater experience. Downloading music and burning it to CD is just as good as buying the original (minus some album art) but downloading a movie just gives you a pixilated file to watch on a 17 inch monitor. Granted some people get high quality rips and burn then to DVD, but not all of us have DVD burners. I imagine some people also hook they computers up to a tv or home theater.. not most of us either. So the way I see it, a night at the movies always has the upper hand.
Switching to Linux can be an adventure!
"What about the money the copyright holders arn't making?" you may now ask. "Isn't this stealing?" No, the copyright owners never had the money, thus it cannot be stolen. Why is this difficult?
"What about the constitutional right to intellectual property?" Try reading the constitution. All it says about copyrights is that the congress may set a copyright. But this isn't to protect people's intelectual property, the point of the option of copyright law is clelarly spelled out in the constitution. The point is to further the advancement of the art by granting a TEMPORARY monopoly to the creator. There would, however, be no constitutional ground whatsoever to stand on if congress decided to revoke the copyright laws, it is not gaurenteed.
"But its still illegal!" you may now protest, your arguments becomming flustered. NOW I'll agree. This is obvious copyright infringement. This is illegal, under current laws (which I don't agree with but accept as law) but this does not make it theft.
Little Brother, watching the watchers
is the way they complain about money. I could see arguing that it is morally wrong or that it is illegal, but saying that a company that makes $50 million on a good movie on opening weekend doesn't have enough money to pay its workers because of p2p apps is just rediculus. If they really can't pay the lighting crew, maybe they should stop paying the "stars" $30 million a pop for a crappy job.
SIGFAULT
You'd have to be pretty naive to think that people aren't going to use your filesharing of "J-Lo and Ben Affleck Cavort Around, Pay Us Money" to download it illegally...
/. You could toss your site into freenet and post the key, or set up several torrents for it and post links to the torrents.
Of course, what if I'm sharing mp3s of my garage band? Or a friends' garage band? Or if I got all the garage bands in my neighborhood together and put them all up?
See, it is not as hard as you'd think to come up with a sane, nonillegal use of filesharing. If I had a garage band it would be natural to post my music online to spread awareness and to see what other people think of it. Take a look at the Minibosses or God Ate My Homework.
Or, lets say you have an incredibly popular site or you know your site is about to be hit by
So now, to mangle one of your analogies, since its obviously illegal to loan someone their car to be used in a bank robbery, should you be banned from ever loaning your car? Should filesharing be banned because it could lead to copyright infringement? Just because the legitimate purposes aren't popular at this point in time, who knows where it could go from here?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
You see, the line of thinking (disclaimer, I subscribe to this line of thinking) always has been that Linux is less buggy *because* bugs are more readily found, resulting in safer, less buggy software.
Here's the line of thinking as I understand it, well written software, just due to human nature and the nature of programming, ends up with a more or less constant rate of glitches (constant in a statistical sense, I'm sure). Usually, the hardest part about making glitch-free software is just knowing about the bugs. Apparently, the most important part in bug-fixing (and the hardest) is the bug-finding.
You're assuming that the argument is that, because it's OSS, it's bug-free from inception. I don't think anyone has ever made that claim. OSS, the argument goes, is just better software (in a general way, of course. OSS is no guaranty of crappyness-free software, just as the fact that someone succesfully managed to charge for their software is no form of guarantee either) because the process in which it's developed (checkout The Cathedral and the Bazaar, insteresting stuff) more bugs are found faster.
Your post pretty much suports this view -- what you're showing is pretty much, according to OSS suporters, the superior bug squashing process taking place. In that light, according to your nice list, MS is 7 bugfixes behind! (doesn't it appeal to common sense also? What do you think is more likely, that the 7 bugs don't exist in MS software, or that MS hasn't found them yet?)
Actually it's what you just said that makes no sense. It also makes no sense that you assume anyone who prefers one system over another must be a zealot, this is a clear indication that you yourself are a zealot.
Let's take a look at this for the moment, the linux kernel is primarily coded by people from a pool of top programmers in the world. Microsoft and other fortune 500 companies (including IBM and those who contribute to the kernel) basically buy and swap these people around. There is a list of about 300 names and you'll find at least a few of them on the roster for any given major project, commerical or gpl. What this means is, more or less the same people are doing the programming, and they are no more or less apt to write a bug. So given two projects with roughly the same controls, of the same complexity, and with the same programmers, you'll end up with more or less equal bugs going into the code. There is no such thing as an app without bugs, they are there, they never all get weeded out.
It's what happens after that which is interesting
In the case of windows by far more bugs are discovered by 3rd parties than by microsoft after release, those parties can do nothing bug report said bugs to microsoft. No shortage of bugs are discovered first by the crackers and the crackers exploiting them is how they become known to everyone else.
With linux after release there are thousands of people looking for and fixing bugs in the linux kernel, at any given hour, of any given day. Out of the thousands of people looking over the source code trying to find a bug and get an honorable mention in the changelog. These thousands were able to come up with 9 bugs and all of them had 24hrs or less turn around time before being fixed. A bug is virtually never discovered because someone was exploiting it, bugs are almost always exploited retroactively after there is already a fix out there.
Now either way, if you don't stay patched you'll be vulnerable to bugs... because no matter how many we find there are more out there. But I consider a system where the best the hackers can do is follow the bug announcements themselves and hope I didn't patch to one where the hackers are usually the ones who find the bugs to begin with.
So by your logic, if some network administrator knew that any illegal activity was going on, they would have to shutdown the entire network? There are usually far too many students or employees to be able to afford policing all the traffic (nevermind the privacy issues).
Furthermore, it is not a crime to install or run a p2p app. It is only a crime to knowingly engage in copyright infringement. Do you think your average kazaa (not slashdot) user knows how to turn off uploads or even know that they are allowing uploads at all?
Also worth mentioning - of course movies don't *have* to be seen in a theater. I'm sure everybody here has heard "I'll wait till it's out on video."
Some movies make money. Some break even. Some lose money. If a smaller percentage of movies make money, less movies will be made. If a larger percentage make money, more movies will be made. Piracy is one contributing factor to movies making not as much money.
Movies losing viewers to piracy? I don't think it's widespread, yet, but my friends and I will sometimes download movies, or purchase bootleg DVD's, as opposed to watching the movie in a theater. True that's more popular with urban Asians than with other groups - but as bootlegging movies becomes as easy as getting music off Kazaa, and as computers become better integrated with TV, it seems likely to become more and more popular, and eat into legitimate movie profits.
Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
How useful is that?
HAND.
For most of the P2P programs I have seen, you have to have actually downloaded the file yourself to become a distribution source.
It's also possible that they are trying to say that if you install a P2P program on your computer, you become liable for any and all illicit material posted on that network, whether or not it actually resides on your computer. That seems like a pretty nasty blanket statement to me.
IANAL... But I play one on
Why have they registered an .org domain, when they are clearly only out to maximize profit? They aren't doing this to be nice or educate people. They are doing it to spread FUD and make more money.
Clever signature text goes here.
Is starting out calling the other guy a Nazi.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
This doesn't always happen. Sometimes movies go into production before they've been pre-sold to theatre chains. Those are the movies destined for "straight to video/DVD" status, although very occasionally, a small film is picked up by theatre chains to fill a hole where a pre-sold movie hasn't made it out of post-production in time, usually because some snotty director mistakenly believes that it matters that it sucks. When this happens, we tell ourselves that the system works, and that it's vitally important that it continue to work in just this precise way, for ever and ever, otherwise society will fall apart, cannibalism will ensue, cats and dogs living together...
And nobody ever asks what happened to all the music hall performers when movies came out. Nobody cares what became of the movie theatre pianists when talkies appeared. We don't recall the MPAA saying that the VCR would spell the death knell for the movie industry. We don't wonder whether movie theatre box office takes might be being transmuted into DVD and home theatre sales. We don't dare to consider that people will spend exactly the same amount of their disposable income on entertainment, but that they'll spend it in different ways.
We just accept the line that the system works, that it's always worked, and that it must go on working exactly the same way - whatever the MPAA declares that to be - until the end of time. Or it will be cats and dogs, living together...
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.