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Interview with MPAA Chief Dan Glickman
farmerbuzz writes "USAToday has an interview with Dan Glickman (Jack Valenti's replacement as the CEO of the MPAA) where he announces that the MPAA will begin suing movie downloaders. An interesting point brought up in the interview: 'At the time the RIAA announced its lawsuits, it said music sales had fallen 25% over a three-year period. The MPAA is in a much different situation. Box office receipts aren't down at all -- 2003's figures were $9.5 billion, the second biggest in history.'"
Sue this MPAA!
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Right
"A: My son Jon was executive producer of the recent film Mr. 3000. A few days after the film was released, a member of my staff found it being sold as a DVD just a few blocks from our offices. I called my son to give him the bad news, and he told me this is happening to all the current films. And then he said, "And what are you going to do about it, Dad?" Translation: Awww I'm rich beyond silly. I was the executive producer for a shitty movie that nobdoy wanted to see. Daddy make the bad pirates go away.
Q: To follow up on that, piracy has even negatively affected your family, correct?
:)
A: My son Jon was executive producer of the recent film Mr. 3000. A few days after the film was released, a member of my staff found it being sold as a DVD just a few blocks from our offices. I called my son to give him the bad news, and he told me this is happening to all the current films. And then he said, "And what are you going to do about it, Dad?"
Why didn't dad do something about it being such a crappy movie? I wasted a whole day's worth of bandwidth for it.
I'm going to state this up front. I'm kind of an asshole when it comes to things like this. But please, hear me out and I think you might find we have more in common than you believe.
The biggest problem with videos of movies that come out on theater is that they are in Cam quality on IRC. I download these religiously. I don't think I have a god-given right to them, but I download them like no tomorrow. If caught, oh well, it was fun while it lasted and the MPAA can enjoy suing me. They can "make an example" out of me. If someone can get away with using lawsuits to ask for outrageous amounts of money in damages, then I don't particularly see a future for myself, anyway. All I see right now is dodging one litigous situation after another.
Anyway, I steal because I just can't justify spending 7 dollars per ticket plus five dollars popcorn and pop for myself and a date. And yet, I'm suppose to court all these lovely young ladies that are gold diggers too. (Told you I was an asshole, stay with me, here)
I went to see Return of the King, and I think that will be the last one. Forget the crappy quality of the Cam versions, I enjoy the other little things, like:
1) Popcorn and pop cost whatever I spend on them at the grocery store. Usually about 50 cents a can and package.
2) I have as much room as I want, either on the couch or leaning back in a computer chair. I can even change my clothes while watching the movie.
3) I can pause the movie when I have to take a crap. Or to go jerk off.
4) I can answer my cell phone and say, "What's up?" without being booed and hissed to the foyer. Same goes with farting, people won't get offended and tell those pimply-faced teens to ask me to leave.
No, I don't answer my cell phone during movies (I have it on vibrate, I'm not a total asshole) but it sure is nice to hit pause and then answer it right there. Can you imagine if they gave people remotes so they could pause the movie while they used the crapper, got a drink of water, made out, or breast-fed the baby? Return of the King would have been 3 days long, not 3 hours.
For what it is worth, it's not the MPAA that is the problem, it's the damned theaters. They have to start introducing some things that I can't purchase for my home and use that to try to get me to go there.
Here's some ideas:
1) Private rooms or twenty-person rooms with a large screen TV instead of a projector.
2) A table I can put food, Goobers, or a UMP on.
3) Theater massages - This can include vibrating chairs
4) Headphones. These serve two purposes: first, I don't have to hear the little brats screaming/whining/crying; and second, the abducter that is stealing the screaming/whining/crying brat will actually get away before the mom notices her kid is gone, so the kid will grow up in a god-fearing Mormon/Candian home, far away from me.
5) Naked chicks. The theater girls aren't always that ugly and fat, why not pay the good ones more to give us a brief synopsis on the movie while in the nude?
6) Hell, maybe if they even started providing gas for my big olde SUV I'd start going.
Stop saying people are "stealing" when they copy movies and other stuff against the law, when they are obviously committing an act of murder against the rights of the owners, and murder of creativity.
Copyright infringement is murder, and should be penalized accordingly!