FBI Anti-Piracy Seal

Supp0rtLinux writes "Looks like the FBI is giving a new anti-piracy seal for entertainment and software products. Looks like now the RIAA and MPAA pursuits will add a new federal level to future prosecutions." I'm pretty sure that our forms of media already contain warnings against unauthorized duplication, rebroadcasting, and public performance, but now it's in logo form!

Comments

Reality check required

[darnok]

> "We absolutely need downstream revenue to
> survive," said Ken Jacobsen, senior VP and
> director of worldwide anti-piracy operations for
> the MPAA, noting that only four of 10 movies earn
> enough at the box office to recoup the average of
> $89 million spent on producing and marketing a
> film.

I think the MPAA should be looking at two other issues in addition to piracy:
- why do only 40% of movies actually make money? I find it hard to believe that wholesale copyright infringement is ripping that much off the bottom line; very few people actually have the bandwidth to download movies, and not all of those have DVD burners
- why does the average file cost $89m to make and market? I can remember only about 10 years ago that $100m was considered an obscene amount to spend on making a film (refer to "Waterworld" and "Last Action Hero" as examples); now it's only slightly above average?

I think these guys have got to have a bit of a reality check if they're spending $89m per film and complaining about not recovering costs. *Someone* has had a very big salary hike...

Re:Great!

[miu]

Now we know which products to boycott!

These messages hurt impulse buys in my case. When I see a message like "this software contains anti-copying technology" I remember all the times I've had games fail to work because of buggy piracy protection.

It means that I put off buying the game until it has been around long enough for users to report problems with the copy protection and the publisher to release patches. Sometimes I never get around to checking and lose interest in the game.