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Besieged Movie Industry Suffers Record Takings
nagora writes "The BBC is reporting that the movie industry, in yet another illustration of just how much damage the Internet is doing to the long-suffering members of the MPAA, has just endured a record breaking $1Billion dollar takings for the single month of June. Clearly there is a desperate need to tighten up copyright laws in the face of this huge mountain of cash that is literally being metaphorically syphoned into the studios' pockets. How will they survive? "
The third Harry Potter film topped the North American box office for the month by a wide margin, taking $217.2m (118m).
I have said before that if they stop making movies that suck that people will go and see them. While Harry Potter III didn't exactly make me jump up and down it was certainly better than the critically acclaimed "Gigli" or the various other fantastic movies that go straight to DVD.
I have recently seen Harry Potter 3, F 9/11, and Dodgeball in the theatres on their release weekend. I have rented over 10 DVDs in the same time period because decent movies have been released that deserved my money.
I downloaded Gigli because the MPAA needed to suck wind on that one for daring to put in the theatres and wasting both MY money and the theatre's money.
We wonder why they overcharge? It's because they have to make up for all the bullshit movies they show that suck and no one goes to. Perhaps they should try and make blockbuster months EVERY month instead of just June (6/2003 was their previous single month record according to the article). Put two good movies out every month of every year and you'll make a shitload. Put four good movies out every year and you'll suck wind for the rest.
Less suckage.
More money.
t
Where's my check book? I'm going to write out a nice big check to help the movie industry through this tough time. I encourage everyone else reading this to do the same. Anyone got an address?
Here's some infomration to put that figure into perspective:
The box office tally for June 2004 is 37% higher than the same period in 2001.
Oh, they must be in so much pain.
...where they get these "statistics" from. I mean do they know for a fact how many movies were downloaded? And do they know for a fact that for every movie downloaded means they lost money for that? I'm sure some people download movies they wouldn't have spent money on anyway.
I downloaded The Return of the King before it came out on DVD. But I also saw the movie in the theater opening day and three other times after that, plus bought the DVD the day it came out, plus I will buy the Extended Edition DVD the day it comes out as well. But I bet their statistics say they lost money from me downloading it when in fact they have gotten more money from me than the average-joe movie goer who doesn't even know how to click a mouse.
It's just a bunch of bullshit to make the uninformed brainwashed public that laughs at every idiotic joke in their movies believe this is all worse than it really is. The MPAA just needs to jump on the boat like the RIAA finally did and offer a good service for a decent price over the internet. Ever since Rhapsody came out I've stopped downloading mp3's and haven't even listened to the 10 gigs of them sitting on my hard drive.
But I guess leeching more money from hard working individuals is a better alternative than actually finding a solution to the problem.
You know what this means? The terrorists haven't won. Yay!
Wait, does this mean you thought Dodgeball was good?!?
...how do they sleep at night?
The answer however is to easy to come up with.
Very comfortably, on a big pile of money.
(/local/home/curiosity)-#who -u|grep thecat|cut -c 44-49|xargs kill -9
If you release movies that people WANT to see (Harry Potter, Spiderman, Shrek); than people will pay to see a movie? No F***ING WAY! What a concept.
Someone should report this new marking strategy of producing a quality product to the RIAA; maybe they can learn something.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Lois, this isn't my Batman glass. - Peter
Boy, it must really hurt to have that much money coming out of their a$$holes!
"We shall party like the Greeks of old! You know the ones I mean." - HedonismBot
"literally being metaphorically syphoned"
What the heck does that even mean???
I suggest *AA start paying pirates for downloads for the excellent job they're doing.
Arrr
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
No matter how much they make, no matter how bad people think the movies are, it still doesn't give one the right to steal another's intellectual property. Yes, it's all been said before, and yes, the MPAA must accept that illegal activity is part and parcel of running a business, but they're more than welcome to do whatever they need to to enforce the laws of the land. Got a problem with the law? Think movies should be free if they score less than 30% on RottenTomaotes.com? Well, bug your local representative.
At the end of the day, I think the posting is flamebait. Judge this industry by how much they lose, and the actions they take to reduce that loss, not by how much they make.
"Its A-OK to take copies of things we did not pay for! This just further justifies our illegal and immoral actions, in out own minds at least!"
that Spider-Man 2 opened on June 30.
If reality was like Slashdot, most people would be (-1) Redundant.
*Explosion*
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Maybe I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing movie studio executives don't get together around the boardroom table and have conversations like, "gentlemen, our fare has been too highly reviewed of late. It's time to make a real stinker. One for the record books. Instant flop."
Sometimes they swing and miss.
trustedworlds.net - gaming, security, and the gunk that lives in between
I can't believe you admitted publicly to downloading Gigli! I would never tarnish the pristine surface of my hard drive platter with that piece of shite ;)
Is this sarcasm?
Are you being sarcastic?
I did... is that so bad?
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
this to the MPAA.
" Less suckage.
More money."
You don't work in the porn industry, do you?
I have over 50 movies in queue in Bittorrent (Using ABC) and I now feel alot better about taking them.
The big story in the media last week, was that DVDs actually supply over 50% of the movie industry income.
The average american home purchase ~15 DVDs per year.
That's huge- and it is ON TOP of record-setting box office receipts. They make a lot of money from them.
But somehow, they still manage to claim that they are bleeding money out the ass.
I'd like to say that I will be boycotting them, and not supporting their industry. But looking at the top 100 films in the past 2 years, I've seen all but two. So whether or not we like their business, we do like their product.
No reason to lie.
1) Make crappy movies.
2) Hype the effect file-trading has on the studio's bottom line.
3) Spend lots of cash lobbying for enhanced punishments for copyright infringments.
4) Make file-traders feel like they are stealing something worth stealing so they will go to the big screens to see them.
5) Release White Chicks
6) Profit
More here.
The Army reading list
I stopped going to movies more or less. The last one I saw was "The Last Samurai," and I saw it second run for $2.00 in a theatre.
I'm not downloading them.
I'm not renting them.
How do they know?
Its funny to know that the Video Game industry is STILL bigger than the movie industry even after record breaking growth.
Hey there will never be enough profit for most people. As the profits go up the need for higher profits will push them to make more and more claims against their customers. I haven't been to see a movie at a movie theater in 10 years. I wait for it to come out in the retail market and pay more than If I had just bought a ticket. I have it to watch anytime I like Which is usually once or twice. I have looked at camcorder rips of recent movies and all I can say is that I will wait until its out as a DVD. After all its new to me when it does I just run a few months behind everybody else.
(+1, Deliciously Sarcastic)
Bribes and graft?
KFG
But there's that commercial with the guy whose the stuntman and... and... he goes through all that work and you can watch his movie with just a single click... and... P2P rapes 3rd world children...
I hate all these people trying to guilt trip me into thinking I'm a criminal because I download movies, even though I pay to see them in theatre, buy them if I think they are excellent, and then they turn around and make more money then i will ever see off of something like chronicles of riddik. I think for every Van Helsing (arguably the worst movie EVER) a person watches, they should be entitled to download 2 movies.
Not many people have watched teh Clerks cartoon, but it's worth it jsut for the scene where Randall brings every shitty movie director into court and demands, under oath, that they admit that 'star wars 1 sucked' or something to that effect.
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist
That 1 billion could have and should have been 2 or 3 billion without the siphoning of profits by pirates and online downloaders!
.. people can't grasp the basic fact that a collection of Ferraris and high-class "companionship" cost money. *sigh*
It's a sad day when the prol^H^H^H err
The point isn't that they made $1,000,000,000. The point is that without internet piracy, they would have made $1,000,000,007.
From the Sunday Herald (link at end of article):
Controversial film-maker Michael Moore has welcomed the appearance on the internet of pirated copies of his anti-Bush documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 and claimed he is happy for anybody to download it free of charge. The activist, author and director told the Sunday Herald that, as long as pirated copies of his film were not being sold, he had no problem with it being downloaded.
"I don't agree with the copyright laws and I don't have a problem with people downloading the movie and sharing it with people as long as they're not trying to make a profit off my labour. I would oppose that," he said.
Sunday Herald
90% Professional Slacker
I should point out that a healthy industry is not an excuse for stealing intellectual property. Cop: "You're under arrest for stealing TV's from Sears!" Crook: "What? But Sears posted a 13% profit increase in the 3rd quarter! They can afford this!" That doesn't work.
The parent should be modded up. I almost choked on my breakfast when I read that part of the article's blurb. I'm used to your average moron not knowing how to use words like "literally" and "metaphorically", but both words should have some meaning to educated geeks.
"nagora writes "The BBC is reporting that the movie industry, in yet another illustration of just how much damage the Internet is doing to the long-suffering members of the MPAA, has just endured a record breaking $1Billion dollar takings for the single month of June. Clearly there is a desperate need to tighten up copyright laws in the face of this huge mountain of cash that is literally being metaphorically syphoned into the studios' pockets. How will they survive? "
Oh dear I thought I was reading a trasncript from the Daily Show there. Clever!
"Derp de derp."
... movieAID? Live performances by thespian masters like Steven Seagal and Ahnuld?
Maybe I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm guessing movie studio executives don't get together around the boardroom table and have conversations like, "gentlemen, our fare has been too highly reviewed of late. It's time to make a real stinker. One for the record books. Instant flop."
They sit around their boardroom trying to create recycled star vehicles with no soul because they think it will bring them safe revenue, rather than try to make something original.
Sometimes they swing and miss.
SOMETIMES? You're fucking kidding me right? MONTHS at a time go by that I don't see a single movie that appeals to me. It's obvious that it isn't just me either as we see fantastic movies like The Butterfly Effect and Along Came Polly.
Those are obviously just "mistakes" right? Casts that include Ashton Kutcher as the star? Come on.
let's see if it's being literally syphoned then it's not metaphoric but if it's metaphorically being syphoned it can't be literally syphoned... it must have to do with the heavy sarcasm quotient.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
It's scare tactics.
They want to scare people before there is actually a full on problem for them. MPAA is no better or worse than any lobbying group.
AND just like the RIAA, they won't admit to having a rotten egg if something isn't selling right. It must be downloading that got Gigli canned. Fuck them, and fuck their money system. Unless of course it's Spiderman 2.
The internet is to blame, not because of downloading. It's to blme because I can log onto Trillian and tell 20 of my friends the movie I just shelled out 9 bucks to see, sucked and they shouldn't see it.
Thier tactics aren't working.
They caught ONE kid in the theatre shooting the movie with a cam. How many kids sneak cams into movies? In just new york?! They "caught" less than a couple thousand people with HUGE caches of music shared. How many people are doing the same NOT getting caught.
I've said this before and I'll say it again. The mainstream media plays us for fools, whether it's music, movies, or our own gubment. I ain't eatin' the cheese, I hate yellow.
_g
"It'll destroy you if you try to make it mean anything to anyone but yourself." - Henry Rollins
Do you know what 'critically acclaimed' means? I think you meant the opposite of that, as no movie that I can recall ever had such a backlash as did Gigli.
Also, why do you download and watch movies you think suck? Shouldn't your point be to not give money to things you don't like, rather than give the studios more fodder? If it sucks, don't watch it.
I won't go see a movie, period.
The last time I saw a movie in the theater was the first of the three original Star Wars movies that were re-run in 1997.
Put two good movies out every month of every year and you'll make a shitload. Put four good movies out every year and you'll suck wind for the rest.
Good movies. Are you serious? What makes you think people want to go out and see good movies?
I downloaded Gigli
Wait... someone took the time to rip Gigli AND POST it somewhere?
What a waste of bandwidth (both personal and network).
-- You can't idiot-proof anything, because they're always coming out with better idiots.
" I don't think it's fair to judge the MPAA based on what they took in. "
Gross, or net?
"No matter how much they make, no matter how bad people think the movies are, it still doesn't give one the right to steal another's intellectual property."
If it sucks, why are people downloading it?
Considering the price of movie tickets has doubled in the last 6 years. They aren't selling more tickets, they're extorting money from those willing to pay. I know I won't pay $9.25 for a single ticket. Karma will come back to haunt them in the form of file sharing...
No, but some top executive did sit in a room, read the script to Hidalgo, and think it was a tremendous idea worth financing for millions of dollars. That movie made me want to kill horses and I'm no horse killer.
I downloaded Gigli because the MPAA needed to suck wind on that one for daring to put in the theatres and wasting both MY money and the theatre's money.
You downloaded Gigli?!?!
Dude, you just wasted broadband time to the MPAA!!
Do you work for The Onion?
Maybe if they gave refunds for shitty movies, they'd change their ways.
I'm guessing that you are not necessarilly the audience that those movies are aimed at, 6573.
trustedworlds.net - gaming, security, and the gunk that lives in between
- cutting, often ironic remark intended to wound.
- form of wit that is marked by the use of sarcastic language and is intended to make its victim the butt of contempt or ridicule.
- The use of sarcasm.
Given the obvious intent to make the movie industry "the butt of contempt or ridicule" it's definitely not facetiousYou sly dog: you got me monologuing! - Syndrome
No...
You have to remember that most of the /. crowd are the reason dodgeball has disappeared from schools these days. They were on the receiving end of those vicious headshots, and took their revenge on the world by creating spam, computer virii, and distributing copyrighted material for free over the net...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
> How will they survive?
I think generally they live on buttered popcorn, huge fountain cokes, overpriced nachos and old greenish hotdogs. Of course they likely also eat the occasional caviar sandwich, with bottlenose dolphin snout, drenched in a secret saffron sauce. Don't forget the cold potato soup! Complete with a snifter of Pierre Ferrand 1962 Memoire Grande Champagne Single Vineyard Single Vintage Cognac later on.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
"I'm guessing movie studio executives don't get together around the boardroom table and have conversations like, "gentlemen, our fare has been too highly reviewed of late. It's time to make a real stinker. One for the record books. Instant flop."
Perhaps not, but I am guessing that they have said "ah screw it, the licensed character is all we need, write a script over the weekend."
"Derp de derp."
"I downloaded Gigli because the MPAA needed to suck wind on that one for daring to put in the theatres and wasting both MY money and the theatre's money."
You wasted bandwidth on THAT?
...it was certainly better than the critically acclaimed "Gigli" or the various other fantastic movies that go straight to DVD.
Do you understand what sarcasm is? See, me saying "critically acclaimed", "Gigli", "and other fantastic movies that go straight to DVD" was supposed to clue you in to the HUMOR.
If a company or industry is successful it's ok to pirate their products and potentially deprive them of revenue? What happened to right and wrong? Following the law? The justifications only make it easier on your conscience; they don't make it any more right. Even if you feel the industry makes plenty of money and won't miss your $8 admission it is still wrong to pirate movies.
This is not about rights, making a statement, acting out in protest. The studios make a product apparently very much in demand. Some people don't want to pay for that product so they demonize the industry or the companies. The amount of revenue that industry takes in is irrelevant to its enforcement of copyright laws. If you don't like the laws then work to have them changed. Piracy is not a form of civil disobedience. If you want to protest then carry a sign in front of the theater or arrange a movie/DVD boycott.
We can say whatever we want. It doesn't matter how much money they are sucking into their gullets -copyright infringement is still against the law. A lot of people ignore this 'if the industry is making a profit, that means I'm not hurting anything, which means it must be legal.' -OR- 'Sure I downloaded all the Lord of the Rings on BT, but I saw it a BILLION times in the theater!'
no.
You should fight to repeal laws you feel are unjust.
Do not just surreptitiously break them because you don't agree with them.
I don't think the MPAA's profits make it right or wrong to download movies over the internet.
It would me feel better to know that the entity I am stealing from isn't going to be destroyed by my theft, but it still doesn't make it right.
I really,really hate the RIAA, MPAA, and Fraunhofer (mp3 people), but I make my stance by boycotting their products (I try my best in any case) and by telling people the things I find wrong with these organizations. And if you are going to pirate, when in public don't just point out that they have lotsa money anyway, but give your other reasons (inflated prices, price fixing, artist exploitation, etc). I really want things to change. Having illegal foundation arguments hinders, not helps.
Greets to RBK, VOD, RAC, JAH, APC, RNS, TMD et al !
Believe it or not, the popularity of DVDs is probably contributing to movies improving. It used to be that they could release a stinky movie with a "catch" (e.g. Jennifer Lopez, The Hulk, etc.), and they could be guaranteed an amazing opening week. The fact that no one really wanted to see the movie again was small potatoes. The cost of improving the movie would be more expensive than it was worth.
Cue DVDs in 2004. Suddenly, the studio execs realize that 52% of their profits are now coming from people who've seen the movie, but want a permanent or "collector's" copy. Studios thus decide that they need to create really good movies so they can sell you the DVDs 3 times over. (Original, Special Edition, and Collector's Edition. Of course, I'm still waiting for the collectors edition of Nemesis with the extra hour of footage. Hello?! Are B&B listening?! Wait, what am I saying...)
BTW, when did we confuse the MPAA with the RIAA? Last I knew, the MPAA's biggest crime was the whole DeCSS thing. They actually took a halfway decent approach to piracy with their (admittedly lame) commercials. They've actually been claiming that more blame belongs to the "cell-phone users" who IM their friends that a movie sucks.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
How the fuck do i get a "-1 Redundant" when i'm the first post-er to ask if the lead-in article was sarcasm or not?
Who was the intended market? When you make a movie that costs millions of dollars you should expect to make at least you investment back. It's obvious that they didn't do that or they wouldn't be whining about piracy.
"How about judging them on something other than their profit margin, like ethics, respect for rights, etc.?"
Fine, as long as we get to judge you by the same criteria?
Some of us are tired of hearing all the "its not stealing if they don't lose it" jive. Suddenly everyone is a lawyer and wants to argue semantics when it comes to defending GETTING SOMETHING ILEGALLY THAT THEY DID NOT PAY FOR.
You keep telling yourself that you're not a thief. Maybe you can fool yourself into thinking you are a moral person, but the rest of us disagree.
*sigh* Because they're big and rich it's okay to steal...
Most theatres do... although only if you leave well before the end.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
So, the MPAA made you waste your time and money, by making a crappy movie that you in turn _had_ to download? You pay for broadband service, or you use bandwidth while at a workplace of some sort, in order to download movies you yourself hate? Is it just me, or does this smack of goofiness?
The MPAA makes the assumption that there is a 1 to 1 loss of sale (of a DVD, theatre ticket, etc) every time someone downloads a movie but this is clearly too high a ratio. I'll admit that I download 6 movies this year that I wouldn't have paid any money to see. I was actually suprised by one of the movies and ended up buying the DVD (Big Fish). Some movies I downloaded out of spite - too many movies have those annoying red dots on the screen. (I thought Galadriel was breaking out with zits!) Some movies I download to see if they're worth me spending money on. Movie downloads hurt crappy movies but those would've lost money anyway.
"I should point out that a healthy industry is not an excuse for stealing intellectual property. Cop: "You're under arrest for stealing TV's from Sears!" Crook: "What? But Sears posted a 13% profit increase in the 3rd quarter! They can afford this!" That doesn't work." - Psymunn
See what i just did?!? I stole your intellectual property. I took credit for something you said. But wait.. I can't help but notice, affexed to my own post, your quote is still there, glaringly obvious for all to see...
Surely if I stole it, it must be gone. Mayhaps a diffrent crime has taken place, but theft it can not be...
I thinkt he problem people have is not that there is health of the industry, therefore I can steal but the possiblity (though this has never been proven) that P2P actually helps the movie industry. After all, thanks to me, your words got approximatly twice as much viewage (my taking credit for them however was morally bankrupt, that i must admit). Years ago people where declaring that VCRs would be the death of the movie theatre business. But, what people don't realise is, I do not have a 3 story high screen in my basment and, some movies, really are meant to be seen on a BFS (big friendly screen). I think (with music, and movies) P2P allows people to sample things a lot more and, with a bit of luck, will ultimatly mean the death of one-hit-wonders.
Granted, illegally copying copyrighted material is still illegal, but all that clamping down on this apparant scourge on society is giong to do is, hopefully, help the indie guys who aren't making much money and just want to have their stuff seen.
The Neo-Bohemian Techno-Socialist
Reinier Wolfcastle: Its me standing infront of a brick wall of three hours. It cost eighty milion dollars.
Jay Sherman: [To Reinier Wolfcastle] How do you sleep at night??
Wolfcastle: On top of a pile of money, with many beautiful ladies.
Jay: Yeash, Just asking.
A morning without coffee is like something without something else.
IMHO they need to stop spending $20 million per movie for Ben Afleck to suck and use the money on good writers to come up with better plots.
---
Lousy rotten karmic retribution.
You have to remember that most of the /. crowd are the reason dodgeball has disappeared from schools these days. They were on the receiving end of those vicious headshots
Speak for yourself. I always aim for the legs, as it's harder to catch that way.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
I have said before that if they stop making movies that suck that people will go and see them.
While I:
1) Agree that you are correct in that a lot of the movies they've put out (Dewd, where's my car?) have been ridiculously stupid..
2) Say most of your argument also applies to the music industry and 90% of the music being produced...
I must say that for all the really dumb shit that gets produced, there are plenty of people waiting in line to go eat it up.
I'm really surprised that LOTR did as well as it did, if you want MHO. Most people don't want a good story, they want cheesy humour, lots of explosions and impossible car physics. (see also your most popular video games).
I could not solicit any friends to go see LOTR with me, and i went during prime movie time (evenings on fridays and saturdays), and i probably counted a dozen people outside of myself in the theatre. Two people were so enthralled with the movie that they talked on their cell phone for about an hour each.
It baffles, scares, and humiliates me to see how many people seek mindless entertainment for their "me too!" lives.
do() || do_not();
nothing they can do makes copywrite infringements moral
You're so ignorant you can't even spell copyright.
Free clue for you - where I live, sharing of files on a non-commercial basis is perfectly legitimate, with court judgements to prove it. Or are you now going to try to claim that the way the law works here is "immoral" ?
All I've got to say is this...
The Producers
this huge mountain of cash that is literally being metaphorically syphoned
Bleeeeechhh!
Call me old fashioned, but I like a dump to be as memorable as it is devastating - Bender
literally being metaphorically
C'mon, Taco.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
Spidey did 180mil this last weekend. I'd say that downloads of it before did absolutely nothing to detract from opening day money take. It sounds cliche, but they freak at technology the way radio did at television. They aren't thinking of making their craft (producing movies)better, they just worried that someone else will make some money. How many of the recent(last two years)movies just bite because of bad writing and production. /rant over
When the Dragon asks you to lunch, you might ask what will be for lunch before accepting.:)
I hate sarcasm.
90% of everything is crap.
Also, crap is relative.
DNA just wants to be free...
is really working out for us, they're really on the ropes now.
I know what you mean. They are rating movies 'R' now adays just because someone smokes a joint or slaps a woman. What happened to movies like Porky's or Fast times at Ridgemont High that you could expect to get a good boob shot or two. ;)
I think one of the mistakes the studios make is spending so damn much on a movie that it's a loser unless it makes $200 mill+. Not every movie HAS to be a blockbuster, but that's what they go for. If they must put out so many movies, how about more movies that cost less to make but still have a quality story?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I really liked the butterfly effect... (uhm, you insensitive clod?)
I dunno about flynt, but personally I'm clued into HUMOR only by something actually being funny. It's a terrible handicap these days, but I somehow still manage to find life worth living.
Sorry but not all of us have a bad sense of humor.
actually, no. I wasn't trying to be sarcastic.
I think I've just got a case of "The Stupids".
Maybe I should read it again.
....are all about product placement and creating a backdrop for a line of action figures and video games.
Of course, there have also been movies made from video games.
And there are video games with product placement (driv3r, anyone?) strewn about them.
It all makes me so sick i don't ever want to watch another movie or play another game, sometimes...
do() || do_not();
No one can deny how bad it is, I mean when they read the script and it says, "...Fade in, John Travolta walks in on stilts...." they should have laughed their collective asses off and get gotten the "not just no, hell no" stamp out.
But it was championed by Travolta so the exec's didn't stop this waste of film.
Needs. More. Cowbell.
The highly groomed, preened and prepped young teen markets, of course. Oversaturated with hype from Viacom's twin dumping spouts -- Nickelodeon and MTV. Our poor kids get fed a tremendous amount of tie-in movie hype from these two, alone, let alone Disney's all-advertising, all-the-time channel.
The only youth oriented channel on US Cable that doesn't steadily pump our kids full of marketing hype is Cartoon Network, and that's probably just a matter of time.
Weapons of Mass Analysis
The LA Times has an interesting story today (registration required, sorry) about the Mexican music industry. It is in the process of being destroyed by piracy. I think that the movie industry is about five years behind the music industry in terms of the impact of downloading, mostly because the file size is so much higher. It will happen, though. Note well that that Harry Potter film that they are talking about cost about $120 million to make, as opposed to a record which might cost about $1 million. That money has to be recovered or the movie will not be made. Movies will, of course, continue to be made when piracy becomes rampant, but they will be dramatically different. They will be far cheaper, and will be filled with product placement. Hopefully, I'll be retired by that point. thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
"Piracy has nothing to do with sales losses! There is absolutely no correlation. Remember, 'correlation does not equal causation.' You're just making crap content, and that's why people aren't buying it. Let's ignore the question of why someone would download something if it sucked."
"Well, well! Sales are up! Just like I've been arguing all along, piracy affects sales. There is a direct connection between piracy and sales, and the more piracy, the better."
The funny part is that all this argument still ignores the fact that it doesn't fucking matter if you college dorm room pirates think piracy helps or hurts anything--it's not legal and it's not ethical for you to take it upon yourselves to violate somebody's rights. Yes, believe it or not, content creators have rights to the property they make. I know, it's such a crazy idea and all.
And yes, I made that number up!
This comment does not necessarily represent the views and opinions of the author.
You keep telling yourself that you're not a thief
No, actually, it was the Supreme Court that told me I wasn't a thief. So there's not even a semantic argument, at least where I live. You may be tired of hearing it, but that doesn't make you right. File sharing is not stealing. File sharing is not illegal. Period.
I'm tired of hearing MegaEntCorp apologists like you libelling me as a thief - how about you have a nice big mug of STFU?
All you crytofascists defending the industry strictly on the basis that income doesn't matter, the law is the law are forgetting the most important aspect of creating regulations like this in the first place.
They are created to remediate a real or potential harm. Otherwise the motion picture companies could create regulations on how many hours a day you're allowed to look at the sky or how many dogs you're allowed to own.
But they don't because they can't connect the dots between hours of skywatching and dog ownership and their purported harm.
So in the case of your blessed motion picture industry putting the screws to everyone and everything in the name of revenue - - - guess what - - it's a lie and their original justification doesn't wash. Therefore the underpinnings of the regulation are flawed greedy nonsense.
to be fair, does anyone know how much ticket prices have gone up in the same time?
It's fair, even without knowing that.
If they're raising their prices, and their profit increases, then they're simply adjusting the price for what the market will bear. If they raised their prices, and lost money, then that means that they were charging too much.
Or "It doesn't hurt anybody."
I guess the same can be said about rampent inflation. After all I DO have all the greenbacks I started with.
people go to movies for the same reason people go to church: it's a community thing
no, really, it's sociological and psychological
the sea of humans around you is a major reason people go to movies, it's not just for the big screen and the great audio
movie is culture, and you partake of your culture and announce your allegiance to your culture by going to movie houses... movies are our shared cultural experiences, the thread of common experience which makes us who we are, and to be certain that everyone around you knows who the tinman in the wizard of oz is, or the shark in jaws, or who neo is and what the matrix is... this is no small thing, it is an important part of knowing who you are and what community you belong to
human beings are pack animals, and we do things in groups, for better or for worse, because we all have a need to belong, and we derive pleasure from feeling part of a group
if the mpaa is threatened by downloading, then they haven't been studying their history: the vcr didn't kill them, television didn't kill them (that was one of the reasons why the widescreen format was born in the 1950s: movies wanted to make sure their content couldn't be put on tv easily, but it was still unnecessary... televangelists didn't kill churches, and television didn't kill moviehouses)
now, the riaa is another story, as most people enjoy music in solitude
and books are another story too: wood pulp has a higher screen contrast, versatility, durability, and battery usage than any laptop could hope to achieve
so movies and books need not fear p2p
but music? p2p is going to eat the music industry alive
it's all amout the medium, how it is stored and used, and movies have nothing to fear from p2p if they truly understand their own business and its relation to american culture, to world culture, and sociology
watching a lossy version of a movie that took me 20 hours to download on my 17 inch monitor will never replace sitting in the cathedral of the modern cinema, happily munching away on popcorn in a sea of my fellow human beings around me, laughing at the same jokes, gasping at the same tragedies
it's part of the moviegoing experience you can never recreate at home
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
For you see, the poor movie industries only broke $1 Billion instead of $5 Billion. Obviously their profits were cut by 80% thanks to the evil Dr. Kazaa. Can't you see how they are now suffering? How our poor stars are only able to be afforded salaries in the lower nine digits? How the producers are barely able to make the payments on their own personal third-world countries, I will never know. This is an abomination that cannot be tolerated any longer.
Why, even when they offer us the ridiculously low subsidy rate of a mere $25 per DVD, do those villanous pirates continue to destroy this sacred and nearly-profitless art? Why, when the movies are so kind as to offer us amazingly low discount prices on drinks, snacks, and tickets, do they feel the need to steal the very food from the mouths of babies dependent on those ticket-sales. Babies who will never see their own space-shuttle for their 5th birthday, but will have to wait until they are 6!!! SIX, I say!!!!
The inhumanity of man towards man has indeed reached it's highest point, and I ask that we all bow our heads and weep for the loss of the Movie Industry, for it is they who suffer the most for our shortcomings as mere human beings.
Amen.
-The Libra
"Please be patient--The future will begin momentarily."
"Literally" means "exactly as written", without interpretation, as opposed to "figuratively", which means "including stylistic or referential information", with at least some interpretation. "Metaphorically" is one kind of "figuratively", where one image, object or relationship is used in place of another, to explain in more familiar terms, or include unstated characteristics. "Literally" contradicts "metaphorically". Know what I'm sayin'?
--
make install -not war
Another case not counted is "downloaded but still bought tickets AND the DVD".
People download movies all the time and still buy the DVD or go see the movie (or both). So you can't even count all of these numbers as "potential sales lost" because some were converted into actual sales - we just don't know how much.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It was panned by nearly every reviewer that saw it.
By downloading it, you proved to the movie execs that:
1. Not everyone reads reviews, and/or heads them.
2. Even with alot of bad publicity, some idiot somewhere wants your product, no matter how much it sucks.
On one hand, you know "stealing" intellectual property is wrong, and definitely against the law. On the other hand, there's something fishy about making a product that is utlimately infinitely reproducable.
... it went around IRC rooms on vivo at the time ... and everyone had 56k. The movie was a few hundred megs and terrible quality (from what I heard). I was like, geez, people, it's $6! Why spend days downloading something when you can see it for $6?
I mean, if I make a product, then I can make an ungodly number of reproductions of it, for very little resources, doesn't that drive it's value down to almost zero? What's happened in this country? We're practically patenting ideas. I think tomorrow I will patent the idea of water and taking a leak, then reap the benefits.
I remember when the Titanic movie came out
I guess it has come to the point where people don't find it cost effective. They find more value in other ways to see the same thing, (albeit not nearly the same experience.) Maybe the movie industry needs to do something to make it worth their while not to bother. Sure some movies are good and some are bad... but damn, take a little of that $1 billion, or perhaps some you've spent on night vision goggles, and clean the bathrooms or mop the sticky floors of your disgusting theaters!
FLR
In other news, U.S. Marine is freed from captors in Iraq, with his head intact. Proof positive that Iraqi terrorists don't cause beheadings.
As I remember, we used to outlaw leg shots ("traps"), as they were too easy. If you were hit either too high or too low, you'd call "heads" or "traps", and unless there was a huge disagreement, play carried on...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Pay attention.
Dodgeball ben bery bery good to me.
duhhhhhh
wake up and hold your nose
Terrible analogy--there is a major difference between intellectual property and physical property. A TV can only be sold by Sears ONCE--they can't sell the TV repeatedly for profit. Plus, if the TV sucks you can RETURN IT FOR A FULL REFUND! A movie, on the other hand, can be sold an UNLIMITED number of times. And if you don't like it--TOO FUCKING BAD! At least at Sears you can try before you buy, which is what most people are doing when they download.
You should fight to repeal laws you feel are unjust.
Do not just break them because you don't agree with them.
There were people who told that to Martin Luther King, Jr. Myself, I subscribe to Thoreau.
Unfortunately, "literally" has another meaning, which was probably started after so many people used it incorrectly.
i on ary&va=literally
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dict
"Since some people take sense 2 to be the opposite of sense 1, it has been frequently criticized as a misuse. Instead, the use is pure hyperbole intended to gain emphasis, but it often appears in contexts where no additional emphasis is necessary."
Hmm, Butterfly Effect gets a 7.4/10.0 at imdb, not what I would call a horrible movie by any stretch. Along Came Polly garnered a 5.7/10.0, considering that imdb's audience is pretty highly squewed towards the male half of the species that's not too bad. Btw the production cost of Butterfly Effect was only $13 million its US box office reciepts were $58 million, quite a handsome profit. Along Came Polly grossed $88 million on a budget of $42 million. If you wanted to quote stinkers or flops there are plenty of examples out there but neither of the films you listed were good ones.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
What I want to say is that I didn't have a chance to watch that many movies for free at that time and I don't really got into the habit. I rather spend my money on a book now.
Anyway, doesn't seem to me that public libraries would drive publishers out of business... just my two cents...
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
Maybe he downloaded it onto an old hard drive that was failing and then promptly threw it into the trash?
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
It's not just a question of blockbusters, though- there's something to be said for trying to make good movies instead of popular movies. Not something the studios are so interested in, maybe, but worth the time nonetheless. Art and money are not the same thing- and that's doubly so for good art. They don't have to be disjoint, mind- but things like spellbound, or The Girl with the pearl earring, are never going to be blockbusters- but that doesn't mean they're not worth watching.
The big execs at MGM once told Kevin Smith that any movie that costs less than $2,000,000 wasn't a real movie. Now for those /.ers who aren't familiar, Kevin Smith is the creator of Clerks, and the entire New Jersey saga with Jay and Silent Bob. Clerks cost a total of $26,000 to produce... and sure it didn't do well as far as its' box office profits and all that. But this dickhead MGM producer told him to his face that it wasn't a real movie. It's that kind of idiot mentality that makes the movie (and music) industry so freakin stupid.
Either a) the majority of trash talkers here are not really computer nerds working in IT but the stupid losers in high school who could only make friends with those AV club nerds and thus cannot understand simple mathematics or b) computer nerds who are losers and too willing to want to bash something (the MPAA) for stopping them from stealing movies or because they wanted to be the cool creative artist in high school but their social retardness prevented that and so now they ar still bitter and complaining.
So what if they set a record you dolts. I have to pay $12 a movie now on Friday nights. And places here charge up to $15. Movies used to cost $4 and when they raised it to $5 they were setting records. That doesnt mean they are rolling in profits. Were you rejected from Devry and U of Phoenix?
If people here actually practiced what they preached (be open to learning knew stuff) they would read less tech journals and more other industry journals (I do not work in tech, I work manufacturing, but I read about other absoultely non-manufacturing related industries to know more, hence my reading /.)
Read entertainment business journals (LA Business Journal for instance tough not only entertainment) journals and you would learn of the pay structures for movies. Studios do not keep everything. They have to split revenues (revenues not profits) with the cinema companies so that knocks 30% off first few weeks, steadily increasing (I think cinemas keep 90% of revenues after 5 weeks). Then you have to cut you partners in (dreamworks usually releases with paramount, columbia and revloution, etc etc). Then still parting out revenues, the studios need to pay out the production companies (Cruise/Wagner Productions, A Band Apart, etc etc) then they need to give out points to whatever director/producer/actor got them (Spielberg gets an extra~15 points (percentage points btw), clooney and Pitt each get 5-8 % on the Ocean's movie. Besides their salaries.
So yes, they have greater revenues. so what? the costs have gone up. Why arent all you *GENiUSES* buying AOL stock, Sony stock, Viacom stock? Because deep down you know the movies are barely profitable except for a few players!!!
And if those players make money, so what? do you work for free? why should they? it is not your right to buy their product for nothing. if they want to release a dvd of LOTR now and you buy it, whats wrong with that?? and if 6 months later they sell a different version with more goodies, why do you all complain? Cant you rent it? Couldnt you have the first time?
Arent you as pathetic as the gutless f*ck with no self control who is suing McDonalds because the food he ate there day after day (becasue he was too lazy to cook for himself and too unwilling to eat food with didn't tast as good as McDonald's)? fucking whiners all of you.
mod me down for by poor manners, poo typing and syntax skills, and poor use of colorful metaphors, but not because you disapprove of what i say.
that The Onion article isn't serious.
I mean, other than Pamela Anderson, does anybody like kid rock?
myke
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
If you like it, you pay for it, if you don't like it, you steal it?
The MPAA is accusing people of stealing their movies. We _don't_ want to prove them right. That only gives them leverage to take our freedoms away with absurd legislation like the DMCA!
Checkout an article like this. http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/ent ertainment/s_199839.html
For a cheap movie like Dodge Ball, 20 million bucks. Then another 30 million to promote it. 50 million spent before you've seen dollar one, and that's for Dodge Ball. Lots of films cost into the 200 million plus area after promotion these days.
A billion dollars in box office just ain't what it used to be.
Oh, come now. You must admit that Hidalgo was the best Swedish actor playing a western cowboy racing through the Arabian Desert movie you've ever seen.
GeneralKael -- Slacker Extraordinaire
Counting the number of dollars made is pointless, because (1) inflation isn't taken into account and (2) blockbusters cost more and more to make every year, mainly as a consequence of (1).
Even adjusting for inflation is a tricky business, though. The more important thing to consider, if you're the MPAA, is the number of tickets sold The number of people paying for movie tickets, regardless of how much they paid, gives you a clear idea of whether the movie industry is losing customers to the Internet or not.
Fortunately, the numbers still support the "not" conclusion. A review of yearly movie ticket sales shows that while ticket sales haven't increased every year for the past two decades, overall they've continued to climb -- even through the 80s when cable television was becoming massively widespread.
well in India too the situation is roughly the same.The local movie industry called Bollywood is crying hoarse about how piracy is affecting their revenues and the sad part is that only 10% of the country has computer access. Morover the speed of the internet is still in the low 28-56 kbps range...broadband is just catching on. And yet the movie guys say they are losing money due to illegal downloads! Bollywood makes the most films in the world even more than hollywood but most of them sink without a trace... its for the entire industry to think what is wrong with itself! my home
http://students.iiit.net/~jayaram
is that impacted by internet at all? since for LOTR3, I watched it 3 times in theatre and bought the DVD, waiting for the extended edition of the DVD as well.
A geologic epoch defined by... ecological stuff?
Heh. Yeah, whatever. Did you know that GM crops weigh exactly as much as duck? It's true!
Rather amazing, isn't it, how the snake-oil salesmen adapt to changing conditions. After thousands of years of scamming us with rain-dances and prayers, they've found a new niche: Pseudo-science. Remember, folks, there's a sucker born every minute!
But that was an interesting article to read, nonetheless. Here's a tidbit of your toy judge's intelligence at work:
"The mere fact of placing a copy on a shared directory in a computer where that copy can be accessed via a P2P service does not amount to distribution," Finckenstein wrote. "Before it constitutes distribution, there must be a positive act by the owner of the shared directory, such as sending out the copies or advertising that they are available for copying."
Sharing these files out IS an act of advertising; it IS facilitating distribution. That insight apparently escaped him. Most P2P programs will list what all is available for copying, is this not advertisement?
you say: " it still doesn?t give one the right to steal another?s intellectual property. "
.. not while you are an individial, a person, a human being.
.. yet as no corporation will treat you as a person you have no moral or ethical obligation to treat corporate entities as people either.
a corporation or group of corporations may be a legal entity, a person before the law, but it is never ever going to qualify as "another's"
the 14th ammendment allowed corporations to act as if they were people.. but they are not people and never will be.
thus if you're refering to "another" then you must be 1) speaking for a corporation, 2) not have any understanding of money, power, or individuality.
nothing gives anyone the right to steal from another person.
don't steal from artists.. but share with your friends accross the planet. the birds and the bees do it.
Hehe, oh you evil man! /. can you be modded as flamebait for that saying :)
Only on
(Not going to the details of which other forums have moderation system where you can get modded as flamebait...)
Bot Assisted Blogging
Thank you, Chico Escuela.
The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
Downloading movies is NOT hurting revenue as the MPAA states, but, in fact, may be INCREASING revenue! The truth remains to be told until an INDEPENDENT group performs a well structured and executed study.
The fact is that we are kids stealing from the cookie jar...
not that we need cookies but they are good pacifiers...
not that multi-million dollar movies are often GOOD... they just pacify us...
in the end we will decide whether to keep taking them or not because there is always CAKE instead!
sorry to bother u ppl, ill be on my way, just posting an email for the bots to feed on
spamcontrol_miket@wideopenwest.com
The RIAA's legal asshattitude is much worse; but the MPAA's little commercials have been beating the drum too.
And they've been shoulder to shoulder with the RIAA as goes anti-fair-use congressional testimoney (pun intended), and lobbying.
Maybe he downloaded it onto an old hard drive that was failing and then promptly threw it into the trash? :-)
That's an excellent point! It must be part of his disk wiping procedure. I guess it now goes something like, "zeros, alternating, ones, alternating, Gigli..."
A dingo ate my sig...
the problem with that is that people will still go see movies that suck and even like them. I base this on my perusal of local movie showtimes at Amazon.com. The lowest rated movie of all the ones in my area is "White Chicks" which I was kind of actually wanting to go see (I think the wayans brothers are funny, not very deep/meaningful, but funny nonetheless). That movie got 3/5 stars, a cinematic D-, but still passing. I think that there are some bombs dropped on the silver screen nowadays, but even the crap that we get shoved in our faces is worth seeing to some people. Gigli was bad, but a few people saw it anyways and it probably made some money for a few people. I go to movies to be entertained and forget my cares for a while. It really doesn't matter what's on. I've never seen/read any Harry Potter or Shrek before, but my GF and I went to the drive in to see Shrek2 and Harry Potter3 the other day. The movie itself is secondary to me to the act of going to the movies.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 is the magic number.
... and of course, another beseiged company, is running their "get the facts" banner ad at the top of the page.
Yes, we know it's you :)
I'd recommend sending them to Michael Moore, and Mel Gibson, the reasons for the renewed interest in the movies. They burst into the other two forbidden topics: Religion, Politics, and Hollywood has Sex locked up already.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
The world would be a terrible place if they only make "Blockbuster movies".
This is already the reputation that the American movie industry has(at least from the outside). Movies with predictable content where they aren't shy about changing storylines to boost revenues, and screw the story.
I would hope and wish that some of the profit from those big movies, are used to make movies to a smaller audience. The ones where they are not afraid to let some people die in the end of the movie, knowing that you will hate them for it.
It's not stealing if it's not physical. It's not creating if it's not physical.
-I am an elective eunuch.
It's about opposing the implementation of draconian laws, cumbersome copy-protection schemes, and other idiocy. Perhaps they *could* have made more money if less people had pirated movies, but wouldn't it be better for those that want to use movies fairly (e.g. copy a DVD so the kids don't scratch it up) if they didn't pump money into politicians supporting DCMA, theatre spycams, lawyers, etc. In fact, wouldn't they save money by not wasting it on methods that obviously aren't very effectual.
Is that it assumes inviolate, undefilable, exclusive, monopoly rights to copies of creative work as a god-given right, to be protected by the Constitution like that Life, Liberty, and So Forth Jazz.
It's not.
The purpose of allowing the evil that intellectual property monopolies create regarding the rights of the media "consumer" is to stimulate creators to benefit the public by creating more works. It specifically IS NOT to pad the pockets of publishers and provide them with ultimate control so that they can make the same amount of money no matter how bad the lazy crap they turn out is.
While you are right that preventing copyright infringement is the law of the land, the people pushing for MORE control and rights (at the cost of the rights of the public) are saying they need such rights SPECIFICALLY because they are being harmed financially. If they are not, in fact, being harmed financially, and are (as some studies suggest) actually being HELPED because the freedom that widespread copyright infringement engenders tends to grow the overall market, then the appropriate response to the "problem" of copyright infringement becomes much different.
As for the argument of "What's the possible amount?" -- it is totally specious, as it is always impossible to say X has Y effect on Z, unless you can examine Z in the absence of X. Which is impossible, unless you have a spare Earth lying around with a different set of digital technologies created on it.
Considering the current state of the economy, and that MOST industries (especially those related to entertainment and leisure) are suffering a difficult time, I think we're pretty safe to assume that a movie business that has just had one of it's best months EVER is not being hurt that badly. But maybe that's just me. Maybe they really would have made $10 billion if we could just get rid of the Internet -- and wouldn't it be worth it to get rid of the Internet if it would just make a few more dollars for some corporate media CEO's who are already rich?
ALL GOVERNMENT LAWS, POLICIES, AND PROCEDURES ARE GOOD FOR SOME AND BAD FOR OTHERS. There is no set of inviolable "rights" concerning intellectual property that must be "protected" at all costs; there are only tradeoffs and the process of trying to create a system that creates the greatest good for the greatest number.
The sooner you realize this, the sooner you will stop looking stupid to intelligent people.
. . .since 'Ishtar'. . .
"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." Mark Twain
isn't that what you're saying here, whoda?
As I remember, we used to outlaw leg shots
We had no such rule. Also, we played on a half tennis court (no net) with people on the ends, allowing for a nice crossfire.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Imagine a world where they wouldn't need to waste money on anti-piracy ad campaigns or night-vision goggles. A world where the MPAA wouldn't need an army of lawyers and nobody would buy a ticket for Finding Nemo so they could sneak into that R rated movie that just came out. If we can accomplish this, world peace and an end to starvation will come about as the natural result of Jack Valenti's hard work.
All Hail Record Profits
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Well, I'm happy that you find moviegoing to be a nice social experience. Not everyone does, and not everyone wants to pay for the experience of going to the theater. It is with those people that piracy hurts box office numbers. ALso, you're completely forgetting about DVD sales. Piracy is a big blow to those numbers.
I declared Kanli on the RIAA a while back, and I feel good about it. I stopped buying CDs except directly from small-time artists and used CD stores, and I try to convince others to do the same. Easy enough boycott. The one thing they want to sell is either crap, or easily obtained in a more convenient format for zero cost and zero hassle, at their detriment.
The movie / TV industry, however, is a much harder beast to fight.
It's so much easier to boycott and declare war on the music industry... they don't offer what we want for a reasonable price. The movie and TV industries are just as evil when it comes to lobbying against the public in the copyright law arena, and screwing up the tech with DRM, region codes, etc.., but they provide something most of us are still willing to pay for.
I've rambled about the problem... I wish I had a solution. (and even if I could be convinced to stop giving them $$, most people don't have the same hatred for the above practices as I do, and won't be swayed)
Maybe you or I care about quality, but we are a minority. There's a lot of generic people out there who will pay to see just about anything.
Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's
Went from $700 for a 2-bedroom in 1992 to $1500 for the same 2-bedroom in 2002. Settled slightly since then, but $1250 for that 2-bedroom is still outrageous inflation. I don't mind paying more to watch a movie, since most of the theaters have been better maintained than I remember them in the 1980's. What's missing now (in my area) is the bargain theaters showing two movies one after the other. They used to cost $1 to $2, but there's nothing out there under $5 - 6 for matinees now.
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
Pussies. The whole point of hitting them in the legs was to watch the jocks land flat on their face as their legs fell out from under them!
/Former Catapult-Arm Nerd
The IFPI/RIAA/MPAA is fighting a lost cause. And I think they know it.
r e).
First off all, I have difficulties with their acclaimed 'stealing' of music/movies/etc.. As far as I know, stealing implies that the one that has been stolen has been derived of something. When you take a copy, you do not take the original away, thus they have not 'lost' anything. They might claim that they loose money when ppl d/l music, but even that is far from certain. Not only is it not shown statistically to have had that effect (they didn't even show a correlation thusfar - see aussie music-news - let alone a causality). Furthermore, in an individual case, they would have to show they actually lost revenue. Which is far from said, because I sure know some guys who d/l music or movies, but would NEVER have bought that music if they were unable to d/l it. So, how did the RIAA/IFPI/MPAA loose revenue, exactly? And if they didn't lose anything, how can the term 'stealing' apply?
It would still be copyright-infringement, ofcourse, but that's another matter. I think maybe it's time we went beyond our current system of copyrights and walk into the era of cyberspace. With the industrial revolution, patents and copyrights knew a high flight, maybe it's time to let it leave and try something new? Maybe something in the lines of this: fairshare (http://freenetproject.org/index.php?page=fairsha
And don't worry, contrary to what the RIAA claims, musicians will not starve to death, and music-making will not stop. We had music long before we had copyrights, and we will have music long after copyrights have vanished from the scene.
And lastly, it's something that *can not* be stopped. P2P progs and their development act as organisms that follow the darwinian rules of survival. When Napster was 'killed' by the RIAA, immediately others (like kazaa) took over, being more resistent to attacks from the RIAA&co. Whenever kazaa will be shut down, others again will take over. When endusers are targeted, systems that protect the user will become dominant (like FreeNet).
It really is a lost cause. But then again, they are not truelly battling for the survival of musicians (as I said; they will survive, just as they used to do), it's for their OWN survival they are fighting. There is no way in hell they are going to keep the giant profits that they have been gathering for the last decades.
But ultimately, they will have to do what P2P systems are already doing: adapt to the new circumstances (and forget about the former levels of profit), or whither and die.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
don't worry, he was piping it to /dev/null
I'm a chainsmokin' alcoholic sociopath, so-ci-o-path
The fellow that wrote this lead-in story, nagora, has a glib attitude toward copyrights and so do several others that post here.
The fact is that there is a large industry whose primary income stream is being threatened by widespread copyright infringement. Would nagora write in the same manner if hundreds of thousands of people were stealing cars but the automobile industry was still doing record numbers (in a particular month no less! Great data point!)
To anyone out here: breaking copyright is wrong. It is certainly less damaging than theft of money or physical property but (if done en masse) it could mean the undoing of an information economy. It is against the law. There is no rationalization (I have heard them all) for doing so. You don't reward a movie by paying for it. You don't punish a movie by swiping it. You simply buy or rent movies you are interested in.
Let's get over our unfounded hatred of the RIAA and MPAA. Surely you would be protecting your business model too if it were in jeopardy. Also, let's remember that June was a good month for movies, so it's hardly a useful post in the first place. As Robert McNamara said in a good movie that I recently paid for: "Get the data!".
If you are such a nihilist as to demonize these folks then offer an alternative to the movie industry. Also, if your scruples are so loose as to agree with this poster, then ask yourself, "what if everyone did it?" before you choose your own path.
-- I'm embarassed to look like Hemos.
These "antisense" meanings are a symptom of a language of people who exaggerate with hyperbole so often, their exaggerations become the norm. I don't speak that language. As for Merriam-Webster cleaving to wrong usage, I could care less - but I don't
--
make install -not war
I know some countries like France do both (entries and box office take), which gives you a more accurate picture of how many people are seeing movies. Sure, it doesn't sound as sexy as "Biggest grossing weekend ever," but I'd give more credance to the title "Most viewed movie ever."
Now i need 500bil and i can change things. Darn, must have left the money in my other suit. The one with the S on the chest.
When the Dragon asks you to lunch, you might ask what will be for lunch before accepting.:)
meant to say less than. Anyway...
...that there was an adverb overload at slashdot and a few extras popped out in this post. Also, the spell checker prefers the United Kingdom spelling. As in, "I was in a good humour as I practised syphoning they grey-coloured draught from my aluminium cauldron."
Have you Meta Moderated t
Sometimes a movie is beaten to death by groups of people who could not tell a story if they had a gun to their heads. Being financially astute is one thing, but the mistake the studios make time after time is taking foolish liberties, as committees, with scripts written by someone with the desire to tell a story.
Not to say that all scripts are priceless literature, but more are mangled than not, I'd suspect. Appealing to the lowest common denominator isn't usually the way to create something good.
Maybe I'm getting old and pissed off, but since I went to see "Return of the King" with the family I haven't bothered stepping foot into a movie theatre.
There's nothing which will draw me back there of my own free will. To be considered a criminal, to sit in a theatre seat and be watched in order to protect someone's interest over watching a movie.
A movie.
A movie isn't so precious that I have to be a criminal to watch it.
I'll wait for the DVD and enjoy it in private.
Since I play computer games and program all the damn time, it's not as if I'm starved for something to do.
I'd pay good money to sit in a theatre and see a thousand miles of film knotted up and ran through the guts and butts of a hundred lawyers and MPAA executives for all the excretions of their efforts. It's the least they could do to atone for the suffering and comminseration they're putting people through.
It would be a bonus if the lovely ladies of "Women of Sodom" would officiate the show.
(Cue the "priceless" commercial spot)
Every new form of media has it's own Requirimento
Wait, does this mean you watched Gigli? Ugh, I downloaded it, but never made it past 15 minutes of the flick.
Many theaters do refund your ticket if you leave before the end of the show. I know for a fact United Artists/Regal does.
So you're right and the judge is wrong? LOL. Lucky for me it isn't you that gets to decide these things, eh?
Are you Kidding me?
There is absolutely No justification for stealing, regardless of the quality of the product. I am certainly not siding with the MPAA or any of their affiliates, the movie industry is just a big fat cash machine. Who didn't know that?
Is the problem with the MPAA? I don't know about that, if we(consumers) were simply not willing to pay $9 a ticket to see a movie, they would have to lower prices, however, they keep charging and we keep coming.simple econmics, and don't come back with that crap that volume(more people will come if you lower prices) speaks louder, becasue that is clearly not always the case and may not be as profitable.
What you need to do is take a look at the entire system, everyone gets a piece of the action and they demand very large pieces. Actors and Actresses command huge paychecks, agents, publicists, movie crews, designers, the list goes on..they all have to maintain that hollywood lifestyle.
There is a positive light though, if a movie costs $50 Million, you pay a mere $10 dollars to see it, that really is amazing to think that someone shelled out that kind of cash just to entertain you/us.
Either way, there is no justification for theft, furthermore, while I did not even remotely consider seeing Gigli, I am sure that there are movies out there that you would deem garbage,and I may enjoy so, lets not change the whole process just to fit your tastes? What the hell is that, I might not care for Harry Potter, I wouldn't drop a dime to see Michael Moore propoganda and dodgeball is just another cookie cutter money maker for Ben Stiller, would you put this on your "Blockbuster" List?
Watch the movies, or don't, but please stop crying about it, rent a classic, read a book, take a walk, there are other options... Hollywood will roll with the punches and continue to make huge money.
I know how the MPAA feels...
In my area profits are down across the restaurant business, and it can only be due to one thing: Internet Recipe Sites.
It used to be that it took a trained professional to cook a meal, but now people can download recipes and try to do it all at home. And, with supermarkets all over, and too many people competing for restaurant-market-space it no wonder the industry is hurting.
I am sure I'd be making more money if not for recipesource.com, or allrecipes.com. And there are so many recipe sites, it's un-American. People are cooking for them selves and it's hurting the free market. When will it end?
I don't know what I'm going to do, and I'm sure the MPAA feels the same way.
Of blankness, I know nothing.
Becuase of the actions of the RIAA, a sort of "Downloaders Creedo" has been developed. Since the actions by the MPAA are slightly less offensive, they will prosper under the Downloaders Creedo.
Music:
1. Don't buy ANY RIAA music, EVER! (riaaradar.com)
2. Download all RIAA Music for FREEEEEEEEE!
3. Pay for any non-RIAA music
Movies:
1. Download all movies for FREEEEEEE!
2. If you like the download, buy the movie.
(You'll find yourself buying even more movies than you would had downloading never been invented).
... and in the DRM, bind them.
I actually was pretty decent at dodgeball -- that, and track.
We even had a sort of "last-man-standing" game, that I remember winning at least 25% of the time. Although, not being aimed at because I wasn't 100% hated helped....
I do recall one time making a split jump and having my nuts crushed up against the wall by the oncoming red ball. That friggin HURT!....
Karnal
I would not have gone to see it, BUT my kids loved it (and I am absolutely the parent of Gen-Y kids). Tastes vary considerably. I didn't care for most of the movie, though I liked the minor characters they pulled in such as William Shater and Lance Armstrong. Then again, I watch very few "comedy" movies because I find the humor too blatant and without taste. I prefer action and drama -- movies about people and things happening. I happened to enjoy Hidalgo, which I know wouldn't appeal to everyone. I thought the third Matrix movie was the best.
There is no guaranteed appeal for a movie; no precise definition of what makes a movie a blockbuster. If the execs had that, they would be putting out two a month. Whatever appeals now (making a movie a blockbuster) would quickly become so overused and cliche'd that it wouldn't take long for the formula to stop working. What makes a movie good to me is an almost magical click between the story being told, the sets, the capability of the actors, dialog that is utterly natural, and all the other components.
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
from the article:
The North American box office took $1.03bn (562m) during June...
Spider-Man 2, which opened in the US on 1 July, also boosted monthly takings.
Does this mean that they counted the Spiderman2 opening in the $1 billion? That seems like a pretty easy way to break a record to me.
I am continually surprised that programmers would be defending any form of priracy on the basis that there is no harm.
Suppose someone makes a perfect copy of your product, whatever it is,, and mass produces it and sells it for a penny. Are you saying this would not hurt your business at all? And if it is some kind of great form of guerilla marketing, isn't it up to the owners of the content to decide that?
If people are willing, when legally required, to pay 10 billon for their product than they are entitled to every penny of the 10 billion without some slacker deciding 1 billion is "enough."
It's time to make a real stinker. One for the record books.
While only a TV movie, 10.5, the show about a large earthquake hitting the US, was reportedly made because it was so bad that people would *want* to watch more reality TV after seeing it.
So what if they set a record you dolts. I have to pay $12 a movie now on Friday nights. And places here charge up to $15. Movies used to cost $4 and when they raised it to $5 they were setting records. That doesnt mean they are rolling in profits.
No, it means they built huge chains of big-screen theatres and are soaking in debt. And the more they raise the prices and the more ads they show at the start of movies, the more they piss their customers off, so the less people go to see movies.
I used to go to movies at least once a month, now it's maybe twice a year if there's something worth seeing on the big screen. And it still pisses me off that I pay to watch advertising.
yes, there are many who don't care about the shared experience of movie going
;-)
but plenty do, and that group is never going away
there have always been asocial and social souls, but this is a static unchanging observation of basic human nature that does not change over time, so your point doesn't counteract mine
and yes, the movie industry's dvd business is going to be hurt by piracy
but i say, who cares
because you are talking about the same pointy headed bastards who were afraid of the vcr... and then found the vcr to be a larger source of income than movie themselves
so my advice for the movie industry is get back to your roots: make movies for movie houses, make money that way, and forget the rest, as that core forum, the cinema, will never go away
and then, in a few years, won't you be surprised when you find out that movie downloads add to the bottomline anyways
and if you are going to tell me that is impossible, that online p2p movies can't add to the bottom line, remember: vcrs were going to kill movies... and what happened there?
exactly
you're not one of those phbs who got it wrong, are you?
so don't play chicken little with a bulletproof business model: the creation and selling of american culture itself
i hardly see any reason to worry if that is the business you are in, which is exactly what the movie industry is: the bulletproof creation of american culture
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Amongst the flambait, this was an intelligent response to an intellegent argument. Kudos to both of you.
If the MPAA wants to keep my butt in a theater seat, they need to employ the guys with night vision scopes and listening devices to kick out the obnoxious patrons who talk, kick seats, throw things, and talk on their cell phones during a movie that I paid $50 (family + concession stand) to see.
I used to work at a theater and we had a manager with a real knack for remembering faces. If he ever kicked you out of a movie (and he did so frequently), he would go get you out of line a month later and tell you that you still weren't welcome in his theater. Yes, he was a jerk, but he wouldn't let some punk ruin a movie for everyone.
I really like going to a theater and I love seeing movies with crowds that appreciate a film (cheering and laughing), but with the prices, I should just stay home and buy the DVD -- it's cheaper, my HDTV and surround sound are great, I don't have any guilt over stealing, etc.
Minor Spiderman 2 spoilers ahead:
I went to see Spidey 2 again last night with my wife since she was out of town when I saw it the first time. The guy behind me spent the whole movie doing the Commentary for the Mentally Disabled. Some scenes and quotes:
Peter's vision goes bad.
"He can't see without his glasses. He must be losing his powers."
Peter's vision gets better.
"He can't see with them glasses on no more."
The wedding.
"She stood him up. He ain't happy 'bout that!"
and so on...
-- stream of did I lock the front door consciousness
I bet they have discussions like this...
Exec 1: Here we have a script in which malevolent robots run amok, and stylish humans with big guns save the world by shooting them.
Exec 2: Hmm. How can we make it more marketable? What's a good name in robots?
Exec 1: Well, Isaac Asimov looked at the current robot-story market of his day, and found it flooded with tales in which malevolent robots run amok, and stylish humans with big guns save the world by shooting them. He created the Three Laws to prevent himself from repeating this cliche, and created some of the most beloved SF stories of the era, collected in the omnibus "I, Robot".
Exec 2: Catchy! We should use the name, draw in his fans.
Exec 1: Should we change the plot to reflect his creative influence in any way whatsoever?
Exec 2: Nah, too much work. just rename the eye-candy babe to "Susan Calvin".
Exec 1: I can taste the box-office receipts already.
Can you think of a better reason why they did it?!
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
They make themselves fall asleep by putting Gigli on the DVD player before climbing into bed.
It's been a long time since I've played smear the queer or peg the fag What are some of your favourite schoolyard games?
I
the word is viruses not virii you insensitive clod.
Success is always due to the company, preferably management. Blame is always due to someone else, preferably some external cause beyond management's control. If all else fails, blame the workers (which is less perferable since you should be, um, managing them).
Hence, any increase in sales is due to management's persistant and dilligent defense of their intellectual property rights. Any decrease is due to massive piracy, the global economy etc. Plan B, should that ever fail, would be to blame oversized costs for superstars, CGI effects etc. making them "unable" to deliver great movies.
Plan C is to retire early with a suitcases full of cash and a plane to Tahiti. Plan D, right after hell freezes over, is to admit that the management and/or business plan has been less than stellar.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I agree. I sat and thought a while ago and decided that if The Matrix can be made for a $63mm production budget, ANY movie ought to be able to be made for the same amount (inflation adjusted), and my friends in the biz agree. If the studios would adhere to this philosophy and challenge directors, the losses on flops would shrink drastically (think The Alamo) and the gains on blockbusters would be magnified, often to the point of an extra 100%.
The interesting hole in this theory is as follows:
Investors or execs will literally say to producers "we've got $500mm in production costs we need to use this year, so put it to use however you have to." None of the studios throw much cash back to shareholders except (sort of) the ones owned by GE; instead, they're just told to reinvest it, and execs feel they might as well throw it at making movies that much flashier rather than let it sit around.
Read jack phelps dot net
I couldn't agree more. Going to the movies was(is) the most popular form of entertainment for the teenage crowd in my suburban town. And it isn't for the movies (per se), but for the people, the popcorn, the environment.
Yet even more can be said for the music industry.
While P2P will certainly eat the *record* industry alive, live concerts (which i am told make up a substantial portion of an artists revenue) are completely irreplacable.
So while P2P networks may eventually eradicate the sale of mp3's and DVD's, a result may be a rebirth of live mediums, concerts, performances, and even plays.
At least until the MPAA sues them over lost revenue.
It's time to separate the weak from the chafed, the men from the boys, the awkwardly feminine from the possibly Canadian
If you dowloaded Gigli, that means some twit actually uploaded it. You tell me which is worse.
How much longer before hollywood totally runs out of ideas? At the moment they're getting an average of about 0.2 original ideas per year from the mainstream industry but experts are predicting that the worlds supply of film ideas could run out as soon as 2006. Remakes have helped stretch the supply but already an IP crisis is looming. Movie studios however are confident that they have the reserves to meet consumer demand for the time being: they're using sequals, prequals, adaptations, book-to-films, comic-to-films, even old saturday morning cartoon-to-films to keep supply levels up. Recent writing-pool technology has even allowed combinations of comic-to-films and sequels as seen by Spiderman 2 and ofcourse the less environmentally friendly 'trillogy' which generally closes the door to additional sequals later on. Some say we already reached the point of no-ideas between 2000 and 2003 with the releases of Scooby-Do and Scary Movie 3 but others are more optimistic, suggesting that we can recylce remakes in another 20 years - remaking The Italian Job or Titanic for example could go on indefinately.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
I prefer cold toilet seats and dentist chairs. I do however make the trek out for special events, like Matrix movies, Star Wars and Harry Potter flicks.
I don't see the appeal anymore. You're locked into a cold room with uncomfortable chairs that don't recline, kids behind you kicking your chair, yelling etc. Some fat lady with 2 huge tubs of popcorn talking at full volume on her cell phone. I went to see LotR: The Two Towers last year and a full on fight broke out in the seats behind me.
I have a 65" HDTV in my living room with 5.1 surround sound. I'd rather spend 20$ or less on a nice DVD with good reviews 5-6 months after it's theatre debut than spend 40-50$ at the theatre. Until they can tempt me into coming back I won't go. This would be the same if all I had was a little 20" TV in my bedroom and played DVD's on my xbox. It's still better than sticky floors, seats with missing arm rests, rude people and over priced sweet tarts. I can make popcorn for 30 cents at home, I don't need to pay 3.50$ at the threatre.
So write a letter to Regal Entertainment, Loews, Crown, and others. Complain to them how much tickets costs. But don't blame the cinema companies' stupidity and over reaching on the movie studios.
otherwise, deal with the advertising. that is the price you pay for staying at home and getting to watch the movies on tv. or on dvd. or paying $45 bucks for a pair of shoes. or $10 for a tshirt at the gap. or $2.25 for a gallon of gasoline. all insanely dirt cheap compare to everywhere else in the world (and because the rest of the world is forced to subsidise us because thankfully we have a strong governement who does that for us)
literally being metaphorically syphoned
I feel like I should do a Jessica Simpson-style doubletake. "Um, is it literal...or...metaphorical?"
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
...aren't theater prices higher now than they ever have been? I mean really the prices have become so high that I'm boycotting prime time movies. And people are still packing in the theaters?
Americans are either making way to much money or our priorities are screwed up. How can we teach big corporate business a lesson if we keep handing them over wads of cash? I'm noticing that my youthful idealism is now being crushed by the realization that I'm now becomming a crotchety old man!
the live music performance is never going away
;-P
;-)
people act like music piracy is going to kill music
no, it is going to kill music corporations
big difference
teenage boys do not pick up guitars or 808s or scratchboards to become millionaires, they do it to impress chicks... THAT is never going away!
and just as you said, that shared communal experience of the live concert should come back in full force, with all of the sociological bonus points ascribed to the community feeling just like going to the movies
as if that is a bad thing for music!
long live music piracy! bringing us back to a golden age of live music performance, and out of the corporate-dominated empty vapid pop scene
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The rise in revenue is due solely to increased ticket prices, not because more people are seeing movies. In fact, movie attendance has dropped in three of the last five years. The fact is, there will always be a market for movies, as few non-slashdotters consider watching a bootlegged movie on your computer to be a "good date", but tickets will instead become even more expensive.
Well. I guess that there's not much more to say to that, now, is there?
I rarely go to see movies in the theater; it has to be a really big event to drag us to a noisy, dirty, overpriced theater when my 56" DLP / home theater system is comfy, affordable, and less annoying than loud teenagers.
I'm sure there are many people like me, and that should be killing the MPAA, right?
Wrong - the MPAA and cable companies got their act together (unlike the RIAA) and rolled out on-demand high-def video. It's awsome! I don't mind forking over $6.00 for HD video on demand in the comfort of my home. The cable co. and the MPAA both get their cut, and everyone is happy.
Another point: DVDs aren't rediculously overpriced either, so when I want to purchase a move I don't feel like i've been butt raped.
RIAA are you listening? People WANT (that means willing to pay) on-demand services, and CHEAP hard media. You produce both of those and you will make money!
It really is that simple.
-ted
Wait a minute, you're not getting off that easy. You wasted disk space, time seeking the torrent file, download time, electricity to run all that, the oil burned to make the electricity, and thus the lives needed to safeguard that oil, and on top of that you wasted time WATCHING Gigli?!?! You should be brought up on war crime charges, dude.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
the amount of money made by an industry should not be considered an indicator of whether or not fraud should be allowed to exist.
The banking industry's figures dwarf the movie industry and there are some rich people who wouldn't likely miss a few thousand dollars too much. Does that mean that bank robbing should be legal?
Amazing magic tricks
You would be absolutely flat-out amazed at how many people don't know what sarcasm is. I dated one gal who basically had no idea what it was (boy was that a short weird relationship). How exactly can someone go through life thinking that everyone else is always saying exactly what they mean???
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
How is something both literal and methaphorical? Is that like spiderman being both a literal spider and a metaphor for, uhh, the decline of western civilization?
the sea of humans around you is a major reason people go to movies
Um, actually, that "sea of humans" is a big part of the reason I don't go to movies anymore. Humans are OK, I guess, but not in groups of more than 10 or so.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
I think what the MPAA is worried most about piracy is sales of DVDs, not box office sales. Most movie theaters do not show pirated copies of movies and generally speaking people go to the movie theater for different reasons they watch movies at home.
Some may argue that the movie industry should not worry about downloads and instead concentrate on making their buck at the theater, the problem with that is they will be forced to concentrate on movies that have huge opening days but which may not last long in the public's interest.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
You have to remember that most of the
I've been to the hospital for treatment exactly one time in my life. The reason? You guessed it... a school dodgeball incident.
Downmodding is the refuge of the weak. Don't downmod, make a better argument!
Unless I'm misinformed, he was even supposed to be partially native american. Swedish. Native American. People get them confused all the time.
"I downloaded Gigli because the MPAA needed to suck wind on that one for daring to put in the theatres and wasting both MY money and the theatre's money."
If a movie sucks too much to be seen in a theatre , it doesn't make sense that it would be worthwhile to download it either. Especially in the case of Gigli from what I've heard. Crap like this I avoid at all cost. It's not worth the space on my harddrive.
Jay Sherman: [To Reinier Wolfcastle] How do you sleep at night??
As excerpted from The Critic.
-- I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist. It's not my fault that life sucks so much. --
It literally had me rolling on the floor, laughing my figurative ass off. Seriously, that gag is absolutely the funniest idea ever expressed. And, no, I'm not being sarcastic! Dumbass.
I downloaded Gigli because the MPAA needed to suck wind on that one for daring to put in the theatres and wasting both MY money and the theatre's money.
::P
Glad to see you're just wasting your time with Gigli rather than your money, the theatre's money AND your time.
-- taking over the world, we are.
I don't go to movies for the same reason
I don't go to church, the sea of people...
i'm sure everybody has time to download 3 or 4 15-30gb movies a month, yeah, right, and everybodies showing them to hundreds of people a week, yeah right, i'm totaly with the other /.ers here, there making shit movies and not many at that, besides building empires, the whole freaking Corp world is going this criminal route and blaming us for them not getting a new lexus or jet twice a year (for there kids) or thereselves, sheesh, this shit is getting sooo old, blah...
sorry, it really does make alot of people sick seeing this BS from the industries weekly imho...
Huh? Nobody ever hears about the scriptwriter. I would be pleased beyond all measure if the scripwriter got the same fame and recognition that, say, the lead actors and director got. It's a lot harder to screw up a good story than to turn a bad story into a good movie. Yet nobody pays any attention to who wrote the story.
Dyolf Knip
um, how do you know it's such a piece of shite then?
I don't believe the MPAA is overly worried about the downloading/sharing/piracy that's going on now. It's still relatively limited to street-corner cam videos and enormous torrent downloads by the realtively tech savvy.
But they do have to take a hard stand and do what they can to quash it before the next generation of technology (superfast broadband, enormous hard drives, better TV/video integration) makes it as fast and easy to download a movie as it is to grab an mp3. If they're complacent, and say "go ahead, we make enough money", that's as bad as tacit approval-- and it will be much harder to stop when millions are doing it. Because when millions are doing it, when they get away with doing it for months and years, they start to feel that it's their right to do so. Like with music, or emulation...
Speaking of potential sales, given that we all know your average UFO contains at least 5 aliens, and that there have been over a thousand sightings a year, how have aliens downloading memories of movie going experiences hindered movie studio bankrolls? Especially if they go back to their homeworld, and have other aliens download the movie going experience from them! This is a giant alien peer to peer network, and the MPAA/RIAA need to hop right on it. They're losing untold numbers of gold pressed latinum bars!
Simple question.
z ip :/)
Where do they get their figures?
I'm thinking that they're doing a E911 document scam
$79,449=$13.50 ??? I'm confused
(Read The Hacker Crackdown)
mirror on a free angelfire site: http://www.angelfire.com/linux/psyburn/crackdown.
(so this is probably not a good idea
(dl'd only if you cannot get it else where)
This was brought to you buy the Department of Redundancy Department
How the hell can something be both literal AND metaphorical?
This submitter sucks!
Hey freaks: now you're ju
And if you want a proper movie review/rating, your first stop ought to be here.
BTW, when did we confuse the MPAA with the RIAA? Last I knew, the MPAA's biggest crime was the whole DeCSS thing.
You need to pay more attention to their congression testimony and other legislative antics. Everything from incessant Boston-Strangler style ranting to attempting to push through the SSSCA/CBDTPA which would outlaw ordinary computers to playing the FCC like a puppet and getting the Broadcast Flag mandated (outlawing non-crippled non-crippled TV tuners as of one year from this month). Oh, and don't forget pushing for the various state SuperDMCA laws.
Hell, that list is just off the top of my head.
Not that getting the DMCA passed and the crippled DVD player/DeCSS thing wasn't bad enough in the first place.
No, the MPAA is no better than the RIAA.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
How the hell can something be literally done if it's being metaphorically done?
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Ha... I'm as geeky as they come but I kicked ass at Dodgeball. We used to play it all the time, in school and at home.
In highschool we used vollyballs instead of those wimpy red bouncy balls. Those suckers could pack quite a bit of pain behind them. Plus you could literally knock someones feet out from under them. Fun times.
In fact, I thought PE was pretty fun in general even though I was a skinny nobody... and the girls with those short shorts... yeah
He's Danish.
HAND.
Meanwhile, I'm a small independent movie producer, I don't back the MPAA, region encoding, or CSS. I am even a big supporter of fair use... and I can't even get a booth at a hacker convention. But don't worry, the guys who advocate downloading my film over buying a copy got a space...
Don't get me wrong, on my website we pretty much encourage people to download our film, because the way things are going, we don't have any other means of distributing it. But I love how everything is about the P2P networks versus the Hollywood Big Boys. You know, there are still independent movie producers out there... we just don't get any attention from anyone. I guess the only way you get noticed anymore is if you make a big scandal about how Disney won't distribute your flick...
I think I'll go see if the MPAA is hiring...
HaXXXor.com - Naked Chicks Teach You How To Ha
I've only bothered to see one movie in the past couple years... Mel Gibson's "Passion of the Christ"... and I certainly didn't go for entertainment reasons. The more of Hollywood's tripe you feed into your brain, the less intelligent you become.
Oh wow. I downloaded RoTK and haven't spent a dime on it since, being that I'm not a drooling fanboy. I WOULD have rented it on PPV if I hadn't downloaded it.
Now who's the aberration? You, who spends money on movies he's already seen (and presumably music already sitting on your hard drive), or me, who doesn't see the point in spending money on the redundant.
We didn't have that rule either. If someone's aiming for your leg all the time, jump.
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
This was one game I was good at. I was big, slow and clumsy but for some reason I could catch the farking ball. Having that skill is a big deal. I couldn't dodge, and couldn't help that well. But I could catch even the hardest throws.
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
I work manufacturing, but I read about other absoultely non-manufacturing related industries to know more, hence my reading /.
You want a fucking cookie? I guess that's why you have such a wonderful vocabulary and charming personality, eh? Your post deserves to be modded down as flamebait, but I'll take that bait.
I don't care how money is distributed or how rich or poor theatres are as long as laws stay the same. When folks start lobbying to increase the length of copyright, effectivly stealing from the public domain, I get upset. Companies have a right to profit from their work, but copyright never was real property.
And companies can keep doing what they do, but people are going to complain. Some people are even going to stop watching. Me, I don't even watch TV anymore (threw the damn thing out) because almost all the shows worth watching were off the air. I don't miss it.
Stuidos can try and argue that filesharing hurts their profits and shouldn't be done by anyone. But people are going to call them on their bullshit and some are going to develop alternate business models and new distrobution channels.
And if you've sunk billions into hooking yourself up with theatres around the country and deals with video rental stores, change is threatening.
You can go into a book store and read the magazines. People still buy them. Studios exercising their rights are one thing. But criticizing Michael Moore for encouraging downloading of his movie is just asinine. What right do these people have to tell others what they can do with their products. That's where their true hippocracy is outed. Suddenly, it's immoral not to make as much money as you can? Suddenly it's immoral to share your work or release it into the public domain. It isn't. But the notion of getting even legal movies via the internet is threatening to people who own video stores and theatres. Otherwise, studios would take a 'live and let live' approach to this kind of distrobution.
Criticizing people who encourage downloading of their product which they own is idiotic. The success of such products, in spite of downloading, is informative. The notion deserves the ridicule it attracts.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
. . . but the reprehensible caricature they portray goes a long way towards discrediting churches (off-topic, sorry).
I agree completely with the point that the experience of moviegoing cannot be replaced by a TV or computer monitor.
Some movies are much more fun when you and the crowd cheer together during an exciting moment, laugh together at a joke, etc.
It's the same for baseball, which I don't much care for. Although I find televised baseball to be mind-numbingly boring, I did attend a live game (free tickets), and it was actually enjoyable. Sitting in the stands, seeing the field, being part of the group in the stands--it definitely adds to the experience.
You scum! He's Danish and I'm proud of him,
although I haven't seen Hildalgo, probably a sucky
movie.
You have got to see Mel Brook's the producers if you haven't already. The basic premise is the accountant (played by gene wilder) figures out if you produce a musical that's a flop you would never have to pay back your creditors, declare bankruptcy and keep the money. In the movie the Producer (zero mostel) goes out of his way to produce a really bad musical but it backfires when the play turns out to be a hit then goes to jail. You just have to wonder if Hollywood operates on the same principle "ok lets not make one flop but 20, we'll be rich and screw all the people we took money from
The movie is released to theatres and the same day, people are downloading a bootleg copy, and they want all to believe the act is not THEFT...
If you acquire a movie that is still in the theatre and not released on vhs or dvd, you are stealing.
How hard is it to understand. Try all you want to validate your being a thief...go ahead, and compound your mental flaws by telling us all some lies about how it is ok to steal from people...
Now it's 15 years later, and people are swapping your I.P., which you sell to make a living, and you aren't selling it because so many are swapping it for free...now tell your kids about how you used to be a part of the group that caused them to go without supper that night, while the repo man is towing the car away...all because you thought stealing was "ok" 15 years ago...
select * from Washington DC where clue > 0 || 0 ROWS RETURNED
that is literally being metaphorically syphoned into the studios' pockets.
Uh...well, yes, I guess that is one way you could put it. Figuratively speaking, of course.
Uh... perhaps you should have dodged those... rather then making a rule against it.
Hmmm... Pie...
I always thought outlawing head shots was just cruel. You get tagged in the head, your glasses cut your nose, and you have to stay in? ;D
Dodgeball was always one of my favorite games for some reason. I guess because I always sucked at any kind of team coordination. It's one of those games that really gives you incentive to try, too - do you remember the feeling of panic when an opponent was aiming for you at close range? Or when you were the only person left on your side? I had a PE teacher in high school that thought it was funny to throw in a couple extra volleyballs once there were only a few "dodgers" left. Fun game.
[javac] 100 errors
Has anyone ever considered that pirating may be the excuse that they needed to continue making lousy movies. They don't have to face up to the fact that the movies suck, they just blame their problems on "internet piracy" because they assume that if you download a movie you must want it. Who would ever steal something they hate? The funny thing about that logic is that if you download a movie that you would never buy they don't lose anything but they can legally claim that they have lost something.
that's how I see it anyway . . .
You have to remember that most of the /. crowd are the reason dodgeball has disappeared from schools these days. They were on the receiving end of those vicious headshots, and took their revenge on the world by creating spam, computer virii, and distributing copyrighted material for free over the net...
Those annoying kids always left me to be the last one chosen for the teams. But I taught them. They don't think Bagle and Beagle are a pastry and a dog anymore...
Cozinha para as massas (e para geeks)
If someone's aiming for your leg all the time, jump.
Or catch it and spike him when he's running back to his side.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Are those examples all theft? If not, what is the difference between these actions and downloading a movie that makes one theft and the other not? Hint: what was stolen and who was it stolen from?
-- Adam
I watched about 10 minutes of it. When I saw the scene with the earthquake fault running exactly along the train tracks and chasing the train, I turned it off and watched a Law and Order rerun.
The acting was awful. The storyline was predictable. And the science was imaginary (not just creative licensing that you normally expect).
I'm sure the viewer ratings were pretty good for at least the first half hour with all that hype.
Move to Canada where it's perfectly legal to do this.
The only youth oriented channel on US Cable that doesn't steadily pump our kids full of marketing hype is Cartoon Network, and that's probably just a matter of time.
You do realise that He-Man, Thundercats, The Smurfs, Pokemon, PowerPuff Girls, etc. are just ~30 minute infomercials for their respective merchandising vehicles. Right?
If they want more people to see movies in theatres then just stop people from talking in them and laughing at the wrong time.
I don't want to freak you out, but you may have been dating an alien from Betelgeuse.
Grow up. If you can't see the difference between theft -- in which the victim has LESS than had before, and copyright violation -- in which the victim has to work very hard to even discover that it's taken place -- then you are a moron. Piracy exists because most people can see the difference quite clearly. People like yourself, the "it really is theft!" crowd, are the minority because you're preaching from an inherently dubious position.
Sorry, I was misinformed and appologize to all of the Danish people including Vigo.
GeneralKael -- Slacker Extraordinaire
If they don't release complete junk from time to time the frame of reference will be lost. You'll no longer know what a good movie is unless you see some bad ones. It's all relative.
prob is, if every movie was made to good qualities, then eventually, ones we'd consider good would be considered shitty. and the really good ones would be just good..
the standards would simply go up.
also, the internet is not to blame, supringsly it was the MPAA that pointed this out a few days ago on the news, that it was the lack of movie ticket sales because people werent going out to the movies, and the dude did admit that that last year wasnt their best record for movies either. because most of them got poor ratings. this is all compared to 2001 and previous years before that that fared well. and he did include the I word somewhere in that as well, but he didnt press internet filesharing as the leading cause. at least he admitted that hollywood wasnt doing as well, and I agree, I havent seen a real good movie for a long time now and I'm beginning to wonder what the fuck is wrong with the studios and what are they smoking?
good example would be the garfield movie, which over the last 3 years went through so many changes it's just another CGI model/cartoon character in a real world movie, which usually suck. (osmosis jones is a PERFECT example of this) it was gonna be all 3d, then semi-3d, but with a cartoonish look, and odie was gonna be 3d as well, but now they're just showing some people who claim to be the characters from the movie and a scarrgly ass looking dog that they say is odie.. oh and teh cg'ed garfield... honestly wonder how long until they just change that and put a real fat orange tabby cat in his place.
yeah, I agree, stop making shitty ass movies, and you might get more money. I know I like to go to the theatres to see a new movie I would like to see. beats getting shitty recordings off the internet (cant get them anyways, my connection and patience are too low.) when it comes to movies, I dont think there's too much of a threat of online pirating. however, they should really take a look into the places that get those recorded out of the theatre and sell them. I saw the second matrix film at this one place that had almost nothing but pirated DVD's and they even had shrek 2 before it had hit theatres. however, I went back to the indoor mall it was at and it was gone. places like those piss me off. and they're the ones who should be watched out for, but no, they have to target the easier target, the internet, because hey, normal people are pushovers, and if we play our cards right, we might just be able to get a chunk of power over internet users and the internet itself!
that's all it is.
Despite up to 150 people simultaneously bagging free copies of its most valuable property at any given time 24 hours a day, Lions Gate says it has no plans to oppose the practice. While unwilling to make any official statement likely to further provoke Hollywood's heavy hitters, the film company appears to have fallen into line with its director's laissez-faire approach.
http://www.sundayherald.com/43167
... and the girls with those short shorts... yeah
And they kick high. Heh. Heh heh. Heh heh heh.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I have to admire the sarcasm of Slashdot's reporting, unbiased and fair indeed :-/
"There is absolutely No justification for stealing, regardless of the quality of the product."
I'd agree with that except for a couple of things.
1.) If somebody's spending >24 hours downloading a questionable quality movie for the sake of saving a few bucks, it is a true indication that ticket prices are too high.
2.) There is no guarantee of quality or satisfaction. Trailers can lie to get you to see the movie, but you can't get a refund if it really sucks. (Boy, imagine if they had a refund policy back when Godzilla came out.)
It may be immoral to download and watch movies without paying anything blah blah blah, but it's a powerful expression of supply and demand that we (the consumers) have. The mere fact that Hollywood is thriving illustrates the point that there is SOMETHING wrong with what they're doing, but people are still willing to spend money.
I really wish Hollywood would just listen to why people would jump through so many hoops to download a movie and figure out what to do to compete with that instead of trying to buy senators to change the laws. Only then would they know that Rob Schnider is a money repellent.
"Derp de derp."
the critically acclaimed "Gigli"
I call bullshit.
What critics "acclaimed" Gigli? Ebert and Roeper gave it two thumbs down.
Even Ben Affleck himself poked some self-deprecating fun at that stinker when he hosted SNL.
I understand the point you were trying to make, but you've completely failed at demonstrating that Hollywood portrays bad movies as gems. Hollywood produces hundreds of mainstream, big-budget movies each year. They can't all be "Saving Private Ryan" (which was, incidentally, critically acclaimed - two thumbs up from Ebert and Roeper).
Incidentally, "Dodgeball" wasn't all that good. It wasn't nearly as good as either "Old School" or "Zoolander", both of which were also merely mediocre.
If you're trying to justify your illegal actions (that of downloading movies, which you already admitted to), well, I guess you'll have to do better than "Hollywood made a terrible movie (true) and said it was fantastic (a lie - no respected critics made such a review)"
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
Better re-read your industry group history. The MPAA (and it's politically-very-well-connected) head, Jack Valenti) was heavily involved in the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act and the DMCA, to name a few of their more egregious crimes against the nation. So, no, while they have avoided most of the RIAA's PR gaffes they are by no means blameless or any less dangerous than their sister organization.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
It was interesting at my school. We played on both sides of this 10 foot high wall. You could run around both ends. If you wanted to put someone out, you had to work for it.
DVDs are a total ripoff pricewise compared to VHS. When VHS was the only option around in the 90s, you could expect to pay about $12 for a movie. Now that DVD is the standard, you pay about $25.
Easy way to make a killer profit if everytime a new standard comes out you double the price and leave it high. It's understandable when a new technology first comes out that everything in the production of it will be more pricy, but it's been quite a while since DVDs came out and the price is still stupidly high.
I thought it was because we all got picked last for kickball. At least that's why my first boss was such an ass...
I'm being pedantic, but can you literally metaphorically? surely those words should never be used in the same sentance.
This user account is inactive account replaced by the PDA
There are three reasons for piracy & three only:
1. An unwillingness to spend money.
2. Laziness - unwillingness to go to the movie theatre to see a film.
3. Kudos - being the "first kid on the block" to get a pirated copy of a movie.
As far as I am concerned, the whole movie & music industry sucks with little exception - artificial price-hiking, poor quality products & just generally ripping-off the consumer.
But I get them where it hurts - in their profits. I simply do not buy any CD or DVD unless I can get it as cheap as possible and only when I am sure it is worth the money, in my opinion. If everybody did this, we, the consumer, would dictate their industry - instead, most of us act like packs of sheep and blindly consume their poor-quality products, handing over hard-earned cash in the process.
Piracy achieves nothing positive. It gives the movie & music industry the justification they want to treat us all like criminals, locking us into their sub-standard proprietary formats and ensuring that our rights to "fair use" of the products that we buy are taken away.
Pirates are nothing more than spoilt children who just want something they cannot have. Adults, on the other hand, exercise reasoning and self-control and simply don't pay money for rubbish products - they just go without.
If everyone behaved like an adult, both the music & movie industry would lose profits and would have to sit up and take notice of us - ultimately giving us the products we want at the price we want to pay.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Oddly enough, the old He-Man and the Masters of the Universe... Had a Plot! The new one doesn't, even where they could have just copied the old one, they only did it where it helped the merchandising. Out of these two, which do you think is the informercial?
No, the only movies that would stop being made are the craptastic star-vehicles. I'll happily pirate a few films if it means no more lame Star Wars prequels, and no more Jennifer Lopez abominations. Real movies will still get made. The independent films that are shown at many off-track theatres are testimony to that.
You deserve to be upset, Disney (ahem, Eisner) is very bad about that. HOWEVER, that is Disney, not Prarmount, Sony, WB and others. you are sloppy and unfari in throwing in the industry with Disney. But it suits your purposes so you do it. Hey, you have a weak case so do what you need. but i never talked about copyright extensions, and THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH STEALING NEW MOVIES AND THE ENSUING LOSS OF REVENUE. jackass.
2.And companies can keep doing what they do, but people are going to complain. Some people are even going to stop watching. Me, I don't even watch TV anymore (threw the damn thing out) because almost all the shows worth watching were off the air. I don't miss it.
Do you want a cookie? I own a TV, but I have no cable satellitle or antenna. I just watch dvd's and videos. I want a cookie. But the point is fine, the biz doesnt care that it lost a customer, it cares that YOU DONT STEAL IT. jackass.
3.Stuidos can try and argue that filesharing hurts their profits and shouldn't be done by anyone.
first, the studios dont make the arguement, the MPAA makes it for them. Technical, but hey, I dont like you. MPAA has argued that filesharing of it's members movies shouldnt be done, because, well, it is illegal! Make copies for your self is fine. But that is not filesharing. They make the arugment that it is fine to load up kazaa or limewire.
Go ahead, you are going to share your homemade MIDI file, your 6th grade spanish class report on Catherine the Great. It is your right. But if you click on the "shares folders" option, and then select the folder where you made your backup of BOFA part III, then you are a thief. jackass
4.And if you've sunk billions into hooking yourself up with theatres around the country and deals with video rental stores, change is threatening.
I dont see how the studios either a), spent billions on the theaters (i made the point that those are seperate companies already), b) or that though they may have signed and negotiated contracts with said cinema companie, you are an absolute fool for saying they spent billions. they havent hooked themselves in in anyway, and certainly have not spent billions. ok, maybe millions (in what sense i have no idea. but shoot, $5million over 5-10 years, ha, that is a month's electricity bill. get your numbers right or stop making stuff up. billions? jackass.
5. You can go into a book store and read the magazines. People still buy them.
Not necessarily. Enjoy today's NY times article on the diffiuclty of magazine publishing. jackass. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/06/arts/design/06MC DO.html
Studios exercising their rights are one thing. But criticizing Michael Moore for encouraging downloading of his movie is just asinine.
First, post some linnks of where i can these criticisms.. i looked for a bit, but could only find Lions Gate (LGF) criticisms, not any major studio or valentis (not saying they dont exist, but it is for you to prove, not for me to go out of my way and find). What right do these people have to tell others what they can do with their products. That's where their true hippocracy is outed.
Becasue they bought the movie from Michael moore you jackass. that is what a distributor does. they pay someone a fee to have sole rights to sell the movie. they pay for advertising, they pay for the reels, they pay to fly him around and do interviews. they pay for his deluxe penthouse sutes, his 5 star restaurants (which he has a right to eat at...i dont think it is hypocritical unless he complained about others doing it too...vut you should know..)
" call bullshit.
What critics "acclaimed" Gigli? Ebert and Roeper gave it two thumbs down.
Even Ben Affleck himself poked some self-deprecating fun at that stinker when he hosted SNL."
I just modded your ass down because you couldn't grasp sarcasm. The rest of your post was okay, but your opening statement was irrelevant.
Try again.
I must admit, first of all, that I am a Buccaneer-Canadian, and that I am of Chinese (Hong Kong) descent.
Let me say, though, on the MPAA and RIAA's behalf, that piracy is honestly and truly wrong, and is going to cause the destruction of the music and movie industries (and whatever else can be downloaded, like personal and SOHO targetting apps such as games).
The only reason why the MPAA and RIAA's earnings are going up rather than down is because, in North America (where these outfits are based), piracy is still in its infancy. There are two main barriers preventing the music and movie industries from crumbling right now: the last mile distribution problem and piracy source organization.
In North America, our main method of piracy right now is downloading via broadband internet. The effort required to overcome the technological barriers that are required when downloading pretty much anything (starting to get changed by bit-torrent and Suprnova, though not nearly enough), as well as the long wait times, deters a large chunk of our populace from pirating. At the moment, if I wanted to look for an album or first-run movie that's new, the absolute easiest way is to go to Suprnova.org and see if it is out, then click, save, wait, etc. However, imagine how much one would be able to pirate if you were in a place like Hong Kong, China, and could just walk down the street and buy (for $2) a first-run film or brand-new album from a vendor?
The other thing is that the big pirates (release groups, etc) in North America are just not organized enough. If they were so organized as to have ALL first-run films catalogued the day they're out, without fail, and delivered to a central source?
One day, in a few years, transfer speeds of broadband connections to the home will be able to send a DVD-Quality video to your home in mere minutes. Imagine a Grandmother coming home and having ALL of the recent movies released on Suprnova already on her harddrive? Imagine the interface for playing these movies being as easy to operate as a regular digital cable box? Wow... the RIAA and MPAA and the entire industry will surely die then...
...I am proof that intelligent beings are not always intelligent...
Who are you to tell the Motion Picture Industry how to run their business? They have business, and it is their right to sell their products as they see fit. You may choose to buy, or to not buy. Furthermore, the Video Cassette PLAYER became a source of revenue for moviemakers, but the ability of said players to RECORD has not helped the movie industry at all. It was ruled to be legal, due to the abilty to "time-shift" television shows (read teh Betamax decision if you would like to have a clue). And while VCRs are legal, the MPAA TO THIS DAY combats piracy on video cassettes, and rightfully so. This is the same thing they are doing on P2P. The technology has been ruled legal (see the Betamax decision if you would like to get a clue), but that doesn't mean that the actual act of piracy is not hurtful to the industry, whether it is on VHS or P2P. RECAP: The act of piracy is seperate from the technology used in said piracy The movie industry derives revenue from several sources, including box office recipts, DVD sales, and CHs sales. It is not right for pirates to take away any of these revenue streams. The motion picture industry has the right to make money off of their products as they see fit. Since you so enjoy going to movies, would you be thrilled if box offices prices had to be raised in order to make up for slumping DVD sales due to piracy? If you disagree, then that's fine... There are many other ways you can spend your entertainment dollar
The MPAA/movies have an advantage compared to RIAA/music. That advantage is "you can't beat the big theater house experience". Unless movie picture quality improves on the Internet and everyone (I mean everyone) has a 5ft-plasma screen at home (most already have THX/5.1 audio on their computers), movies via the Internet do not compare to the big theater. MPAA knows, when you watch a poor quality (technical-wise, not CONTENT-wise) movie on the Internet, it will make you want to see it on the big screen (unless you already have a "big screen" at home). Then when the DVD comes out, you'll likely get the DVD someday. RIAA has much tougher job, most people already have an acceptable/excellent listening environment at home (or car!), and the quality of MP3s (128bit) are pretty much the best you're going to get for bulk-distribution media, so RIAA loses--they have no control and lose profits. They win instead by changing the laws: Only way to win the game is change the game's rules. Go figure.
I don't know if "racing" is the word I'd use there.
Haida Manga
I noticed a LOT of the so called "Sponsors" have the same headline as some of my spam!
One in particular...
"Find a Date in 5 clicks or less"
You are exactly right. The movie business needs to change dramatically to make a product that people are willing to part with their hard-earned dollars to see.
I believe that the home theater market is going to explode in the next few years as HDTV becomes more widespread. The prices for exquisitely good TV's has been plummeting, and will continue to plummet, to the point where they will become quite common. Large screen LCD and soon OLED and SED TVs are going to be fabulous and affordable. Good audio is not terribly expensive, and I believe it will also become ubiquitous.
So, movie theaters have to raise the bar. I will continue to push the digital film industry toward higher quality -- I think it's absolutely necessary to stay competetive. Current digital projectors (there are somewhat less than 100 digital theaters in the US right now) project at a measely 1280x1024. The next generation is going to be only 1920 pixels wide, which is the same resolution as HDTV. This isn't good enough!
So, I differ from the parent in that I think the home market will move faster than he expects, but I completely agree that the movie theater experience needs to be improved, and quickly, to stay competetive. If it fails to do that, then perhaps it deserves its fate.
Thad Beier
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
There might also have been a number of hints dropped by CoS along the lines of "finance this or some of your top stars might move to another studio".
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
For me, you lost the argument right there. Applying this term ignores the history and intent of copyright, the recent manipulation of political processes by monied interests, the difference between ideas and property, a healthy society's need for free flow of information, and pretty much anything that doesn't fit in a tiny black/white conceptual box.
They seem to be confusing the ever popular dodge-ball with the somewhat less popular rule-ball....
I'm not a nerd. Nerds are smart.
Movie industry deserves my money for a good product on a theatre screen. IE if its something like shrek or harry potter etc ill go to the theatres to watch it, Else i wait for DVD version to watch from a video library if i like it alot ill rip it to DVD. I may watch it every now and then (1 -2 times a year.) My reasoning for this is its better on big screen and they have 100s of people involved on a production. I will however only pay their required fee for viewing it 1 time. The music industry however can go fuck itself. i will not pay for music full stop. i have 3 basic principles for this. lets take linkin park for instance as they are a band that have recently hit it big and are currently touring. they have 5 members of their band and can got away with 2 full time roadies on their first tour. so they have to support 7 people not 100s therefore their LIVE performances are what is required to cover that cost. Expanding costs of live production is built into the touring company's fees etc so this is where bands make money (not a huge amount of money but plenty to pay the bills and hire 15 hookers a night if that be their wish) a song costs them nothing to make other than distribution costs and a very minimal cost for a recording studio (they already own the equipment they need to produce everything except the final mixing). A live performance/tour happens because they can be confident that their songs have reached enough people to guarantee X amount of people will want to experience those songs live. I cannot find any argument to stop the fact that CDs are a money laundering system. The reason they were created was to make hiugh quality reproductions of the recorded music to INCREASE popularity of that music and it's creator for the purpose of making the bands capable to travel to live venues with confidence. I am a musician and i feel that getting ridiculously rich off the creation of a song/album is not what its all about. I dont charge the bands to play their music at gigs. I am being paid to entertain. the musicians may or may not be more talented but that does not justify the HUGE money which the music industry receives. Turn the radio on and you can hear it for free so why cant i do that with my PC. SURE i could be the ruin of the music industry but if my gigs get other peoples music popular how is that also not feeding the music industry. If i share music i am increasing their popularity and thus generating a revenue stream via live gigs . you have to work for your money not spend 2 days writting a song then 10 days rehearsing a song then 1 day in a studio and some cash for some CD for radio stations etc. if a song is requested or hits the charts then the distribution chain gets involved and you can mass produce you locally popular song/CD. wheres the work in that i cant justify the money im paid for my curren job where i do 20 hours work a week & do gigs on the side (some paying some for fun) IF soemone can justify the sub 300 hours time it takes to write a song and get it local distribution chain into the XXXX millions the work reaps then i would honestly be baffled at their value system. I could also be wrong and this has happens a few times before but to me money is just a way for people to make other people feel bad. there are of course other means and avenues to make it big but this is the general model for music *if theres spelling mistakes in this reply please let me know so i can patent the method of using and incorrect letter in the middle of a word to make it incompatible with spellcheckers while still conveying the meaning*
WTF - Speak in acronyms already, i can't figure out what you mean otherwise boss
Hmm let's see. Typical American Movie scenario:
1) Bad guy committs atrocious act of violence/injustice to some innocent/good guys close/related to the main Hero/Good guy.
2) Hero/Good guy suffers immensely throughout this, reaching deeper and deeper levels of self criticism/blame suffocating in a moral/psychological decadence.
3) Hero/Good guy eventually rebounds and starts chasing Bad guy.
4) Hero/Good guy gets a chance to fight Bad guy.
5) Bad guy dies (generally multiple times) a horrible and violent death.
6) Hero/Good guy gets the girl/money/both and lives happily ever after.
7) (Potentially) Curse at yourself for paying money to see this again?
Well how much can you push this to make money out of it? It's happening more than 3 decades now, eventually it will collapse or mutate. No wonder Blockbuster has expanded the foreign film section to a whole isle!
Yam, yam, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade, uga booga, yam, yam, yade, yade
Your sarcastic situation was closer to the truth.
This Wired article tells about it.
"I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone."
-- Jack Valenti, president and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, in 1982, explaining to the US House of Representatives why VCR's should not be legal. Clearly, the motion picture industry has been devastated by the VCR in the 20+ years since its introduction.
There is absolutely No justification for stealing, regardless of the quality of the product.
Does this include copyright owners "stealing" from the American populace by not returning the works to the people as they are morally bound to do?
Alec Baldwin: Um, does anybody know where this came from?
... and which one ... will die. ... this robot, he's got a heartbreaking decision to make about whether his best friend lives ... or dies.
Homer Simpson: Oh, *there's* that movie script I wrote! Where did you find it?
Alec: On my pillow.
Homer: The important thing is, it's got the perfect part for you. Either one of you! It's about a killer robot driving instructor who travels back in time for some reason. Ron Howard's attached to direct!
Ron: I am not!
Homer: Well, he expressed an interest.
Ron: No I didn't!
Homer: Did too!
Ron: I did not!
Homer: You lie!
Alec: Yeah, Homer, um, most movie scripts are 120 pages. This is only seventeen. And several of the pages are just drawings of the time machine. [holds up one of Homer's drawings; it appears to be a chair with a beach umbrella attached to the back and an alarm clock wired to the side]
Homer: So you're saying you don't want to star in my movie.
Alec: I'm sorry,
Homer. Homer: Well, if Alec is out, I'm out too. You're on your own, Potsie. [shoves script at Ron]
Ron: [reading title] "The Terminizor: An Erotic Thriller"?
(Later, after Alec and Kim have thrown Homer out.)
Kim Basinger: Oh, look at these snapshots of us with Homer. Wasn't that a fun weekend?
Alec: Yeah. Homer was a pretty good guy. And we just tossed him out like a Golden Globe award. I've got to admit, I miss the way he used to tuck us in and kiss us on the forehead.
Kim: Forehead?
Alec: Aw, maybe I should've made his movie.
Kim: Yeah, it wasn't that bad. I mean the script might even work if you got rid of the talking pie.
Alec: What, are you crazy? It's a buddy picture. Without the pie, it would just be me on screen for two hours.
Kim: Oh, yeah, and you'd hate that.
Ron: No, no, no, you can't lose the pie! The pie's your heart.
Kim: Okay, okay, keep the damn pie.
(One month later, at the 20th Century Fox Film Studios, Ron Howard pitches a movie to executive Brian Grazer, who sits at his desk.)
Ron: [emotionally] And it grows, to a powerful, emotional climax when the father has to choose which one of his children will live
Brian: [bored] Pass.
[Ron lets out a sigh]
Brian: What else you got?
Ron: [thinks desperately] Well, well, there is this one thing. It's about a killer robot driving instructor that travels back in time for some reason.
Brian: I'm listening.
Ron: Okay, okay, well, you see
Brian: Ehh.
Ron: Did I mention his best friend's a talking pie!
Brian: Sold! Howard, you've done it again!
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
Don't forget region coding. Way to artificially segment your market so you can more thoroughly exploit it.
Many theaters do refund your ticket if you leave before the end of the show. I know for a fact United Artists/Regal does.
Of course they do, they've already made their profits off the $15.00 they sucked out of you for the coke and popcorn.
"Nobody knows the age of the human race, but everybody agrees that it is old enough to know better." - Unknown
I'll never forget in 3rd grade when I was playing dodgeball at some summer camp [ok so it was between 3rd and 4th grade]. Anyhow, one of the conselors, rather large fellow ... I'd guess he weighed over 200 lbs but then again I was in third grade....anyhow he unloaded at another counseler putting his fat ass behind the throw and I ended up stepping in the line of fire and taking one in the nuts. I hit the floor like a sack of potatoes ... last time I ever played dodgeball although it wasn't the last time I got hit in the balls by a ball ...
the mpaa challenged the technology of the vcr out of fear of recording
if it were up to the mpaa, we would not have vcrs
and then, ironically, they made more money off the technology than they did at the box office
so, luckily, the decisions about the fututre of technology is not up to the mpaa, it is up to us, the consumer
same with p2p
now you go ahead and trust the phbs in the mpaa to tell you what to think about p2p, that's fine, you go on with your bad self
but i for one am not going to trust the future of my culture to a stupid group of corporate whores
and i think, fine sir, that there are lot more of me than there are of you
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Eh? I used to duck the headshots. Once they figured out I was a "ducker", they started shooting low.
;)
Then I started jumping over them. That's when it got really exciting.. WHICH WAY WILL THE MASTER GO?
One memorable time I had front and back going for low shots on me (you know, Greek dodgeball), and I jumped. The two balls smacked each other underneath me, for a memorable photo moment.. if they had digicams back then.
It's not that hard to move around people, especially in grade school when you haven't built up the hacker fat yet.
Maybe people should get into adult dodgeball leagues to get people in shape for the Olympic sport.
You haven't played dodgeball until you start throwing them very stiff and unforgiving kickballs at people.
Ob Simpsons quote:
Disaffected Youth #1: Here comes the cannonball guy. He's cool.
Disaffected Youth #2: Dude, are you being sarcastic?
Disaffected Youth #1: I don't even know anymore.
Quote 2:
Homer: Ooh! Look at me! I'm making people happy! I'm the magical man from happy land, in a gumdrop house on lollypop laaaane!....oh, by the way I was being sarcastic.
When they came for the communists, I said "He's next door. Take him away. Goddam commies."
He referenced Bradbury's title, and in so doing evoked the primary themes of Bradbury's book. There's absolutely nothing legally, morally, or ethically wrong with that. Bradbury's just bitching about it because he doesn't like Moore's politics, and so are you.
The really obnoxious part is that Bradbury knows there's nothing wrong with the way Moore adapted his title.
I am a fan a Gigli - remember 'Spirited Away'? Its deeply emotional, eastern emotions - I give you that.
-- Contradictions only exist in thought - not in reality.
Never mind, Totorro.
-- Contradictions only exist in thought - not in reality.
So your great sports triumph was jumping over two balls in elementary school? Good story.
we put together an interest group that is funded by donations to make ads counter-arguing the ads put out by the mpaa and riaa. it's time to inform the general public and the movie/music industry about what is really going on.
I'm afraid it's ongoing trend. People just used to be so much more tolerable when we all were younger...
Hey, I played goalie for soccer in high school, and I broke like 4 pairs of glasses, but I was famous for being the guy who stopped 4 goals with my face (as well as every other limb of my body).
I will say that, from all that I've read, the MPAA will send your ISP a stern but dignified warning if they catch you trading movies via a P2P program. If you stop, no harm done. If you continue to trade, well...
The RIAA, on the other hand, will simply file a John Doe suit against your ISP in the hope that you'll negotiate a settlemeent in the thousands of dollars without even a warning -- or any chance to determine if either the RIAA or the consumer made a mistake. (Remember the granny who was sued by mistake?)
BTW, when did we confuse the MPAA with the RIAA? Last I knew, the MPAA's biggest crime was the whole DeCSS thing. They actually took a halfway decent approach to piracy with their (admittedly lame) commercials. They've actually been claiming that more blame belongs to the "cell-phone users" who IM their friends that a movie sucks.
If you'd split that into a separate post, you probably could have gotten two +5's out of it.
If I take my family to the movies, it's $5.50 x 2, plus $6.50 x 2 = $24.00 to see one movie. (Child and Adult matinee prices locally.) Now, those movies need to be PG rated or lower, or I can't take my kids. Otherwise it will cost me slightly more to hire a baby sitter and buy dinner for them to eat. Naturally, I end up going to see a movie after the matenee times when I hire a baby sitter, so I also tend to pay another $4.00 more for my two tickets than I normally would have. Whaa!
Also, theaters only take 20% of the box office the first few weeks a movie opens. So they hike the price of consession stand items to compensate. Which, is good business, but not very friendly to patrons. Not to mention their stands take on average of 10 minutes to clear your way through. So, you better be extra early if you want to buy that tub 'o pop-corn. Which isn't fun. And I can't pause the movie when I have to pee after drinking their 32oz of pop. (Which I'm suspicious about them lacing their drinks with pee enducing chemicals just to get me to come back to see the parts I missed!) And I can't tape it with my camcorder to re-watch it. If the sound is messed up, the screen is dirty, the idiots who bring their screaming babies are in force, I can't get a pass to re-watch the movie. One ticket, one admittance... I can't even bring my own food in if I wanted to have taco's while sitting for two hours. Bummer on convience.
So, now I've got a nice 50" screen at home, a nice set of 5.1 THX Certified speakers & Amp, and a DVD player. I can watch DVD movies at night, bring my own food - which costs far less, send the kids to another room to watch their own DVD movies, and pause the movie when I have to pee. All this for $9.99 - $19.99 which is the cost of a DVD. Or, better yet, for $3.95 - the cost of renting a DVD. And I only have to wait 6 months or less to see the film. Plus I get more content on the DVD.
The way I see it, DVD's are a better deal. There isn't a good reason for me to keep paying a premium at the box office. Especially if they are going to offer me less than what I get at home.
Clearly there is a desperate need to tighten up copyright laws in the face of this huge mountain of cash that is literally being metaphorically syphoned into the studios' pockets.
How can something be both literal and metaphoric?
I think someone's let their passion get ahead of their English speaking abilities.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Bad example. Owning too many dogs does create a potential harm in that the smell of a kennel can become a public nuisance, or because the public sector has to spend other people's money to clean up dogshit. That's why localities regulate kennels.
1. Disney may lobby, but if others take advantage of an unfair law they passed that hurts me just as much. So yes, content providers who enforce old copyrights are in the same boat as Disney.
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You keep repeating that infringing on the copyright of new movies results in loss of revenue. This is central to your point, but you've done nothing at all to back it up except repeat it. You can take it as an article of faith if you like, but considering that IP infringement requires a calculation of damages, the claim that downloading a movie correlates with loss of revenue could use some proof to back it up.
After all, watching a movie in the theatres doesn't mean you won't buy the DVD. Lots of my friends do this. VCRs didn't destroy the movie industry as was predicted.
2. Of course the industry cares that they lost me as a customer. That's why they're against piracy in the first place. They think it makes them lose customers and dilutes the value of their IP. If they didn't think this, they wouldn't be against piracy because they don't lose anything materially (except possibly in terms of brand dilution) when someone pirates IP. Or perhaps they're worried about people getting used to downloading video over the net and getting their entertainment that way.
3. MPAA is not a person. It's an organization that supports the interests of people. It's not unfair to say which people. If you want to 'be technical' because 'you don't like me' fine. It's unpersuasive.
Besides, the notion that IP infringement is theft has no legal basis. IP infringement is IP infringement. It is no more theft than performing an acrobatic act without a license is stealing from the government.
4.
Viacom and Blockbuster
http://www.forbes.com/2001/03/30/033
Paramount and Blockbuster have the same parent company. Blockbuster made close to 5 billion last year. The first distribution channel I could find.
http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/1998/April/182.htm.
If you want actual studios, Cineplex Odeon and Sony have merged. Cineplex brought in 500 million in 1996.
That's just a small slice of the industry. A merger is about as locked in as you can get.
5.As far as criticisms of M. Moore, there was an article just a day ago on Slashdot on the topic. I figured you'd seen it. Maybe not. The response: Jack Valenti, the outgoing president of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), said: "We are proud that American films continue to enjoy immense popularity around the world but the need for copyright protection in the digital age is crucial to the preservation of our most prized trade asset.
"Piracy is having a dramatic impact on the creators and copyright owners of this nation, and its defeat depends largely on the commit ment and resolve of the entire industry.
Article seem to flip flop on the Studio's official stance. One has them enraged, the next tacitly ascenting. I'll wait till things cool down a bit to find out where they stand. It seems clear they don't want people messing with their opening numbers, though.
6.http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=mora
from websters.
Of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character: moral scrutiny; a moral quandary.
Of course, I should thank you since you're really making my point for me here.
If copyright infringement is theft, it becomes a moral issue. If it isn't (i.e. it's simply behavior that is punished because it violates conventions for a profession) then it's an ethical violation.
7. Previously, there seemed to be indications that Lions Gate was going along with what Mr. Moore says. I don't know if they lack the means to prosecute or what their formal position is. It was shitty for Michael Moore to do if he didn't ask them. Some earlier articles seemed to imply that he had their tacit compliance, but it seems that might not be the case.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
The movie industry is a bit different. They release to theaters in film format.
Two words: DVD Rip.
Now I know what Randy Johnson was doing before someone handed him a smaller but harder ball...
why do you download and watch movies you think suck?
Why download a film? On the one hand there are people who want a free ride who will never pay for a film no matter how good however, don't think it is free, your paying for a fast download connection, the disks the boxes, a significant investment in time and effort and for what a 2nd rate version of a film?
There are the folk who sell dodgy copys at markets and you rarely get to see what your buying before you hand over your money and the quality is usually poor(I have no sympathy for these parasites). on the otherhand if you download a copy at least you see what your getting and get to evaluate it.
If its good then you will normally say its good and ultimately people will be influenced to go see it and probably buy it when it becomes available (or wait still longer for the collectors edition).
If its bad then it works the other way round and less sales are generated and i think thats the problem the movie studio's have; if there are not enough suckers willing to pay to see a bad movie they lose big time.
The movies show the trailers which always look better than the film you are paying to see and how often are we disapointed after believing the advertising with the actual product.
Imagine a movie theatre which gave you a refund if say if you didn't like the film within say the first 30 minutes how long before it went bust.
This is the real problem with video, music and software and how it is sold; if it sucks and you have paid for it well your a sucker because your not going to get your money back are you.
So the reality is that piracy copyright infringement theft call it what you will in reality allows consumers to get a better deal they get to buy whats good and reject whats bad in thier eyes and this is what bothers these industrys the profits go up on the good stuff the losses are more extreme on the bad.
Finally I have one problem with DVD producer's the assumption that everyone fully understands English. For me the best thing about being able to backup a dvd is the ability to improve it with a subtitle track in a language of my choice.
It makes life a lot better when you can watch a film with friends and loved ones and be able to share the experience even when they do not fully understand the language the film was made in.
If there is one area Dvd's could be improved in is in improving alternative language support, the studio's should at least consider the large numbers of non-English speakers who would be prepared to buy their dvd's if only it was in the right language; this is especially shameful when the film is representing these people.
Hey where did you go to school? That was one of my PE teacher's favorite twists to the most grand of all High School sports!!
Bullshit. What's the matter, can't wait 6 months to rent it, or something? No one HAS to see any movie RIGHT NOW.
There is no guarantee of quality or satisfaction.
Boo hoo. Tastes differ, you pays your money and you takes your chances. If you want to cry "poor" then wait for it to hit the second run theatres or the video store.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
That was so very insightful, thank you.
I'm going to try and work it into a paper next semester.
Cheers,
If you wanted to quote stinkers or flops there are plenty of examples out there but neither of the films you listed were good ones.
Waterworld. Yes folks, I went there.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Damn straight, that space is reserved for Backdoor Sluts 9.
-Ted
-=-=- Quantum physics - the dreams stuff are made of.
Interesting thing about those ads is that every last one of the people portrayed whining about piracy has already gotten paid long before the feature comes out and thus long before piracy can even be an issue. They don't wait to see how many people come to the theater before they pay the key grip or the costume designer. So the entire premise of the advertisement is bogus.
"The MPAA is accusing people of stealing their movies. We _don't_ want to prove them right. That only gives them leverage to take our freedoms away with absurd legislation like the DMCA!"
So which came first? The piracy, or the iron grip?
I didn't point this out when this particular story broke, but I will here. The author of the work (Mr Moore) is giving permission to his audiance. Permissable under copyright law. However copyright infringement is someone else making the decision for the author without their consent. Which isn't permissable. A very important difference.
"Boo hoo. Tastes differ, you pays your money and you takes your chances. If you want to cry "poor" then wait for it to hit the second run theatres or the video store.."
So, the movie industry should be allowed to misrepresent their products. You win.
"Derp de derp."
must be nice to see movies at such a low price.
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
These apparent errors lead me to wonder about the status of this LA Times article. Did the MPAA gain permission? If the MPAA did obtain permission, why didn't they provide the full citation details? Why didn't they modify their own copyright for the page?
I'm considering asking the MPAA about this article, but I thought I'd let Slashdotters know about the incident first. It's possible that the MPAA has the right permissions, but you would think they'd try to set a good example in how they provide the reprint. MPAA's anti-piracy for US consumers is 1-800-NO-COPYS and hotline@mpaa.org. I live in Canada, so I'll try emailing.
-- SYS 64738 --
Thank you. That is my new sig.
90% of everything is crap. Also, crap is relative.
I am one who likes to preview movies to see if they are any good. Many people cannot do this ( and still enjoy the movie in the theatre ), but some can. For example, I dl'd Spiderman 2 and it was so good I pushed my friends to go see it. Some were reluctant but I got them all out there to see it and everyone liked it. I won't say loved it, because that is reserved for films like ones in the LOTR Trilogy.
So, in this case, not only isn't there stealing ( copy infringement, yes ), but the MPAA + theatre made more money because of it, not less!
I can't afford a sig!
There is some seriously rich irony in your post, considering the band you chose to quote in your sig...
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
If not, what is the difference between these actions and downloading a movie that makes one theft and the other not? Hint: what was stolen and who was it stolen from?
The U.S. Constititution, actually.
MPAA/RIAA are two large organizations taking advantage of a legal concept that we keep around to help the little guy.
IP isn't even an amendment--it's as basic to our government as managing money or going to war. Yes, it's a bit too bloated, and yes, it's being exploited--but if it wasn't for copyright, we'd all be sighning contracts when we buy home movies, if we could get them at all, and the quality of the movies we do see would be much worse than it is now.
P2P "piracy" isn't theft, and you're right. It's worse than that--it's an usurption of another American's constitutionally guaranteed right.
(you can feel free to rant about corporate personhood stealing from real people if you like, and I'll agree with you--but the three types of "intellectual property" are a good thing that do more benefit than harm.)
5.7/10.0 is good? If you were in school, that'd be an F. Sounds to me like a stinker.
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
"the sea of humans around you is a major reason people go to movies, it's not just for the big screen and the great audio" Yeah, what you said. I got to watch Spiderman 2 in a row with a family of fifteen people who showed up late. Try as we might to give up enough seats, they were still scattered over four or five rows. As the movie is starting, kids are running up to the grandmother, who has to direct them to other rows. This is while the movie is starting, which I (and presumably they) paid full price to see. How do I know it was the grandmother? Because twenty minutes into the movie, a child on the other side of me starts screaming "Grandma! Grandma!" (Actually it was "Abuela! Abuela!" but the last thing I need is an anti-PC accusation on /.) So Grandma crosses in front of us a few times, as do other folks.
Is it me, or the sea of humans overrated? Maybe it's just opening weekend.
Thus, 10% of everything is nothing. Extend recursively, and I think you will find:
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
That's why you eat before the show, and bring a flask.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
> It's been a long time since I've played smear the queer or peg the fag
Nowadays, you can't call it "smear the queer." It's "Immobilize the Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgendered Individual."
^_^
ahh the memories...
There is a positive light though, if a movie costs $50 Million, you pay a mere $10 dollars to see it, that really is amazing to think that someone shelled out that kind of cash just to entertain you/us.
... The Adventures of Pluto Nash, or something, which cost $94 million and grossed $6 million. Those don't come around often, but they aren't the only worthless movies.
Shelled out that kind of cash? Are you serious? Say people pay $10 to see a movie that costs $50 million. They would need 5 million people across the entire country to see the movie to break even. That's 2% of the US population. A successful movie only needs to attract 2% of its possible audience over the course of several weeks in order to make money. That means it does not have to be particularly good.
"But where did all that money come from?" I hear you asking. "The big Hollywood execs, who are so cool, had to put forth all of that money from their own coffers!" No, they didn't. Put together a couple bad movies that attract over 2% of the audience, and you have enough money to fund more movies in cash. Do this for 50 years, and you don't even have to worry about it. Notice that movies have been getting more and more expensive as time goes on: they have the warchest to afford it. A Hollywood movie is barely even a risk anymore. You really have to do something impressive in order to produce a failure. Like Gigli. Or Eddie Murphy's film, from a couple of years back
Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
The bottom 100 all rank 3.5 or lower.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
"Clearly there is a desperate need to tighten up copyright laws in the face of this huge mountain of cash that is literally being metaphorically syphoned into the studios' pockets."
Please delete the phrase "literally being metaphorically" from the above, and from the entire internet. Thank you.
God is real unless declared integer
Just thought it bore pointing out, receipts minus costs are not "profit" as you say at one point, but "gross" as you say at another point.
The difference goes to paying everyone, and investing in future ventures. Most businesses, even movie studios, in the end only make an average return on investment to their stockholders.
I prefer to smoke before the show and bring a beer.
That's funny, but remember in some of his books. The robots did get around the three laws. The book was like a mystery were the reader and protagonist tried to figure out who did it, with the supposedly immutable laws in the way.
Copyright is supposed to be a quid pro quo arrangement. The owner gets protection for X years, and the work is supposed to enter the public domain after that. Put the work in a vault and let it grow mold, and voila, you got the protection for the time you were making money, then didn't have to pay off.
When one person pays first, and the other pays back later, and somehow someone ends up being ripped off, who in your general experience is the 'ripper' and who the 'ripee'? I know of very few cases where the one who is supposed to pay first manages to successfuly rip off the one who pays back later, and a lot of cases where it runs the other way.
Why is it generally considered good advice not to give the guy who is building a new addition on your house all the money in advance? How many business contracts carefully specify when different job parts and money's are exchanged to keep either side from risking too much? Would you sign a contract where someone was supposed to pay up 70 years after their death, yet that contract specifically said the person was not even required to make a will or designate who would be the person to contact when that contract finally came due?
The proof that many consumers have been brainwashed is simple. They have come to believe copyright naturally runs counter to the trend they have observed first hand in dozens of other cases and apply as common sense over a vast range of normal activities.
Who is John Cabal?
Despite the fact I agree with many people in saying that studios are just out to make a profit...
/. crowd has a nice set of whiners and complainers (myself included).
People also must realize that for every Lord of the Rings.. there are a thousand Gigli's out there... The studios finance projects they think will make them money. And they most certainly miss the mark on that one quite often.
As an aspiring director I find it so disheartening that people have such a hatred for movie studios.. They are the ones willing to put millions of dollars on the line to make a film..
And if you people hate Hollywood so much.. go to a local arthouse cinema and support people that make films with a budget less than they pay the catering service on most pictures..
If Hollywood produces so much crap, go somewhere else for your movie fix, and stop fucking complaining about it.
I do agree that hollywood produces a lot of tripe.. a lot films that are cookie cutter fodder.. but I also believe they make these becuase they know that people will see them and it will generate profit them to finance other things. These films are made because despite the fact that you are aware they are cookie cutter crap, %80 of the people that see movies are not aware of that..
the
it is quite the double edged sword. I am sure there are people in the studios that love to make the next greatest film.. from the most original material.. but ya know what? I bet even you guys wouldn't be willing to risk millions of dollars, peoples jobs and lively hoods over 1 thing that may or may not make any money..
now I am not standing up for studios.. but I do understand why it is they choose the films they do to make... even if I don't really agree with it..
aight I am a little drunk, so take my words with a grain of salt if you like.
Fuck you, fuck you.. your cool.. fuck you.. I'm out.
also, remember.. there are people that liked Gigli... though I doubt they would reveal themselves publically..
taste is acquire and relative.
Downloading a movie off the internet is not theft, it's copyright infringement.
It's not denying a corporation profits that is the issue. You can do that by abstaining from buying the product. The issue is getting the product *even though* you haven't paid.
Showing a movie to your friends is covered by copyright law -- small groups are ok, but the bigger it gets, the more it becomes like a public performance, and you have to pay royalties for that. It's just a line-drawing problem.
Waiting for a movie to transition to dvd is beside the point -- that's just paying the cost in a different way, plus it's not a violation of copyright law. In that case, you're exercising your rights properly as a consumer.
Borrowing books from the library is a public good that we've decided is great enough to carve an exception into copyright law for. It's therefore legal. But we haven't created this exception for file trading of commercial movies.
You can tape songs off the radio for personal use within the copyright law.
Drinking at home certainly has nothing to do with anything we're talking about here.
I really don't know how you manage to mix up things as different as (legitimately refusing to buy something), and (refusing to buy something but getting the product for free).
"but you cannot equate downloading a movie off of the internet with theft"
Come on now, please... How is this not a form of theft, first of all, if you receive this file from the Internet, it more than likely was "shot" in the theatre and now you are watching it at home otherwise your only other option is to Pay to see the movie, since you have now denied the theatre the money, you have taken something from them.
Ok, lets use your analogies:
1. Discount Cinemas - you Pay to see the movie, when you download the movie, you do not pay
2. Borrow books from Library - The book has been purchased specifically for this use, the book has been purchased with the intent to "lend".
4. Taping songs off the radio - you kind of got me there, however, Advertisers pay money to place Ads on stations that direct to their Market, Artists release certain hit tracks to be mainstreamed in hopes that it will spark album sales. In the artists minds, they are advertising, Radio is not really free, you are being paying the price of being bombarded with Ads. This is not the same as downloading the entire album off of some P2P.
5.Drinking at home rather than at a bar or restaurant....what?? one has completely nothing to do with the other. ignored. The price you pay is for atmosphere, unless you are taking the knick-knacks off the wall of you r local Fridays, there is nothing illegal going on here.
The moment you take money from someones pocket you are stealing from them, the moment you go outside of the designed medium and circumvent the process of payment, you are stealing.
Any gray area in there is a figment of your imagination and a means of somehow justifying in ones own mind that it is ok to steal.
Forest cover increased by 15% this month, the greatest increase recorded in 100 years. This proves that fears over global deforestation are unfounded.
ok, so this is a Supply,Demand thing eh?
This is yet another form of justification in ones mind that it is Ok to steal.
This does not have anything to do with supply and demand, it has to do with the ease of stealing.
If our banks removed their security systems and kept their doors, windows and vaults wide open, I think that we would have far more bank robberies. After all, why should one guy have more money than the next, I am a hard worker, I am entitled right?
Wrong, the way that you affect this little curve is to simply choose not to pay and avoid the movie, song, book, software completely.
"The mere fact that Hollywood is thriving illustrates the point that there is SOMETHING wrong"
What they hell is that? This is completely crazy, (Assuming you are from the US) is this not a for profit industry?? it sounds like they are doing something right!
Since when did we start questioning sucessful companies/Industries? The whole point of the article smashes this theory, if the Motion Picture Industry is having record sales, it is obvious that people are willing to pay the price, hell if anything, they could just as well raise the prices and they may increase their profits...
"I really wish Hollywood would just listen to why people would jump through so many hoops to download a movie"
c'mon, I could have my Grandma downloading a movie in about 10 minutes or less, it is pathetically easy, this is the reason it is so rampant.
...but your sig is missing an L in Carroll. Just thought you might want to fix it.
Set dodgeball to Stun
Aye Captain!
I don't know. . . My friend is a rabid fan of Hong Kong movies. They are usually available on DVD for between $8 and $15. The pirate copies are $8-$12 dollars; they're badly ripped and unreliable, while the real ones are in the $15 range, and they work all the time. This is in Chinese malls in Canada, and the pirate copies are stacked right there on the shelves along with the real copies. Yet, somehow, the Hong Kong film industry continues to thrive.
I see piracy as a natural method for keeping prices honest. A $28 DVD is a rip off. I hope piracy 'ravages' America. It won't. In America, Walmart will never have pirate copies, nor will American video rental shops.
And movies will continue to proliferate the world. Heck, I knew a guy who's uncle made films for Disney. --He produced one of those stupid movies with an ape which plays on a sports team. Anyway, he was approached by the Mob with the proverbial suitcase full of cash and instructed to spend it very wastefully on products and film Union services which would be provided. Organized crime has been using Hollywood since day-one to launder money.
The MPAA is about greed. --That and control. --Like this idiot 'War on Terrorism' the MPAA is a line sold to the naive designed to create a political atmosphere where putting people in jail for no good reason is accepted by the public. It's largely about control.
And anyway. . . Film and television are too important a medium of cultural mind-programming to be abandoned regardless of what happens to the market.
Sadly, there will be awful movies for as long as there is an industrialized human population. --That is to say, I expect we'll see the end of Hollywood and hockey-playing monkeys in somewhat less than a decade. Here's hoping!
-FL
"This is yet another form of justification in ones mind that it is Ok to steal."
If that's what you took away from my post then I'm not sure it's worth replying to the rest of your comment.
"Derp de derp."
I see your four pairs of glasses and raise you two broken noses!
(And yes, I am serious. I got quite a reputation for it, also.)
ND
This statement is forty-five characters long.
I give up. Downloading a movie is worse than stealing? What are you smoking? Over-the-top rhetoric just hopelessly trivializes an important issue. Where in the Constitution does one find the words "intellectual property"? In fact, where in any Constitution-contemporary literature does one find any Founder advocating this idea, much less using these words?
The Constitution authorizes congress to create a temporary publishing right to encourage progress. That's what it's called the "Progress Clause," and not the "Intellectual Property Clause." If you want to argue for stronger "IP" laws, you have to do it using pragmatic arguments about progress, not some soundbiteably spurious morality based on absurdly unworkable conflations of creative ideas and property. Assuming, of course, that a moral idea of "intellectual property" was your constitutional argument-- though again, I see nothing to suggest any merit in such an interpretation.
In short: Copyright law is complex, it's counterintuitive, it is being exploited by those who it wasn't intended for, it basically sucks three ways from Tuesday for many reasons that you probably agree with me about. But the unchecked, blindly lobby-driven expansion of copyright is as great a threat to our creative culture and the purpose of copyright itself as whatever nightmarish damage you might think P2P could do, and it has nothing to do with black/white concepts like 'stealing' or whatever it is that you call 'worse than stealing.'
Dude! When did he stop being all dead and shit?
Filthy rules.
I have an idea. All of you slashdoters will send me money and then I'll send it to various companies such as Miramax and Disney. All donations are tax deductible.
here's your quote:
"and then, ironically, they made more money off the technology than they did at the box office"
Incorrect.
The movie industry made money off of the ability to PLAY VHS tapes. The technology to record them (which in not necessarily tied to the ability to play them) is what was contested.
Now, back to P2P...
Read this slowly and try to understand: The MPAA is not trying to shut down P2P. They are suing the people who use P2P to distribute pirated movies.
I have no beef with P2P. I have beef with pirates, as I do with all people who exploit others wrongfully.
Actually, I think "The N" has some pretty high quality kids shows. But not available in all markets or with all cable packages, I'm sure. Probably the only reason I get to watch it is because I work for Comcast and get *all* channels.
||:|::
Nobody in the general public pays attention to them. Things are different among industry insiders. They only care about who did something that made money, and if some guy comes along with a script, and the script turns into a sleeper hit, there's a good chance his next script will be made just because it's his, even though nobody outside the industry has ever heard of him. It doesn't have to be the writer, of course, anybody with a golden record can get a crappy movie made. And very often a golden boy's idea for studio X will be leaked in rumors, so studio Y does a rush job with a bunch of hacks to put out a similar movie a month earlier. This is why you often see two major movies with the same theme, and one is garbage that nobody goes to.
Just FYI for all you people bashing Valenti, he's retired and was replaced with Clinton's secretary of agriculture, Dan Glick.
Get Jack Valenti on it.. I heard he's available ;)
I am racked with guilt at stealing the cocaine right from the nostrils of a ponytailed BMW-driving execupig
How can we help? Perhaps if the few people with Internet access and the necessary savvy work hard at sharing movies on the net, this could generate increased sales. Effectively through "free advertising".
If we all work hard enough this effect might be strong enough to improve the Movie Industry's fortunes. Sort of like how raido stations introduce people to new music? It's worth a try.
Environmentalism is the new Victorianism. Everyone ties on a green corset and pretends we're virtuous.
I have a one-word rebuttal: Toys.
And here's the explanation: When Robin Williams, an actor who's movies I always enjoyed up until that one, was asked why on earth he did that movie on Oprah, he said he had "20 million reasons", implying that he never thought the movie itself was a good reason to do it. Recall that he did a commercial selling the movie (not a trailer/preview). Ever since then, I've not assumed that his movies are good out of hand. He sold out once (some might say more), and I won't assume he won't do it again.
OTOH, although I don't always like Johnny Depp, I do respect him and have an idea of what to expect from him. And Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez have none of my respect and I don't assume that a movie either of them are in is going to be good (if it is good, it's usually in spite of them). Their reward for schilling Gigli.
So yeah, movie makers, from the actors to the studio execs, at times realize at some point before the release of the movie that a movie is bad, and still try to scam us into watching it in the theatres. And I've also noticed that the real stinkers tend to pull out the stops in marketing (especially actors hyping the movie). That always raises a big red flag for me.
Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
Freedom is Slavery.
Profit is Loss.
Bill Gates in in despair as the EU fine him a zillion dollars. How will he cope with only $50 billion to keep him going?
It was better than the alternative, though. The court wanted to divide Microsoft in two. One half to run the software business, and the other half to calculate Bill's wages.
I'll get me coat.
Environmentalism is the new Victorianism. Everyone ties on a green corset and pretends we're virtuous.
>It's not denying a corporation profits that is
>the issue. You can do that by abstaining from
>buying the product. The issue is getting the
>product *even though* you haven't paid.
This is not correct. Copyright has nothing to do with not paying for something you get. There are many (many, many) ways you can get a product without paying for it that are not copyright infringement at all. Payment is actually not at all something tied to copyright. I can borrow a book, I can read it at a friends home, he can give it to me, I can find a book and so on. In all cases I will have a product and read it without paying for it and yet, there is no copyright infringement. Actually, I can even steal the book and it is still not copyright infringement (it is theft though).
>Come on now, please... How is this not a form of
>theft,
Try applying laws regulating theft and see how far you get. The whole copyright issue and laws handling it would be pointless if it was theft.
>since you have now denied the theatre the money,
>you have taken something from them.
WHAT was taken???? Tell me, what do you now have that they used to have (and no longer have)? one can't steal "possible revenue". The payment is actually mostly irellevant and there could be many other ways to see a movie (none of which would be copyright infringement and most not theft either) without paying for it.
>The moment you take money from someones pocket
>you are stealing from them,
Of course. They had money, now they don't, you have it. Theft, and you apply laws handlign theft. You would for example not charge anyone with copyright infringement if they took money from your pocket.
> the moment you go outside of the designed
>medium and circumvent the process of payment,
>you are stealing.
Huh. THAT is an analogy I can't follow. Were in this case are the money (from the "pocket") taken? What money do you know have that the others used to? THAT is what theft is about. You getting something someone else had (and hence no longer have). Copyright infringement is something completely different.
There's a willing buyer and a willing seller in the legal transactions.
True, but whos the one keeping track of pirated movies? Certainly not the rippers/uploaders/downloaders. No way in hell would the MPAA have hard evidence. The government? Cue privacy invasion lawsuits.
Even if EVERYBODY was to cease online piracy for a month, and I mean ALL piracy, do you really think some big suit executive will say 'hey, look they stopped stealing our stuff for the month. That means we can reason with them!' Or will the same suit say 'hey, look they stopped stealing our stuff for the month. But our DVD and movie sales dropped by 15%. I know! Lets make false piracy reports and complain to the government to get a tax refund or tax exemption!'
Hey, real smiff, read what you just wrote. Do you seriously think that organized crime uses subsidies? Do you think the Mafia are as retarded as the government? Do you think that they use profits from piracy business to finance the unprofitable drug distribution or production of kiddie porn? If yes, you are retarded.
Criminals do what is profitable. When piracy is profitable, they use the profit to buy expensive cars, plasma TVs and spend vacations in expensive resorts. They don't use it to prop failing business models.
So by paying for pirated CDs and DVDs you are paying for the equipment of pirate groups, you are paying for translators, packagers, couriers, for warehouses, transport, wholesalers, retailers, sales clerks, web site admins, but not a dime goes to drug producers, hitmen, slave traders or illegal casinos. You are creating jobs and you are spending your money on something else, so the economy in general benefits. And stop that talk about crime nasties.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Michael Moore stated that he doesn't care if people download his movie from P2P networks. Maybe his distributors have something else to say about it, but he's okay with it.
You should see it. It's a good movie. Perhaps it's slanted, but it's hard to take any other stance on the issue. Besides, making Bush look like an idiot isn't that hard to do. Just sit around with a camera and wait till he opens his dumb mouth.
If you seriously think that the size of the revenues of an industry is in any way a measure of how much money is being lost through copyright infringement, then your logical abilities are clearly limited to hardware and software, and you should leave economics and finance to others.
If you also happen to think that the fact that a company makes profits (no matter how large or small) in any way justifies people with camcorders uploading copies to filesharing networks, or ripped DVDs being shared over the internet, then once again your logic has failed you, and I'm glad legislation is suggested and passed by others.
Finally, a load of articles said something to the tune of, "If they stop making shit films, they'll stop getting them stolen because people will actually pay to go see them". It's hard to grace a comment that immature and idiotic with an answer, but let's try: The quality of a service/product or lack thereof is not a valid justification for its theft, and to suggest that it is, even in passing, is morally and ethically bankrupt. If you don't like it, don't watch it, if you were willing to spend time watching it, such that you know if was bad, then there was clearly value to you in doing that, so stop moaning that it wasn't good enough. Yes Gigli was crap: I read the reviews, so I didn't watch it. If it was *that* crap, however, people wouldn't have taken the time to copy it, share it, download it, watch it, and then discuss how bad it was.
There may be good points lurking in the background of all this, along the lines of the tradeoffs between essential freedoms and the rights of companies to defend the revenue streams arising from their products through technology control or through legislation and lobbying activities, but the discussion is so incredibly one-sided and extreme, that it's hard to respect many of the comments enough to take the time to read between the lines, and it gets so nauseating reading through a lot of the rubbish that I end up abandoning the attempt before I get to anyone who posts anything reasonable.
Sorry about that, but I needed to vent.
Salocin.com
not completely true
Ceci n'est pas une
Well, I did think that the Butterfly Effect sucked, but I liked Along Came Polly. Owell. To each his own.
Sarcasm that matters. by CmdrTroll
I see the imdb crowd as sheeps.
I cannot understand what else than a mode effect pulled Matrix 2 and 3 so high, for example...
So always take their rating with a shovel of salt.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
>Also, crap is relative.
but note also that crap is good.
n*million flies and bugs cannot be wrong.
class he-man extends man!
Dustin Hoffman is Swedish?
"time is money" they say :-)
unsig
Along Came Polly garnered a 5.7/10.0, considering that imdb's audience is pretty highly squewed towards the male half of the species that's not too bad.
If you click on the rating, you will get to see a breakdown by age and sex, which shows that women only rate the movie marginally higher (never averaging over 6.3 for any female group that is ranked). Furthermore, new movies tend to be a bit overrated at imdb, which makes a low score even worse.
Personally, I try to avoid any movie with a score below 6 (since these movies will rarely engage me). Between 6 and 7 is marginal and I will only watch it when the movie has something extra (Bond-movies, comedies with Atkinson, etc). High 7's or more are movies I definately will want to watch, although I will regularly be highly disappointed (especially for newer movies).
Examples of blockbuster movies that stunk are:
- Pearl Harbor
- We Were Soldiers
Both these movies wallowed in silly nationalism and harbored an incredible number of clichés (introduce character, talk about becoming a father, guy gets killed but asks another soldier to give a letter to his family, all in the space of three minutes and they even dare to repeat that formula again and again, aaaargh). The sad thing is that in both of these cases, incredible talent and resources is wasted. For example, the visual effects in We Were Soldiers are wonderful. If the story and acting would have been up to par, this could have been one of the great war movies (of which there are always too few).
As it is, I consider these movies stinkers because they should have been so much better if you look at the budget available. The fact that some bad movies can draw a decent audience is no excuse. Those people have no taste in movies (IMNSHO), which unfortunately means that money and resources get wasted.
P2P "piracy" isn't theft, and you're right. It's worse than that--it's an usurption of another American's constitutionally guaranteed right.
Copyright is not a constitutional right for citizens. The constitution explicitly says that copyright may be granted by congress to "promote the progress of science and useful arts." That's it. You don't 'deserve' compensation. The constitution doesn't call that a valid reason at all, only to promote the creation of works can you be granted copyright.
The sad thing is that I'm not even an American and I know the constitution better than you.
I agree, Slashdot is becoming worthless. It is awash with idiotic posters who just cannot grasp sarcasm, for example. What a wasteland.
Are you kidding me? I'd love to pay $9 a movie. Her in London my local flea pit charges 18 ($35) a head, regardless of the movie.
Is it just a different aspect ratio from letterbox? Is letterbox 16:9?
Well the boat was the star in Waterworld. Shame they killed it off half way thru the movie. If Costner had died half way thru, I wouldn't of minded, but not the boat!
need a free COBOL editor for Windows?
Cmr Taco, we work for the entertainment industry.
We have read your sarcasm and we are putting your name down in our permannet record.
You better watch out.
Sadly, these modern programs are worse.. The programs, themselves, are traditional ad campaigns for merchandising, but with even less of a plot.
It's what surrounds them that draws my sick fascination. Take, for example, Nickelodeon's "U-Pick" theme. It purports that the kiddies out in TV land can have a say about what episodes are broadcast for that night, yet, these programs are all neatly laid out several weeks in advance. How do I know?
Because the listings have percolated through the listing agencies to my TiVo. So, the kiddies are being given a pretty blatant lie, and, inbetween shows, even shortening them, they get to listen to teen heart-throbs who are actual twenty-somethings try to emphathize with their young audience.
I don't recall having wade through fifteen minutes of Menudo plugging their latest album just to watch fifteen minutes of Superfriends punctuated with five minutes of ads for Superfriends spin-offs. Then again, I probably wouldn't let a kid watch that crap unfiltered, either.
Yet another reason to own a PVR.
Weapons of Mass Analysis
I only get the local analog package, since our regional cable provider's digital package is mutually hostile with the killer app for television, my PVR. Out of the ninety some-odd channels, I can usually wean a couple hours of watchable shows for the family.. My two year old daughter watches Between the Lions and Sagwa, while the wife and I usually watch Mythbusters, Good Eats, or the occasional Stargate episode.
Looking back at our viewing habits, I'd be a happy customer if ala carte pricing ever became ubiquitous -- I only watch about five of these channels on a regular basis.
Weapons of Mass Analysis
The movie studio executives are either really out of touch with their viewers, or they have an agenda to push which has not so much to do with making pots of money - maybe it's trying to ram _their_ viewpoints and morals down the audience throats.
Pixar knows how to make a movie which sells. They don't seem to need as much sex and violence do they? The kids want to see it, the parents agree it's fine, and voila 4-5 seats filled. Next thing you know all the kids classmates want to see it too.
But no, they want to be arty farty.
And for some stupid reason they want to waste hundreds of millions on Kevin Costner movies... Which of them was good? Dances with Wolves sure wasn't good - the people in the US just watched it coz it was a guilt trip.
Ok, so that covers the lawsuits - how much money did they make from selling movies?
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
90% of everything is crap.
and that remaining ten percent, 90% of that is crap too.
Read, L
Well there's a difference between "real/pro" 1920x1080 and "consumer" 1920x1080 displays where it all blurs out into effectively 1024x576 or less. Movie theatres will be using "real" equipment. So there is a bit of extra margin due to equipment quality.
My prediction is that we will see 3840x2160 in common use in 5-10 years and beyond that we'll have to move to a different way of representing images (like vectors and wavelets, something resolution-independent that would be rasterized to an arbitrary resolution by the display itself).
There is absolutely No justification for stealing, regardless of the quality of the product. I am certainly not siding with the MPAA or any of their affiliates, the movie industry is just a big fat cash machine. Who didn't know that?
Actually they say that the film industry created more revenue in the 30's when there was no competition to film. If you were to adjust the numbers for inflation of course.
As a cool side note, the top two grossing films of all time (inflation adjusted) are:
1.) Gone With the Wind
2.) The Birth of a Nation
I mentioned those three movies because they are what drove movie industries profits. I also don't think they are marketed to teenagers. Apparently you haven't seen Harry Potter.
I also find it odd you countered my sequels, with a sequel of your own. And you mentioned a movie that starred Matt Damon, the most untalented actor next to Adam Sandler. Bourne Identity anyone?
There are plenty of art houses and private theaters that show non-blockbuster movies. Heck I just seen the Triplets of Belleville at one of these. A good and original movie I might add.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Lois, this isn't my Batman glass. - Peter
While I think they severely overcharge for movies still, I'd say that part of it is indeed supporting the non-blockbusters. But to some degree, it's not necessarily the ones that will suck, but the ones that risk sucking. It allows them to go out on a limb with movies that don't have a precedent or movies which don't necessarily target a core demographic. Sometimes such movies catch on. As often as not, they fall to obscurity and live their life as cult movies found only on VHS tapes and DVDs. Now do they actually support such experimental films with their proceeds? Fat chance, I suspect, but one can hope, neh?
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Actually Jack Valenti isn't the head of the MPAA anymore, he's been replaced by Dan Glickman.
In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane. -Oscar Wilde
Viggo Mortensen isn't Swedish(or Danish). He was born in Manhattan(NYC), to a Danish father and American mother. Check out IMDB.
I am getting this info from BoxOfficeMojo.com and LeesMovieInfo.com, to give an idea of just what the rental take can be, in 2002:
Shallow Hal did $71M at the Domestic Box Office and $60M in just rentals. Fast and the Furious did $144M at the BO and $70M in rentals. It is also not unusual for a movie that did poorly at the BO to do better in rentals. Bandits (with Bruce Willis, Billy Bob Thorton) did $41M at the BO but $50M in rentals. It's estimated cost are $95M but it also did $26M overseas and we still have not thrown in DVD/VHS direct sales.
It is difficult to find DVD/VHS sales and rental numbers, let alone for the same time period. Bruce Almighty did $480M Worldwide at the Box Office and $120M in DVD/VHS sales. SpiderMan did $190M in sales the first 3 days of it's DVD/VHS release! However, SpiderMan's rental revenue was around $30M, which makes sense since so many bought it.
DVD/VHS sales/rentals can turn a Box Office money loser into a money maker.
A good current flop would be "The Alamo" who's estimated production/marketing cost are $140M and has done $23M Worldwide Box Office. I willing to wager DVD/VHS rental/sales will not rescue this stinker!
I used to always be the last-man-standing on my team. (I was good at dodging and catching, not so good at throwing)
What I would do towards the end of the match was collect all the balls on my side of the court, then roll them to the otherside and dare them to peg me with it.
Called me a pansy and stuff for it, but I would just brush it off, yawn, ect, until they got so mad they threw the ball at me. Then I would catch it.
Yay.
no
Gigli was critical acclaimed? Are you sure about that? Metacritic
Was I the only one made nausious by the incesent zooming in and out on EVERY SINGLE SHOT? I watched for almost a half hour total (the part where the lady says they'll set off nukes to 'fuse' the fault line... and then drill 11 foot wide holes 2 miles deep in under an hour to do it, with hand crank nukes... wow.) to count the zooms - they averaged 2 per SECOND for 10 minutes straight. I had to look away, but that left only the dialog.
I can't remember a single movie that made me cover my eyes, plug my ears, and squirm in my seat like that ever - and I saw JAWS when I was 8 years old. That was quite possibly the worst film in the history of film. Everyone involved with that show should never be allowed to work in movies again. Extra's included. You'd think at least one of them would have the courage to stand up and say 'no'!
I could've written this exact same post about myself. We had a game where you could win for your team if you were the last person left, and dodged 25 consective throws. Which I did.
And getting your nuts nailed did hurt; in my case, we played with 3 different balls, 2 normal size and one larger one. The larger one put me down for the day.
I miss the days of dodgeball...now I'm far too tall to be anywhere near as good as pre-puberty.
http://thechubbyferret.net - Ferret pictures and informative links.
Seriously! If you were expected to catch 'em all it wouldn't be called ... DODGEBALL! We used to go for the legs, then switch it up and go for the midsection when they least expected it. Funny seeing a guy jump, do the splits and get the ball in the crotch!
========
77 77 77 2e 6d 65 6c 76 69 6e 73 2e 63 6f 6d
What happened to the constitutional right that punishment should suit the crime? The problem with RIAA et al is that their remedies are heavy handed. Suing high school kid's parents to pay fines in excess of what they would have spent is rediculous and just plain wrong.
America has more prisoners per capita then any other nation. It is a sad state of affairs. The lawyers that run this country are ruining it by passing more and more laws that only serve to make work for more and more lawyers.
Will an Asimov-educated moderator please correct this mistake?
Actually, Waterworld ended up making quite a tidy profit, mainly from international and video sales. So from the point of view of the studios, it was not a flop.
>It's because they have to make up for all the bullshit movies they show that suck and no one goes to. .65 goes to manufacturing costs and promotion, and the remaining 2.10 is profit for the record company. Adjust these numbers for a given record company, they are the avgs of a successful record company.
This is common knowledge. Record companies do the same with music. Out of your 13.99 dollars for a new cd, 9.99 goes to cover the record company's losses for the artists that failed to sell (about 99.5% of them), the artist gets 1.25(minus studio expenses... in other words, artist gets nearly 0),
Don't listen to the bs that record companies spend more than that on promotion. It simply isn't true. The artists do 99% of the promotion by touring, which costs the record company nothing.
Record companies sign crappy artists, knowing they can increase revenues and monies for the studios, which you guessed it, are often owned by the record company.
Too bad they are going broke as people "rip them off". What a joke. I am glad kazaa and everything else is "causing them to go broke" they had it coming for past sins.
Life is a bitch. To think, all they had to do is sign quality artists only, cut their losses, and lower the prices...
I agree! Nothing entitles him to walk into the studio vaults and make off with the only copy of Gigli.
Um, wait, that is what you meant by stealing right? The dictionary definition of depriving the original owner of it by taking it away?
Or did you simply mean duplicating it without a license? Wow, what a heinous crime!
Copyright law was created to protect the market for the creator. Nobody else would be allowed to publish their work, without their permission. Just that. Nothing about guaranteed profits, or keeping people from seeing it, or controlling when or how someone views it. Simply that nobody else could legally duplicate it (outside of certain narrow cases) without being liable for damages.
I'm not trying to "justify" this, I'm trying to explain the point of the system. Original copyright law didn't really care about the idea of you copying a copyrighted work for private use, it was concerned with stopping commercial competition from profitting off of your work.
Listen, if I have a great idea about making a video game and I describe that game in intricate detail to a friend of mine, you are legally entitled to copy that game and publish it, even scooping me at it. However if I have a trivial idea about passing data over a network I can patent it and 0wn the int3rw3b. The point is that which ideas of mine you can use without paying me is completely arbitrary. If you scooped a poor game developer you'd be an ass - if you ignored some trivial "do X on a computer" patent you'd be in the right as far as everyone except patent attorneys was concerned, but the legal responsibility would not reflect this.
If he was duplicating Gigli and selling it he'd be taking money from people who would pay (however little) for the movie, cutting into the (however slow) market for the movie. If he downloads it for personal viewing, to evaluate the movie before making a purchasing decision, he harms nobody. He sounds like a collector who owns many movies, it's not like he never pays for anything, he's simply not sure he wants to pay for a product he may not like.
This demonization is silly. Copyright and patent laws go against the "natural" way of the world, in that if you see something you can attempt to copy it. They are intended to solve a specific problem with commercial interference. A technical violation of a barely-related law which doesn't actually harm anyone doesn't sound like it's in the same ballpark as depriving the original owner of their property. If we jump up and down and throw emotionally loaded terms around it'll get in the way of a valid discussion on how to best reward creators for enriching society - ideally in relation to how much society appreciates their efforts.
All three Danish readers of /. thank you!
http://us.imdb.com/chart/
http://www.amazon.c om/exec/obidos/tg/new-for-you/top-sellers/-/books
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
you can own a car, but you can't own a sound
but go ahead and think of me as just some weird communist
i know i am not, and i know i am the future
you go on with your bad self, yours is the way of history, of antiquated ways of thinking about electronic media
intellectual property law is just a giant whore for corporations, trying to own our culture
culture can't be owned by anyone
there is no way the ridiculous convulutued outright landgrabs on culture that the intellectual property lawyers/ corporate whores can survive in this world
we are in a period of history that will show how the landgrabs corporations are trying to make on culture will stifle innovation, not help it, and will actually decrease the bottom line, not increase it
and you and i will pay for it, with movies that suck, with music that sucks, all the while
want to movies to be quality, want them to make the most money they possibly can? then support p2p
i will leave it to your boundless imagination (lol) as to why this is so
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'd actually think about buying Nemesis if, and only if, they restored Wil Wheaton's cut scenes *and* pay him royalties.
Why do you think I want the extra hour of footage? They cut out Wil, they cut out Geordi with Brahms, they cut out Data and Picard's heart to heart, they cut out Shinzon's staging of the coup, and about 500 other scenes that really would have added to the movie. But instead of producing a special edition, or even giving us ALL the deleted scenes, they gave us about 6 minutes worth of "deleted scenes" (not even run through post production!) and told us that's all we're getting. And do you think that B&B would actually listen to us and decide to make money off of a special edition?! NO! They're too busy trying to find some way to make Archer fall into T'Pol's boobs, or get Hoshi on screen without a shirt. Bastards.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
You say that like it's a bad thing. Eye candy has been the only reason to watch star drek ever since they introduced 36 of Double-D on Voyager.
1. T'Pol is fugly. Hoshi is attractive, but why invent obviously-contrived situations to show it off? The TNG females simply wore attractive clothing. No need to go all Beavis and Butthead.
2. Some of us still remember the suspense and glory of Best of Both Worlds. That, my friend, was theater at its best, even if it was on TV. As the First TV Drama guy is fond of saying, "No, no, no! Build UP the suspense!" BoBW was all about suspense and drama. Enterprise is all about "History needs a dumbass!"
Yet TNG was truly special because they didn't just stop at BoBW. They went on to do earth shattering episodes like Darmok and Inner Light. They developed characters such as Barkley, and Dr. Brahms. They gave us entertainment and a future to look forward to. Even Voyager, in all its ridiculous moments, managed to produce gems like "Year of Hell" and "Equinox".
Name ONE episode of Enterprise that you actually walked away from without feeling gypped, confused, or just plain disgusted. I can't. In fact, I believe that B&B have screwed up the basic premise to such a degree, that a Big, Fat, Giant, Red, RESET button is the only way to make the show interesting again. Let's reset the time stream, start with a new crew (Maybe someone who ACTS like a Naval commander?) and modified ship (nukes instead of torpedos, Das Boot style), and let's go and fight some Romulans who can't cloak!
Do I hear an Amen?
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Hey, for me it was that Tripplehorn chick. Man, she is smoking hot. And as much as I like Sharon Stone, Jeanne was even nicer in Basic Instinct.
What?!?! Filthy's back?! Just made my day, man!
And I call "Humor impaired."
Turn on your sarcasm detector. This is Slashdot, after all...
Hey! My sarcasm detector just went off again!
Acts of massive stupidity are almost never covered by warranty. --me.
Copyright is not a constitutional right for citizens. The constitution explicitly says that copyright may be granted by congress to "promote the progress of science and useful arts."
Note that the US Constitution does not use the term "copyright". The actual wording is "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries".
It is very hard to reconcile this text with increasing the copyright terms of already existing works. As well as copyrights being transferable and outliving the creator of a work...
Copyright law was created to protect the market for the creator.
Actually copyright law was originally created for state control over what could (and more important could not) be printed on the then new invention of the printing press. The idea of it being about protecting the creator didn't happen until around a century later.
Nobody else would be allowed to publish their work, without their permission. Just that. Nothing about guaranteed profits, or keeping people from seeing it, or controlling when or how someone views it.
The "use-right" elements of modern copyright laws have been picked up over the last couple of hundred years, from various places. Quite possibly without whatever checks and balances they may once have had attached through "harmonization".
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
"Time is Money" (time = money)
"Knowledge is Power" (knowledge = power)
and power = work / time
so power = work / money
Therefore knowledge = work / time
or equivilantly knowledge = work / money
and therefore money = work / knowledge
As knowledge approches zero, money goes to infinity reguardless of the quantity of work.
So we have proven that:
1) The more you know, the more you work and the less time you have to accomplish it.
1a) The more you know, the more you work and the less you get paid.
2) The less you know, the more money you make - and those who know nothing make the most money.
2a) Those paid the most, know the least.
3) The less you know, the less you have to work.
(not original)
Acts of massive stupidity are almost never covered by warranty. --me.
Copyright is supposed to be a quid pro quo arrangement. The owner gets protection for X years, and the work is supposed to enter the public domain after that. Put the work in a vault
The "vault" in this case being called a "copyright library". A concept modern copyright laws have made unworkable.
and let it grow mold, and voila, you got the protection for the time you were making money, then didn't have to pay off.
Because it's in a "vault" it will still exist when it becomes public property...
Would you sign a contract where someone was supposed to pay up 70 years after their death, yet that contract specifically said the person was not even required to make a will or designate who would be the person to contact when that contract finally came due?
Without any way of knowing when the 70 years will start or even if it will stay at 70 years...
Shelled out that kind of cash? Are you serious? Say people pay $10 to see a movie that costs $50 million. They would need 5 million people across the entire country to see the movie to break even. That's 2% of the US population. A successful movie only needs to attract 2% of its possible audience over the course of several weeks in order to make money. That means it does not have to be particularly good.
Except that your potential audience isn't just the US it is the entire English (or Spanish) speaking population of the planet.
Notice that movies have been getting more and more expensive as time goes on:
So has the ticket price... Recent movies also have additional sources of income, such as TV and home video.
Only on bizzaro-world.
I challenge you to find anything in the constitution granting you copyright. Go ahead. I'll wait. Or, we can jump right to the relevant part:
See the part where you have a right to copyrights? No? Neither do I. It's not there. The only right in question is the right of Congress to pass various intellectual property laws (notably, copyright and patents). That same section gives Congress the right to collect taxes; is paying taxes now your constitutional right? Nope. At the moment there is a copyright law. But it's not part of the constitution. The constitution simply allowed the law to exist, nothing more. Congress is free to create or abolish copyright law as it wishes.
To suggest that copyright infringement is worse than theft is crazy. I'd much rather have someone make an illegal copy of something I've created than deprive me of one of my copies. An illegal copy deprives me of potential gains, and that is a problem, but it's better than theft, where I lose something I already had.
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Yes, but in this case, the copying is tied to the lack of payment. You can only get the file without paying by copying it.
I know, but when the aforementioned laws were passed Valenti was still at the helm. He's still guilty as far as I'm concerned.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Yeah, but that was an old-world thing, in the colonies they enacted copyright laws for the benefit of the creators. At least, I think so...?
I'll be sure to vote for Howard Dean this November! Oh wait... nevermind.
I have some Celine Dion concert OGM's if you are interested...
Of course, I'm still waiting for the collectors edition of Nemesis with the extra hour of footage.
Nemesis? As in Star Trek: Nemesis?!? Please tell me that was sacrasm or something -- that movie was quite possiby worse than Insurrection, and that's no mean feat. I mean, the whole clone business was such an overdone, forced and melodramatic piece of crap that I'm frankly surprised that Patrick Stewart (a former Shakespearian actor) even agreed to do the movie at all.
-Mike
"Because it's in a "vault" it will still exist when it becomes public property..."
I was thinking more of some of the MPAA members IP, where the orignal filmstock is in a literal vault, not a figurative one. Recent efforts to restore films such as My Fair Lady and Seven Samurai have revealed that there are lots of very old film originals growing mold and such, and at this rate, they WON'T still exist when the time comes for them to become public property. We've already lost some, films from the 20's, 30's and 40's that are irrepairable, and as the uncorrectable flaws in the restored copy of 7 Samurai show, there are a lot more whose quality is already compromised to a lesser degree.
"Without any way of knowing when the 70 years will start or even if it will stay at 70 years..."
Life is already a very variable term, and a life plus system favors the young over the old. Under it, authors get more benefits for their first works rather than what are more usually their best ones. As long as life expectancy's increase, the current law also has built in "inflation". As you point out, the law also has a history of being readjusted in favor of one side and never the other, and we have no reason to expect it to stay at life+70.
If the copyright laws were a contract you could sign voluntarily or renegotiate, would you sign it? Would you even negotiate? Or would you decide to take your business elsewhere because anyone who would propose such terms obviously has something crooked in mind.
Who is John Cabal?
The real question is: did you really go see it so you can make that comment, or are you just jumping on the bandwagon?
I can't. The three episodes I actually did watch convinced me that it wasn't worth the electricity to turn the TV set.
You know, it suddenly hit me that you might not realize what I'm referring to when I talk about B&B trying to find ways to "get Hoshi's shirt off". In any *normal* context, we'd be talking about sex and romance. In the case of B&B, things go a little different. You see, the Enterprise crew is locked up in their quarters after the "bad guys" take over the ship. At some point they realize that Hoshi has a way to crawl through the vents. So, she procedes to do so in a T-Shirt instead of her usual uniform. As she exits the vent in the ceiling, she somehow gets her shirt stuck on something. She goes down, her shirt doesn't. Next thing you know, she's breaking Malcom out of his quarters, and asking for some clothing. Oddest thing is, don't they were bras in the future?
Believe it or not, this is what B&B think of as "quality" televison. Blech.
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> the most grand of all High School sports!!
You played dodgeball in High School? Geez, we were past that in like 6th grade...