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Movie Industry to sue File Sharers
Wack Valenti writes "SiliconValley.com reports that the motion picture industry, taking a cue from the RIAA, is planning to file copyright infringement lawsuits against file sharers it says are illegally distributing movies online. The first suits could be filed as early as tomorrow."
'Sharing' of these copyrighted works is not legal in the first place. While it's not going to engender any great love for the film industry, this move is one of the many legal recourses that they have against copyright violators.
To be honest, I'd rather see a return to the days of 5 dollar tickets and extra extra buttered popcorn and a Coke for a couple bucks more than see the movie industry devolve into this legal sewer. With DVD sales doing well, it becomes more and more reasonable to watch a movie in your house. With the proliferation of file-shared movies online, the quality of playback becomes less an issue as viewers get attuned to the lower bitrates.
Personally, I'd rather go see the films in a theater and don't mind paying a couple bucks to do so. Lately, it's been getting outrageously expensive, well passed the point where one could argue that it was merely inflation. I'm not saying that file sharing would be curbed by cheaper theater tickets, god knows the addictive powers of the free movie drug. But I do think that they could really recreate the concept of the "blockbuster" with a little less take at the box office.
In short, file sharing copyrighted works is illegal. The movie industry probably shouldn't do this, but are well within their rights to litigate. I'd like to watch movies at the theater but not pay so much.
Well, what I find interesting is that they're going ahead with it, in the face of the RIAA's near-total failure. Sure, they screwed up some people's lives, but they haven't really done anything positive for their member companies so far as slowing the pace of file sharing. Come to think of it, they haven't really done anything positive for their members. But, hey ... maybe the MPAA figures that a double-whammy (music and movies) will be more successful. Personally, I doubt it.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Now that we have proven we are sheeple who will roll over for just about anything as long as the spin is right, why *SHOULDN'T* they sue?
As far as I am concerned, at this point we should all be doing our best to hasten the decline.
Everybod jump on the pendlum and push. It's gotta swing trough it's arc before there will be any relief. The United States of America has to legislate and litigate itself into its role as a backwater far off the information super-highway, before anything here can get fixed.
The sooner the rest of the world leaves us in the economic and Intellectual Property [sic] dust, the better.
In fact, if the corporations can make enough of a mess SOON ENOUGH, it could even prevent the stupid legislation.
Sue Away, MPAA! (hey it rymes, it should be their new slogan! 8-)
As environmental pressure increases, the organisim is forced to evolve.
So it will be _best_ for the world if we can all get the pressure up as fast as possible.
Plus we know how much credibility the US now has overseas. The more they win here, the freer the rest of the world will be. They *know* (hopefully) that if they follow our lead, then they will enevitably end up with a Bush of their own.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
It is not as flawed as you presume. The period is highly unstable and subject to external forces, but eventually it swings.
When you repress your own businesses, the market goes elsewhere. That is the free market theory at least. To date the swing of the pendlum often leaves countries totally devistated in its wake if it goes to far, but the regions recover even if the political systems don't.
I beleive that the current economic trends are tanamount to disaster and if the "ugly" can come on fast enough to be noticed by the populace they may act to fixe it.
We are boiling frogs here (to mix a metaphore). If the "Broadcast flag" (for instance) were to "suddenly go live tomorrow" it would be gone in a year. If we let it ease in slowly we may be stuck with it for decades.
As it is now, the "rising rate-rate of litigation" (yes, rate twice) is enough that our economic partners around the world are starting to notice and scatter. But consider that this change of rate has been exhibited almost solely in my lifetime (or more correctly in Ralph Nader's professional lifetime). It has not yet become ensconsed in our "perminant" way of life, it hasn't outlived a generation cradle-to-grave. It isn't "tradition", so it is possible to escape it *IF* we can get the public to see the precipice.
I don't really "wish" for the colapse as some kind of nielist orgastic ideal. I have just become convinced that it is essentially enevitable.
(To continue to mix metaphores) we *really* need to pull the band-aid(tm) off quick, or we are going to lose a _heck_ of a lot of hair... 8-)
But even if the entire United States colapses economically (which would be hard to do given that we grow lots of food) business and creativity will simply rise somewhere else.
It's not a pretty pendulum. It's not a "local" pendulum. But the cycle persists.
Wehn it gets totally out of wack, we (editorial we not royal or possessive we) throw a war...
Oh wait...
How many wars does any given "we" get before the world calls a time-out? 8-)
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
Lesssee here. You willingly re-elected a president who has done more damage to the bill of rights than any person in the country's history. A man who has shown a clear preference for the interests of large corporations over the people he is supposed to lead. So the *AA's abusive and heavy handed tactics are surprising... how?
It seems that this is clearly the kind of thing Americans want. If the capacity for outrage doesn't exist for prisoners of war abused in Iraq, if it doesn't exist for voting machine manufacturers pledging money and support for only one party, if it doesn't exist for the zero accountability expected of the Enron, Worldcom, and Haliburton criminals... why should any American give a second thought to the people who will be fscked by the MPAA?
As has been said by people more eloquent than I, it's too late anyway.
"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face, it's just a goddamned piece of paper!" - George W. Bush Nov. 2005