MPAA to Sue BitTorrent Tracker Servers

Mirkon writes "The Register and Reuters report that the Motion Picture Association of America is planning to begin a legal assault on websites that host BitTorrent trackers for copyrighted movie files. An announcement is supposed to be made by the MPAA President/CEO today, along with help from CEO of private P2P network developer Red Swoosh, and the CEO of BayTSP, 'which offers file-branding and -tracking applications.' Not that they have any vested interests in this of course. Though the articles take care to mention that this action is not against standard users, how long is it until BitTorrent itself is targeted?" Apropos of nothing, I saw a movie in the theaters a few days ago. At the official start time, the lights dimmed. Then there were 14 minutes of commercials (Pepsi, hair mousse, cologne, etc.) followed by 13 minutes of movie trailers (which are also advertising), followed by a few minutes of junk, followed by a 100-minute movie. I can't imagine why people would want to download movies when they have that great theater experience to compare against.

Comments

ATTENTION

[Anonymous Coward]

Please make sure you do not link to Bittorrent sites here on Slashdot, such as suprnova.org. If you do, then Slashdot will become liable as they'll be linking to a site that links to copyright materials.

Also, if that happens, please make sure you remove all links to Slashdot, or links to sites that link to Slashdot, as you'll also be liable.

P.S. michael, we're sorry you didn't like Blade Trinity, but Triple H was pretty hot, right?

Re:ATTENTION

[Anonymous Coward]

Like "no legal authorities are allowed to view this site," "these downloads are only provided for evaluation purpose, please support the original authors," and "this site is legal, by law NoSuchLaw-343778sXYZ you must delete what you downloaded within 24 hours"?

Re:ATTENTION

[cpt kangarooski]

What exactly makes you think that those work?

Re:ATTENTION

[hunterx11]

You mean Code 431.322.12 of the Internet Privacy Act won't protect me? Damn, and I thought my warez site had foolproof protection...

Vote with dollars

[BWJones]

Apropos of nothing, I saw a movie in the theaters a few days ago. At the official start time, the lights dimmed. Then there were 14 minutes of commercials (Pepsi, hair mousse, cologne, etc.) followed by 13 minutes of movie trailers (which are also advertising, of course), followed by a few minutes of junk, followed by a 100-minute movie.

Then why did you include it in your post? Say this in a comment instead. Anyhow, I will respond: I agree that it is silly and frustrating to have to sit through tons of ads before a movie, the length of time by the way standard so you cannot say "I will simply come ten minutes later". Additionally, ads are appearing in front of DVD movies which works for nationally known companies but not so well for smaller local companies which I am sure is one of the biggest reasons behind the push of On Demand. Namely the ability to sell localized content ads for an "at home audience". We are going to be faced with a deluge of ads (even intimately targeted ads) no matter what. The way to deal with it is vote with your dollars.

Re:Vote with dollars

[wo1verin3]

The only ad that pissed me off is the one about copying movies, getting really tired of seeing it, and I see it several times a month. I don't copy movies, I go to see them in theatres. Yet after giving my money to the theatre I need to learn a lesson about how stealing is wrong.

ugh. /rant

Re:Vote with dollars

[ClownsScareMe]

Then there were 14 minutes of commercials (Pepsi, hair mousse, cologne, etc.) followed by 13 minutes of movie trailers (which are also advertising, of course), followed by a few minutes of junk, followed by a 100-minute movie.

The same thing happened to me this weekend. And just when I was getting frustrated I thought, "But, wait, I'm still here and until it get's bad enough for me to stop going to the theater they're going to keep shoveling the crap on us."

Re:Vote with dollars

[Anonymous Coward]

I watch several new movies a month, and I have never seen that ad. Maybe I should go to a theater some time to catch it.

Re:Vote with dollars

[glwtta]

The way to deal with it is vote with your dollars.

I thought I was!

But apparently suprnova is now going to get sued because of it.

Re:Vote with dollars

[rjelks]

If that ad really bugs you, just download a cam version of the movie...they usually edit out the commercials.

Re:Vote with dollars

[frostfreek]

Additionally, ads are appearing in front of DVD movies

Here's little tip:
Even if the DVD advert has disabled the fast forward buttons and the root-menu button, you can still hit 'stop', and then 'menu', which will bypass the ads. Maybe I shouldn't leak my secret, or they'll come up with a bug(feature) for that, too.

'Course, if it's a VHS tape, you can use a pair of scissors... Snip!

Re:Vote with dollars

[hackstraw]

The way to deal with it is vote with your dollars.

Unfortunately, this will not work. If that were the case, then only cars that don't need to advertise are the only viable ones to buy (Rolls Royce, Ferrari, Bentley, etc) And even those may advertise in higher dollar markets that I'm simply not a member of.

However, money protests may work if people demand their money back after watching an advertiser supported movie. I simply refuse to pay a rental fee for any rented movie that has ads that are blocked out by the remote. That has got to be one of the most annoying things out there. I hear that Disney does that with thier store bought DVDs.

I believe that there are simply too many mouths to feed and not enough real jobs to fill them. Its getting to the point that I feel like I'm being accosted by a begger everywhere I go, but the people begging are typically people that have more money than I do. Salesmen lying to me and badgering me all the time. Telemarketers. SPAM. Billboards. Ads are _everywhere_. Baseball has greenscreened the infield to overlay different ads, because one was not enough. Tickmaster shoves more ads down my throat and these people are a monopoly in providing different random (I love those 2 terms together) numbers to people, and asking me to PAY MORE for printing the damn tickets on my own printer and paper. Ads have been integrated into movies for some time as called "product placement" ads. I only see people drinking Dunken Doughnuts coffee in movies. Sometimes they are downright distracting to the point that I think I can hear the marketing dweebie from the paying company in the background yelling "Please keep the product label visable at all times!"

Oh, and with the MPAA. Go for it. What are you going to sue for? What are you going to get? I've never downloaded a movie off of the net because I consider it a waste of time. If I really want a movie that bad, I'll pay the $20 at a store for it.

It is about time that the members of the ??AA groups start thinking about what they are going to do about their stupid antiquated business model. Its not that difficult, but I guess these people are simply that stupid. There is supply and demand and cost is relative to that supply and demand. The demand appears to be there. I mean people spend a great amount of time downloading low quality crap all the time where the downloads don't finish, the quality is worse than they thought, the movie just sucks, and so on. If these people can't figure out a way to entice people to pay something for their product, then they deserve to go out of business like all other businesses that can't make it.

Re:Vote with dollars

[Eggplant62]

Yep, I agree. Trailers are informative. I see enough Pepsi ads on billboards, on tv, hear them on the radio, in newspapers, magazines, etc. I can understand promoting a product but c'mon, don't these big companies have enough exposure already? I can't picture going anywhere in the developed countries in the world and finding people who *don't* know what the hell Pepsi or any other big name brand item is.

Re:Vote with dollars

[SoSueMe]

If everyone did, this crap would stop.

Naa, they'd just blame it on piracy.

Re:Vote with dollars

[einTier]

I think a lot of the commercial advertisements benefit the movie theatre and not the movie producers. I hadn't really thought about commercials in the movies in some time, then after reading this article, I thought, "hmmm... I do seem to recall a period of time when it seemed like half the 'previews' were commercials. Come to think of it, there are less previews than there used to be...."

Then I remembered, I started going to a movie theatre that caters to movie enthusiasts. I can't remember the last time I saw an advertisement before the feature movie. I also can't remember the last time someone talked during a movie or was disruptive or anyone under the age of 18 was in attendance. No screaming babies either. Maybe because they don't allow children under 6 at all, and no one under 18 without parents and they are very intolerant of bullshit and very responsive about complaints.

Somehow, they still manage to charge about the same price as every other theatre in town. No wonder I go there for every movie -- and if it doesn't show there, I wait for DVD.

There are good movie theatres out there, you just have to find them.

Re:Vote with dollars

[TopShelf]

The DVD ads are particularly frustrating for those of us with small kids. Picture the following scenario. You've just gotten the 2.5 year-old twins and their 1.5 year old younger brother buckled into the minivan for that long drive, and you're lucky enough to have them all clamoring for, say, a Wiggles video. You fire up the DVD player and here come the ads...

"No, I don't want to see Barney, I wanted the Wiggles"
"No, let's watch Barney"
"No, Wiggles!"
"Barney!"
"Wiggles"
A great wailing and gnashing of teeth commences. In the back, the kids are also upset as they ads roll on.
"Wait - where'd Barney go?"
"Look, it's Blue's Clues. I want to watch Blue's Clues."
"No, where'd Barney go? AAAAaaaahhhhhh!"

I've had good luck with Sesame Street and Dora the Explorer videos letting you get right to the content, but that's the exception, not the norm...

Re:Vote with dollars

[jschottm]

Um, no, that's not voting with your dollars, that's taking someones work without their permission. Voting with your dollars is supporting theatres that don't bury you in ads, supporting things such as the Indepedent Film Channel (or whatever it's called - I don't have TV so I'm not sure what it's called these days).

Don't pretend you're on some kind of moral high ground. Ghandi didn't take British salt, he made his own.

Re:Vote with dollars

[homer_ca]

Sure, you could show up late to miss the commercials, but how do you know if this time it's 25 minutes of commercials or 15 minutes of commercials? Plus you'll probably end up with a crappy seat like the front corner. You just have to know your priorities. To me, it's not that important to see a movie the first week it's out. I can wait a month or two to see it in the $3 theater or wait a few months more than that for the rental. The $3 theater isn't the place to impress a date, but it's a good value. They show 3 trailers then straight to the movie.

Re:Vote with dollars

[Firethorn]

And the movie industry wonders why movie theaters aren't performing well.

Take the family of four(I live in a cheap area): Tickets: $18 (two adults @$5, two kids @$4)
Popcorn&Soda: $20 (easy, for four drinks & two large popcorns).
Total: $38

At home:
Buy DVD: $20
Popcorn: $1-4 (air popped/butter or microwave)
Soda: $2-3 (couple two-liters)
Total: $27, and you get to keep the movie.
If you rent: ~$10-12?

Re:Vote with dollars

[sahonen]

When I was at the Return of the King midnight showing:

Poor underpaid stagehand: Please don't download movies off the internet Someone in audience: Did anyone get that on video? Someone else: Yeah, I'll put it on Kazaa when I get home.

That was a rowdy crowd that night.

Re:Vote with dollars

[The Snowman]

The only ad that pissed me off is the one about copying movies, getting really tired of seeing it, and I see it several times a month. I don't copy movies, I go to see them in theatres. Yet after giving my money to the theatre I need to learn a lesson about how stealing is wrong.

I find that ad funny. It shows some cameraman or keygrip talking about how movie pirating makes his family starve. Meanwhile, Keanu Reeves made over $10,000,000 to jump around against a green background with cables and pullies to make The Matrix movies, and the suits who run the entertainment companies have personal jets, yachts, and other luxury items.

Piracy is not killing the entertainment industry, corporate greed is. Although much like BSD, rumors of the industry's death are greatly exaggerated.

Re:Vote with dollars

[The Snowman]

Additionally, ads are appearing in front of DVD movies

Why should I pay $20 or more (I usually get the super-hyper-extended ultimate editions) for a DVD movie, only to be bombarded with outdated advertisements EVERY fucking time I watch it? If I wanted advertisements, I would wait for it to appear on TNT or USA. That and if I wanted analog audio, low-definition, and a castrated (narrowscreen?) image.

After years of saving up and buying components, I finally have a HDTV, digital 5.1 surround sound, progressive scan DVD, etc. so I can have the ultimate home theater experience. What kind of home theater is it if I am forced to watch something other than the movie I put into my DVD player?

Re:Vote with dollars

[lowrydr310]

Charging $12 for a movie is stealing.

Re:Vote with dollars

[jschottm]

Even the law refers to the act under discussion as "copying" rather than "stealing" for a reason--so it would be conducive to the discussion if you would stick to the more accurate terms already in use

This would be a whole lot more interesting if I'd used a word such as "steal" anywhere in my message.

the loaded terms that a small group of corporations are attempting to push into use

Actually, the majority of my music industry clients are small independent groups who are either completely independent or on small, specialized labels such as Sugar Hill. And they tend to use words such as "steal" and "pirate" to describe those that make unauthorized copies of music. Some of them choose to make their entire catalogs available for anyone to download, copy, or share. Some do select songs, and some don't want anything they do copied. That's their choice. But they're certainly not getting rich or part of any giant media corporation.

show me one moral code in all of recorded history that even took a stance on this intellectual fraud known as "intellectual property".

How about the golden rule, which you'll find in most major religions in one phrasing or the other?

If you want to look at recorded history as your guide of how humans should behave, you'll see that generally we've been rather poor in our treatment to each other and that someone powerful has kept other people in abject poverty in order that they might benefit. There are problems now, but I'd certainly rather be alive now than 500, 1000, or 2000 years ago.

Most of the composers that are now considered great from years past lived on the whim of rich patrons. Mozart died in abject poverty. Is that the standard you'd like to return to, that great artists have to choose between finding some rich person to kiss up to, die young and pennyless, or give up their dream of creating great works and work a day job?

Next, there isn't much of a history on the concept of intellectual property because technology has been enough of a limiting factor until recently that it's not been a major factor in lives. Most people's jobs consisted of dealing with physical objects and most methods of duplicating text, books, etc. were so prohibitively difficult, lossy, or expensive that there was little incentive to do so.

A very large portion of this country's economy is now based on non-physical objects, including your work, from the look of it. There's no actual difference in the bits that make up a wave file to your documents that hold your database analysis to your ruby programs - it's all just a string of 1s and 0s. The difference between what puts food on musicians' tables and your table is that virtually no one cares about what you produce (this isn't a judgement on your work, just saying that it's only meaningful to your clients) whereas music is appealing to a [comparatively] wide number of people. Lucky you. It's easy to cast slings and arrows at others when you have nothing to loose, isn't it?

You proudly support the FSF and even have a few bits of code posted under what I'm guessing is the GPL, but the GPL is just another form of intellectual property, albeit a very liberal one. If you view intellectual property as a "fraud," you should support placing all code completely in the public domain without any restriction, right? Think your clients would object to adding that clause to your contract?

The spread of large digital media and bandwidth have also changed the game. As a teenager, taped copies of music were passed around by my friends, but no one viewed them as a long term thing - they didn't sound great, they degraded over time, and they weren't convenient when you wanted to hear the 4th song on them. And importantly, each copy took a fairly good amount of time to create and the copies were given to a very select few. MP3s have changed all of that. (They don't sound great to me, but I'm pickier than most.)

Because without the act n

Re:Vote with dollars

[Atario]

Your analysis is stark and lucid.

Add to that the Dvorak op-ed piece in the issue of PC Mag I got in the mail this week, wherein he points out that the MPAA is going down the same stupid road the RIAA took -- publicising something the mainstream public heretofore knew little-to-nothing of. "Hmm, $38... $27... $12... Hey, you can download movies on the Intarweb? Neato!"

Good going, MPAA.

Re:Vote with dollars

[Lehk228]

Don't pretend you're on some kind of moral high ground. Ghandi didn't take British salt, he made his own.

and i didn't take anyone else's copy of any movies, i made my own.

Re:Vote with dollars

[Agrippa]

Theaters charge that much because the studios take most of the first week's revenue of movies. It is on a sliding scale payout (starting at ~95% to studios) and only after like 4 weeks of being out does a theatre realize any decent revenue on ticket sales alone. Since most movies are played out after 4 weeks, that's not a lot of profit. Therefore theaters charge 700% margins on the snack bar to turn a profit.

Essentially, theaters exist almost exclusively to sell you popcorn and candy and soda at ridiculous prices and use the movies they are playing to lure you in.

.agrippa.

Re:Vote with dollars

[sl4shd0rk]

Oh yeah. A good belt in the mouth usually settles it.

"No, I don't want to see Barney, I wanted the Wiggles"
"No, let's watch Barney"
"No, Wiggles!"
"Barney!"

*POWWW*

Have your ever thought about sitting down quietly with your children and hitting them?

Re:Vote with dollars

[hunterx11]

I'm afraid I'm going to have to be pedantic.

You see, organizations like the RIAA and MPAA like to say that copyright infringement is stealing.

It isn't. Stealing is taking a tangible thing from someone else without their consent.

The thing is, charging $12 or one cent or 52 octillion dollars to see a movie isn't stealing as long as people agree to pay it.

Overcharging is bad. Copyright infringement is (usually) a civil offense. Stealing is illegal.

Re:Vote with dollars

[bleckywelcky]

Actually, with the morons running some of these theaters nowadays, it isn't that hard to beat the sound and video quality of a theater. The sound is the worst, with bass cracking , tweeters screeching, mid ranges washed out, and their respective volumes all inconsistent. If you properly analyze a room in your house, setup the speakers accordingly, and then fine tune them, you'll have a 10x better experience. And what is more, you can add in an infinite baffle (IB) subwoofer system for the same price as a good quality box sub and you will hear bass like you've never heard before (if you have an attic or similar). As far as the video, half the time the screen hasn't been cleaned in ages (simply because it doesn't need to be done every day or week, so the theaters don't think about it much) and you end up with gradients of clarity all over the place. On a freshly cleaned or new screen, a properly calibrated picture will jump off the screen at you. Picture quality can be kinda bad sometimes as well ... at the very worst some parts of the picture may even be out of focus!

And that's just the technical details. You also have all of these dumbasses talking on their phones and letting their kids run around screaming like apes. Take control of your freaking brats you negligent morons. And the floor is sticky, and the seats are ANYTHING but comfortable. And if you don't get there early enough to get the sweet spot, then you'll be watching the whole movie with your head tilted up or to the side 45 degrees.

Yeh, home theater is the way to go. For about $1k you can have a pretty nice setup with a projector, few speakers, screen, and you'll have a blast with it every weekend - parties with friends over, etc. Sure, if you're struggling don't get one, but then why spend money at the theater anyhow? If you've got a steady job with a decent income, it's pretty easy to set aside $1k over the course of a year to invest in a theater system.

Re:Vote with dollars

[bit01]

Wow. It's kind of like reading the Communist Manifesto, if Karl Marx had been dropped on his head a lot as a baby.

I love the way that right-wingers love to tar anybody who doesn't agree with their particular narrow brand of capitalism as (ominous background music) A COMMUNIST. A hint: McCarthyism went out in the 60's and it just makes you look silly. Economics and markets are complex subjects and what we have in law right now is just one of a multitude of possibilities.

To summarize, you feel that it's economically unfair for some people to get paid more than others,

No, some people work harder or smarter than others and contribute more to the community and so should be be rewarded more. Unless their contribution is extreme they should not be paid so much that it endangers the democratic process.

so the solution is for unrelated people to screw over everyone in the industry,

No, the solution is that government should take back part of the privilege (copyright) they've bestowed on the industry because it's no longer in the best interests of the public. Note that I did not say all of the privilege so stop implying I did.

never mind that the people on the lower rung are the ones who suffer, not the people at the top.

That will happen in any system but it is usually possible to create a more fair and just society.

It is simply not reasonable that that a small number of people (in particular, the actors) should get millions of dollars for a few hours of at best semi-skilled work.

Why not? That's dictated by the public, not by the studios.

Partly. It's mainly dictated by mindshare advertising where the studio oligopoly simply crowd out alternatives by the sheer quantity of advertising they put out. Remember that free speech can be compromised by too much noise as well as too little message. Duplicate advertising is noise.

They certainly don't want to pay $BIGNAME $20 Mil. per movie, but the public shows time and time again that they'll go to any piece of drek with said $BIGNAME in it. That's a failure of public taste, not of the industry. I'd say there are actually more quality movies being created now compared to anytime in the past. It's easy to look at the past and think that their movies were better, but that's because the bad ones have faded from history and use and only the decent to good ones remain. Cable, the internet, and high quality, low cost video equipment actually mean that film makers can do more with less and get better exposure than anytime before.

In theory. In practice the market is completely saturated and when one player wins another player must lose. The major studios simply crowd out alternatives. People have only a limited number of hours in the day (hollywood is producing more than two movies a day now, let alone TV and foreign movies) and go with what they know.

Most actors don't get paid anywhere near that though, and given that an actor might get one good part every two or three years, getting $150,000 for a part isn't that unreasonable if they're a good actor. And trust me, a good (or great) actor spends far more than "a few hours" on the part.

That's my whole point. A small number of players, actors or otherwise, control a huge percentage of the market. Market failure. It happens, you know.

There is no such thing as a pure "free" market. If it existed it would be warlordism, might makes right, those with the biggest stick get all the rewards. Instead we have a complex legal and economic framework that discourages negative competitive behaviour (protection rackets, anti-trust, fraud, false advertising, stock manipulation, manipulation of minors etc.) and allowing positive competitive behaviour (improvement in product, lowering of price etc.). Even copyright law itself is a response to the negative competitive behaviour of simply copying a competitor's work rather than creating so

Woo!

[American AC in Paris]

Apropos of nothing, I saw a movie in the theaters a few days ago. At the official start time, the lights dimmed. Then there were 14 minutes of commercials (Pepsi, hair mousse, cologne, etc.) followed by 13 minutes of movie trailers (which are also advertising, of course), followed by a few minutes of junk, followed by a 100-minute movie.

Wow--heavy, insightful stuff. Looks like somebody is gunning for a Pulitzer!

Re:Woo!

[0111 1110]

Don't forget all those caring folks putting their feet up on the seats in front of them, kicking the seats, talking on their cell phones and talking loudly to each other to comment on the movie. Also those lovely people (usually women) who laugh loudly whenever a character speaks. If I stayed away from the theater I would also miss out on the loud crunching of popcorn and slurping sounds 6 inches from my ear. Unforgettable.

I do admit that, at least until digital projection takes over (at which time there will be [i]no[/i] reason to go to the theatre), it is the only way to actually see the film on film. Video is a poor substitute, which is why the MPAA should have nothing to worry about.

Advertising

[Dan East]

Apropos of nothing, I saw a movie in the theaters a few days ago. At the official start time, the lights dimmed. Then there were 14 minutes of commercials (Pepsi, hair mousse, cologne, etc.) followed by 13 minutes of movie trailers (which are also advertising, of course), followed by a few minutes of junk, followed by a 100-minute movie.

How many of you remember MTV, Nickelodeon, and other cable-only channels were originally commercial-free back in the early 80's?

Just because these media conglomerates are making money off of you directly doesn't mean they won't try to make it indirectly as well.

Dan East

Re:Advertising

[nurb432]

Not only were they commercial free, that was part of the advertising plan to get people to switch to cable ' its commercial free'..

That lasted a long time didnt..

Re:Advertising

[stupidfoo]

How many of you remember MTV, Nickelodeon, and other cable-only channels were originally commercial-free back in the early 80's?

Ad free television??? You Can't Do That On Television!

Best. Show. EVER.

Re:Advertising

[BWJones]

MTV was originally advertised as being "24hour music commercial free" hosted by VJ's who really did not waste much time in-between videos. Pretty cool. However, I made the mistake of tuning in to MTV a couple of months ago and I can certainly say that it is not "My MTV". Most of it is an ad for something including all of their product placements, and What happened to the videos? There do not appear to be ANY videos.

Reform

[millahtime]

So, the MPAA is putting comercials in the movies, sueing people that might help support the effort for movie sharing. Are they hurting for money????? I have not seen any reports on it.

So, is there a way to reform that indusrty? Or, are we just screwed. Will it become like tv where the movies get shorter just to make room for more comercials and how long until there are comercials in the middle of movies?

Re:Reform

[chemical_9]

how long until there are comercials in the middle of movies?

How about now. Product placements in movies have been on the rise over the past few years. If you've been to see National Treasure, then you know what I'm talking about. Good lord that had a lot of placement in it.

If you want to see one of the best documentaries I've seen about advertising, check this out. It includes the latest methods advertisers are conjuring up to get around the public's methods of blocking advertising in television (i.e. Tivo) and movies.

Re:Reform

[Drantin]

how long until there are comercials in the middle of movies?

Have you seen I, Robot? Will Smith wants everything vintage 2004...

Re:Reform

[C.Batt]

So, is there a way to reform that indusrty? Or, are we just screwed.

Are they forcing you to watch their shite? No. Yet you cannot, for whatever reason, seem to look away.

The key: look away.

Don't consume mass media, either free or for a fee. Just look the heck away. They will then reform themselves, or die.

Write your own stories. Make your own movies. Who cares if they're "crap"; share them with friends and give em to strangers. Do anything you can, just don't feed the established media industry.

Start creating. Stop consuming.

I know. Unrealistic hippie talk. Lay off the crack pipe. Blah blah blah...

Re:Reform

[PabloJones]

The day they start having commercial breaks during the movie is when people are gonna really gonna be pissed. I highly doubt this will ever happen, but who knows.

They seem to have an easier time with product placement, you know, where everyone one drinks Pepsi from a can, with the label facing the camera at all times. No more cans that just say "cola" on them.

Some movies like Castaway or I am Sam are even more blatant, making a company, such as Fedex or Starbucks a main character in and of itself.

Sure, it's blatant advertising, but I also think it ads a level of realism to a movie. It would seem odd if Tom Hanks worked for 'HDS' instead of Fedex, and what would he have named that volleyball?

Re:Reform

[John Courtland]

You are, of course, correct - but only for now. Once ads become super-invasive to the point where a normal person cannot walk outside without hearing and seeing them, people are going to start going ballistic (or at least I will). It's one thing to advertise for shit during a shit production, I'm perfectly capable of tuning it out or not going. It's quite another to bombard people with advertising to the point they have no recourse but to listen to it. I'm certain this is the dream of many marketers.

In fact, I'm all for advertisement. How would I know about cool gadget X without it? But the invasiveness and complete obnoxiousness of the current crop of ads really gets under my skin.

Re:Reform

[tchuladdiass]

From what I understand, FedEx didn't pay to be featured in Castaway. The producers did have to go to FedEx for permission to use their logo, etc., since they wanted to give the film an added bit of realism. But they purposely refused to take money for it, because they didn't want FedEx to become another "creative partner" in the film.

Re:Reform

[rbochan]

u are, of course, correct - but only for now. Once ads become super-invasive to the point where a normal person cannot walk outside without hearing and seeing them...

You mean like billboards clutter the highways and city buildings, bell-ringers, and those fuckers wearing the "Honk if you..." sandwichboard signs?

Re:Reform

[MMaestro]

Start creating. Stop consuming.

I know. Unrealistic hippie talk. Lay off the crack pipe. Blah blah blah...

Actually, I would say "This is already happening, look at the machinima scene. Three words : Red Vs. Blue." People are already looking away, just not enough... yet.

They have a point.

[CrkHead]

I can see that the tracker sites are providing information that can only be used for getting copyrighted materials.

I do not see this as a threat to bit torrent as it is not removing the arguement of having other, valid uses.

SWAP in person!

[MalaclypseTheYounger]

Again, I must proclaim this awesome website I found a few months ago:

WWW.MEDIACHEST.COM !! It's awesome. You can catalog (even use a CueCat if you got one) your entire movie, book, CD, game collection, and place the titles online for others to browse. Meet people in your neighborhood, get together with them, and swap your stuff. Watch each other's movies, read each other's books. Last I checked there is no law against that. (Yet).

And you get to venture outside, and blink haphazardly at the bright yellow object in the sky that you may not have seen in a while. And maybe make a new friend with like interests.

(Check my sig for a link to the website)

Re:SWAP in person!

[siskbc]

that this site is of no use whatsoever to anyone who has the good luck not to live in the USA,

So, what, he shouldn't have mentioned it unless he can solve the problem for the entire freaking world?

nor is it actually P2P

Actually, it is the most P2P method of sharing imaginable. It's Person 2 Person without the computers in the way.

Re:SWAP in person!

[imrec]

It's fast too! I let my buddy borrow a wallet of 50 cds of The Simpsons... transaction only took about a second... 35GB/s!!!

What if...

[vivin]

But the sites themselves do not carry the files. They only have information about the trackers, and are not involved in the actual distribution or sharing of the files.

So how do they plan to sue them?

As far as the last paragraph in the article... I don't know what to say... Let's say I wrote a new program to copy files from one destination to another and someone used it to copy a bunch of MP3's and movies, I guess the RIAA/MPAA can knock down my door and come get me... even though I had the totally benign idea to simply copy files from one place to another...

I guess they should attack any file transferring program no-matter how benign it is? That's like saying let's put the gun in prison instead of the guy that fired it.

Re:What if...

[TellarHK]

What they're going to argue is that the tracker sites are designed and operated specifically for the distribution of copyrighted materials. We might like to think they're on shaky ground with that kind of argument, but legally they have a pretty good chance of winning if certain things are evident.

1: Jurisdiction.

2: Intent.

Jurisdiction is something the MPAA has been good at manipulating for years. They'll find a way to get jurisdiction over anyone they actually sue, or mirrors, etcetera. Intent will be really easy in case of sites like Suprnova that have entire sections named off for things like Movies, Comics, Music, Games, etcetera. The sub-grouping of categories, show titles and other such breakdowns within those areas I listed above will be the most presentable evidence used to show "Hey, these people knew they were distributing copies of X TV show or music by this specific artist - they have a section with X's name on it.".

Re:What if...

[Sc00ter]

to facilitate a crime is still a crime. If you knowingly let drug dealers use your vacation home you never go to, it's still a crime, even if you're not the one dealing the drugs.

Also note that they are going specifically after trackers that are putting up torrent files to movies. Not after bittorrent, or torrents sharing, say, linux CDs.

People that post torrent files to say "The Incredibles" know exactly what they're doing.

Re:What if...

[Anonymous Coward]

Suprnova is located in Slovenia, who apparently doesn't care or has yet to care about what they do.

Re:What if...

[Relic of the Future]

Mod Parent Up! (Actually, it's already at four... so nevermind.)

The Law(tm) isn't like source code; slashdotters seem to have trouble understanding that. It is open to interpretation, and it can ask questions about intent (what you MEANT instead of what you DID). And it's pretty clear that suprnova's INTENT is to contribute to copyright infringement.

Re:What if...

[Michael Spencer Jr.]

They will sue them using 17 USC 501. Google for Vicarious Copyright Infringement and Contributory Coypright Infringement.

Contributory copyright infringement requires that the MPAA can prove there is reasonable expectation of knowledge of infringement (they can see filenames) and there is material contribution to the act of infringement (they're a tracker). Someone has to be guilty of direct infringement for contributory copyright infringement to be possible (so a dead torrent, where everyone's at 0% and nobody knows where the seed is, can't make anyone guilty of direct or contributory copyright infringement.)

Vicarious copyright infringement requires also that direct infringement happens somewhere, but also that there's some financial or material gain (pay from ad impressions) and some right or ability to supervise (ability to delete torrents, ability to block torrents at the tracker).

So yeah, once again the index service (like Napster's central servers) is vulnerable. We need to split up the file descriptions from the method of transfer. There are many ways to do this, but here's the first one that comes to mind: site A publishes information that 8BC288EF.torrent contains Return of the King, and site B is a tracker for 8BC288EF.torrent without knowing what it is. Site A then blocks (firewall, policy, etc) sites like site B from accessing it. Site B therefore has no way of knowing what it's hosting. They still must respond to takedown notices, but if they are responsive they don't have to worry about contributory or vicarious copyright infringement.

I had a slashdot story a few years back regarding an email exchange about this very subject. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/08/10/204922 5

--Michael Spencer

Re:What if...

[northcat]

Let's say I wrote a new program to copy files from one destination to another and someone used it to copy a bunch of MP3's and movies, I guess the RIAA/MPAA can knock down my door and come get me.

They can, but they won't. Because they have more important stuff to do. They'll only try to stop things that are actually 'hurting' them. *AA aren't mindless zombies sitting around all day with a badger waiting to make a programmer's life a living hell. Fighting a programmer/user/ordinary-person is only a means for an end - not an end in itself for them. And don't worry - they won't make your ipod illegal - unless there is some really piracy going on because of it. In fact, all the time I hear people crying foul because *AA are fighting against something that can be used for legitimate purposes but is used almost exclusively for piracy. People don't want to look like pirates but they want their free movies/porn/mp3/warez. Why doesn't anyone grow some balls and tell them the truth - that they dont want to pay. Before you start modding me down read my post again - its not trolling or a flamebait. If you think it is then get a fucking dictionary. Just because a post has something that you don't agree with or it uses strong words doesn't mean its trolling or a flamebait.

Re:What if...

[Tibor the Hun]

Considering that they're a member of the EU, they probably need to watch what they're doing, as opposed to their Balcan neighbors, or the remnants of the USSR.

Re:What if...

[Reziac]

"The Law(tm) isn't like source code; slashdotters seem to have trouble understanding that. It is open to interpretation..."

Well then, The Law[tm] should get a better compiler!!

Guess You'd

[The Dobber]

rather pay even higher ticket prices. See, the advertisers defer some of the cost of the movie, be it at the production level, distribution or showing.

Don't want to sit through some commercials, tough tittie, still doesn't give you the right to steal it.

Re:Guess You'd

[Nodar]

I used to be a movie theatre projectionist, so, I have a slight amount of insight into this. The AD ads, such as pepsi, coke, etc, are a function of the theatre owners going for profit, the trailers are a function of the movie studios that refuse to give you movies unless you put so many trailers on it (and the DO check). The new anti-piracy ads, however, were not in place when I worked in this field, but I can suggest they probably come from the studios as well. So remember kids, buy that 1000% markup popcorn!

Shrek 2 DVD (kinda OT)

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought the Shrek 2 DVD, and Disney forces you (at least on my non-modded DVD player) to sit through several minutes of adversting under the guise of previews/trailers before the movie starts. Skipping the previews is a prohibited operation. I can understand how they might do this on a $89 rental copy, but not on MY (MY) personal $19.99 copy. I should NEVER be forced to watch previews.

Re:Shrek 2 DVD (kinda OT)

[parvenu74]

And they wonder why users clamor for a tool that will allow them to rip DVD's for backup and conveniently drop all the mandatory commercials from the "backup" copies...

Re:Shrek 2 DVD (kinda OT)

[Attar81]

Shrek 2 is not a Disney movie!

Re:Shrek 2 DVD (kinda OT)

[Ours]

Yeah sure Disney. Shrek 2 is a DreamWorks picture distributed by DreamWorks, Universal or United (depending on the country).

Source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0298148/companycredits

Re:Shrek 2 DVD (kinda OT)

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations! This is the kind of garbage YOU bought into when you went out and supported the DVD standard! And now that it IS the defacto standard, there is no way out unless you "mod" your DVD player, which is arguably illegal under the DMCA.

Really, stop bitching. Every one of you that bought a DVD player guaranteed that this stupidity would triumph.

Re:Shrek 2 DVD (kinda OT)

[Erpo]

I should NEVER be forced to watch previews.

Well, from a techincal perspective, you're not forced to watch the previews and commercials. If you were tech-savvy enough and you valued the time it would take to create a back-up of the dvd without the prohibited user operations less than you valued the pleasure of watching a dvd without opening commercials, then you could rip them out. Nobody can ever stop you from doing anything you want to content on a medium that is physically in your posession if you have sufficient time, technical skill, desire, and resources.

From a more realistic perspective, though, that is a lot of work (and added expense) that not a lot of people are willing to go through, and personally the practice offends my sensibilities as well as yours. I think the statement, "I should NEVER be forced to ..." is an interesting one. I'm sure there are people who believed that they should never be forced to watch commercials on tv. These people are still around, of course, but I'm talking about way before TiVo back when subscription tv with commercials was first invented.

This is all just part of the larger push to make more and more money off of consumers. If publishers could get away with it, they would stick commercials in the middle of DVDs or add those branding logos/advertizements to the content like TV stations do. Maybe they will eventually do this once people are comfortable with the idea of commercials at the beginning (and end) of the feature.

I guess the stock advice of, "If you don't like it, don't buy it," applies here, although just boycotting something in order to make it go away is about as stupid as just voting in order to change who gets elected. You have to go way further in order to make a real difference. Start by not buying so you have some credibility when you speak, and then convince others to join you. I'm not slamming you here. I empathize with your problem. It's just that I'd very much like it to be solved.

Choices...

[lucabrasi999]

...followed by a 100-minute movie.

Of course, the 100-minute movie was filled with dozens of product placements (actor A holding a can of "Pepsi" while actress B says "I have to check my AOL account").

Michael, quite your whining. You chose to go to the movie. No one forced you to do this.

Trailers?

[Folmer]

When i go to the theater i like watching the trailers, and judging by the download count of the big movie trailers i'm not alone. I really dont see any problems with that, and if you have a problem you can always arrive late and miss them. When i was in the states a couple of years i could swear that they showed at least 15 minutes of commercials on tv. Every hour!

We should applaud this...

[which way is up]

The fact that the RIAA and MPAA are now going after the people breaking copyright law instead of writing legislation aimed at crippling technology and suing service providers is a good thing.

Now, of course there are still some stupid hybrid technological/legal measures they're pushing like 5C encryption and the broadcast flag. But if unlawful uses of file sharing/copying/archiving diminish due to fear of individual suits, then legitimate fair use will become a significant part of what is being prevented by these measures and they'll hopefully stop or be forced to stop them. Hopefully.

Disclaimer

[DHalcyon]

A bittorent tracker disclaimer:

None of the files shown here are actually hosted on this server. The links are provided solely by this site's users. The administrator of this site cannot be held responsible for what its users post, or any other actions of its users. You may not use this site to distribute or download any material when you do not have the legal rights to do so. It is your own responsibility to adhere to these terms.

Can anyone who knows about legal stuff probably explain to me if such a disclaimer is of any use for a BT tracker?

Apropos

[SilentChris]

"Apropos of nothing..."

True, that is apropos of nothing. Myself, (apropos of nothing, of course) I like mittens.

Rolling the same joke just once more...

[Lead Butthead]

MPAA: What happen ?
Minion: Somebody set up us the Tracker.
Minion: We get packet.
MPAA: What !
Minion: Packet Sniffer turn on.
MPAA: It's you !!
Torrents: How are you gentlemen !!
Torrents: All your MOVIES are belong to us.
Torrents: You are on the way to destruction.
MPAA: What you say !!
Torrents: You have no chance to survive make your time.
Torrents: Ha Ha Ha Ha ....
MPAA: Sue every Tracker!!
MPAA: You know what you doing.
MPAA: For great PROFIT.

Century Theaters

[readams]

Century theaters do not show TV ads before their movies. AMC is absolutely intolerable because of their advertising practices. I absolutely refuse to go to AMC theaters because of this. Century has all the same movies with a much better experience.

Re:Century Theaters

[bm17]

Is there some way of finding out, online, which theatres include ads? I would be willing to use that information to boycott certain venues.

Haven't these people heard of NetFlix?

[physicsphairy]

Quite frankly, BitTorrent is the less convenient way to 'steal' movies. I think there have been advertisements here on slashdot for it, but NetFlix is a business where you pay a monthly fee and they mail you movies, and you mail them back and pick new ones as often as you like. If I had the harddrive space, I could easily rip a hundred dvds with much less hastle than downloading them.

What I can't get is TV episodes. If I knew where to buy them, I would (Invader Zim, anyone?) but I can't find any.

So it's really a shame to have the tracker services shutdown.

Re:Haven't these people heard of NetFlix?

[CrankyFool]

It's actually tremendously difficult to achieve 9 movies a week on the 3 movies at once plan -- in my experience, it requires no shipping screwups and for you to actually return the movie on the same day you got it:
Monday: Netflix sends you three movies
Tuesday: You get them, send them back
Wednesday: Netflix gets them, sends you three more
Thur: You send them back
Fri: They get them, send you three more
Sat: You get them, send them back
Monday: Repeat

The additional problem is that it means you have to rip all three movies on Saturday before your post office stops pickup (which is typically earlier on Saturdays). The only time I managed to approximate 9 movies a week was when I was unemployed for a while -- and on average, during two of those months, I still only did about 24 movies a month, or a movie every 1.mumble days. I did have a month I managed to achieve >30, but it's not at all reliable.

I live pretty close to two distribution points for Netflix, and it still takes one day -- I've not heard of anyone who gets their movies from Netflix the same day that Netflix sends them.

This, of course, only disagrees with a specific supporting fact of your case -- I still agree with your overall assertion regarding the usefulness of Netflix. As a point of reference, in the 418 days since I became a member, I've rented 260 movies. If I was at all inclined to pirate movies (which of course I'm not, because it's illegal and immoral and I wouldn't want to deprive starving artists like Tom Cruise and Will Smith of their fair wages), why, I'd have one of those huge CD wallets STACKED with DVDs, and already have additional CD wallets on order from Amazon!

No it's not

[scheme]

just went to check on Suprnova to see if it's been taken down because of this, but today it has become a For Pay site! Sad day....

You probably went to suprnova.com or suprnova.net which are pay sites pretending to be suprnova. Suprnova.org looks like it still is the same as usual.

actually, vote with abstention...

[AbraCadaver]

Someone suitably creative could create a website that tracks how much time commercials and crap take out of a movie, and POST it for all to view. The idea being that people know how many minutes they can skip before the feature starts, and avoid all the commercials. I think the very existence of a site like this, and a good amount of traffic to it, could send a powerful message: "We are NOT a captive audience!". The caveats being A) someone has to initially watch the commercials to time it, and B) you could lose a good seat :P

Re:actually, vote with abstention...

[fubar1971]

and a good amount of traffic to it, could send a powerful message...

Just think of all the revenue you could generate with popup ads on the site.

Re:actually, vote with abstention...

[slashrogue]

My wife and I went to London about 2.5 years ago and one night we were there, we didn't have anything to do so we went looking for a movie. Browsing the ads for local playtimes, each movie had two times listed: when the lights went off and commercials started, and when the movie actually started. I don't know if it was just that theatre or what, but it would be nice to have over here.

Finnish Police & BSA Busted BitTorrent Site

[petril]

Tuesday, 14 December 2004

Early this morning National Bureau of Investigation and BSA have busted finnish BitTorrent link site Finreactor for distributing copyrighted material worth of million euros.

According to sources, NBI raided the admins homes today and seized all the computer equipment and storage media for further investigation, but released the suspects shortly after the raid. The site itself has been down since early hours of today. Site had over 37,000 registered members and had links to more than 6,000 pirated releases on BitTorrent network.

Read the Full story.

PS. If you are finnish, read this.

Which would work great, except...

[kwertii]

.. that the BitTorrent trackers will just migrate to places like Russia and China, where there are no intellectual property laws to speak of, and where the Clerk of the Court would laugh if a lawyer for the MPAA tried to file a lawsuit against people for running trackers.

What are they going to try next? Snooping on people's personal net connections at home? They'll add a trivial encryption layer to BitTorrent - just try and prove what's being transferred over that link to Russia. Firewall China and Russia off from the rest of the Internet? Make encryption illegal? I don't think (or rather, I desperately hope) that people will accept such measures.

The information genie is out of the bottle. Business models that rely on the sale of information are doomed. It may take 50 years for them to finally give up on these models - they'll fight tooth and nail to save them, since they essentially rake in mountains of cash for doing nothing except copying digital media, which is now practically free. The long, slow decline of the viability of selling information has begun.

On the other hand, the active propagation of disinformation in schools has successfully managed to convince many people that "drugs are bad, mmmmmkay..." in the absence of any rational logical supports for the arbitrary classification of certain drugs as "bad", and others as "not drugs". (Only certain drugs - caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol are socially acceptable and legal; marijuana is (somehow) not, even though alcohol clearly has far more deleterious social and personal health effects).

Perhaps they'll wage a similar disinformation campaign to indoctrinate our children to believe in the sacredness of intellectual property, and thus get people to accept that encryption should be illegal, to prevent information piracy....

Re:Ok, Michael

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

> Why not just quit paying actors millions per film?

Because the presence of those actors almost always has a direct correlation to the amount of money the film brings in. I know, I know - you're one of those people who thinks that they should cast an unknown shlub in every movie that comes out, thereby slashing the budget and enabling you to go see movies for $.50. But eventually one of those shlubs is going to be interesting/talented/attractive enough that more people go see *his* movies than anyone else's and *then* some crackpot capitalist will realize that casting that guy = more box office and offer him more money than the unknown shlub that nobody cares about - but not you, no-sir-ree! You go see movies based solely on how low-paid the actor is, because that's the kind of appreciator of fine cinema you are.

Stupid hippie...

I call BS...

[meanfriend]

>14 minutes of commercials (Pepsi, hair mousse, cologne, etc.) followed by
>13 minutes of movie trailers (which are also advertising, of course), followed by
>a few minutes of junk

30 solid minutes of ads?? Sorry, I don't buy it (no pun intended). I might see a one or two movies a month, and while I've never put a stopwatch to it, there is no where near an entire sitcom's length of ads before a movie.

While I admit that the trailers and ads are getting more pervasive, I think I'd notice if there were *28* consecutive 30-second spots, and a dozen 1-minute trailers shown before a movie.

Re:I call BS...

[Kaa]

30 solid minutes of ads?? Sorry, I don't buy it (no pun intended). I might see a one or two movies a month, and while I've never put a stopwatch to it, there is no where near an entire sitcom's length of ads before a movie.

It really depends on the theater.

Near the place I live there are several movie theaters. One is an oldish small theater. One is a big shiny megamultiplex or whatever they are called. Obviously the megamulti has bigger screens, better sound system, etc. etc. Yet I don't go there to watch movies. Why?

Because in the oldish small place they'll show me two-three trailers and then show me the movie. That's what I came there for.

In the megamulti I'll have to sit through tons and tons and tons (yes, 15-20 minutes) of commercials before they even get to the trailers. Really stupid and obnoxious ones, too. So I stopped going there.

Re:I call BS...

[Ubergrendle]

For Blade: Trinity, I timed it on my watch -- 27 minutes before the first scene from the movie started. I include 6 layers of promotional Movie Studio logos as commericals.

The way they trick you is through having 2-3 minute commercials... you're expecting a 15-30 second spot like TV, but in the theatre you're a captive audience...you can't flip channels. You're very unlikely to get up and leave in fear of missing the start.

In fairness, I sometimes enjoy the movie trailers...but they're still advertisements.

Re:I call BS...

[Scrameustache]

30 solid minutes of ads?? Sorry, I don't buy it

Including the trailers, I second the observation.

I might see a one or two movies a month, and while I've never put a stopwatch to it, there is no where near an entire sitcom's length of ads before a movie.

In what timewarped, backwards place do you see these movies?
All the newfnagled cinemas have a metric ton of ads. Around here it's more than 30 minutes, because they have ads running on screen before the lights dim, intermingled with movie trivia to keep our eyes pointed at the screen (if I go alone I bring a book and an iPod to ignore them, in groups you can chat).

While I admit that the trailers and ads are getting more pervasive, I think I'd notice if there were *28* consecutive 30-second spots, and a dozen 1-minute trailers shown before a movie.

That's why then. They have the 2 minute ads and 3 to 5 minutes trailers. They sneak in 5 ads when you expect 28.

Re:I call BS...

[TheAdventurer]

It's true though. Last week I was 30 minutes late for a movie and it had JUST started. The opening credits were still playing.

Re:30 minutes of pre-movie crap...

[kryogen1x]

See, even coming a few minutes late to miss the commercials will not stop the advertising. Nowadays, the advertising is embedded within the movies. Some do it pretty seamlessly, but I would hate to watch a good movie ruined because the producers had to go out of the way to mention Nike shoes.

Re:Question to all those who will bash the MPAA

[KidHash]

Downloaded it 2 weeks ago from suprnova

What this is about

[frovingslosh]

This is not about lawsuits against someone who is only publishing information about files, rather than publishing any (potentially) copyrighted information themselves. What it is about is someone with a lot of money filing lawsuits against someone who can't aford to fight them.

Re:You apparently don't understand BT

[which way is up]

Apparently neither do you...

Yes the tracker will direct me to each pieces, but those pieces all belong to a SPECIFIC file, be it an illegal game or movie. That torrent tracker becomes tied to that illegal activity by aiding the distribution of that specific illegal download.

So to user your analogy... the person who sets me up with johnny breakayoulegs(hitman), knowing that he's a hit man and knowing what i want him for, is also guilty of a crime under U.S. law.

I don't understand this.

[StarKruzr]

Why should it be surprising to ANYONE that a PAID EDITOR OF SLASHDOT gets a certain amount of leeway in editorializing in articles?

Guess what? This website doesn't just have editors around to pick and choose which articles are allowed to go to the front page. A well-written script could do that.

Jesus Fucking Christ. If you don't like it, LEAVE. Slashdot is NOT a part of the commons.

Re:I don't understand this.

[daniil]

The job of an editor is not only editorializing, but also (and more importantly) editing the articles submitted. Unfortunately, they seem to be lacking in both departments.

Jesus Fucking Christ. If you don't like it, LEAVE.

Noone's asking the editors to stop doing their work -- i personally would only like them to get some training. How about them taking a few short courses in journalism? Hey, i bet they could even find one online, so that they wouldn't even have to leave their comfy chairs!

Re:another approach

[bludstone]

I normally shout out during the "dont steal movies" commercials "WHY ARE YOU TELLING US?! WE ALREADY PAID!!!"

It usually gets some chuckles from the audience.

Re:"TacoBell won the franchise wars."

[mkro]

Actually, in the European release of the movie all references to Taco Bell were changed to Pizza Hut. Guess because Pizza Hut is so much bigger than Taco Bell here.

In Socialist Canada...

[AusG4]

Here in Canada, when you go see a movie (at least, downtown Toronto at the Paramount or some of the larger "Famous Players" theatres), they are screening a short, 5 minute film before the feature presentation.

The film, at first, looks kind of interesting. It shows a portly teamster-looking gentleman talking about rigging up explosives to place on the back of cars in order to accomplish the spectactular car crash stunts seen in many movies (the example they show is in Enemy of the State, when the Will Smith and Gene Hackman characters are being persued by the NSA agents along the railway tracks). He talks about different special effects techniques and how dangerous, yes rewarding it can be both for the stuntmen, and ultimately the viewer.

This, of course, promptly degrades into a sermon about how "I'm such a nice portly man and I put in all this time and then someone makes a few clicks on their computer and STEALS all of that hard work.", followed by the new catch phrase of a movie industry that recently made this piece of shit: MOVIES: THEY'RE WORTH IT.

Then, following this propaganda, we were all warned warned that staff equipped with night vision technology would detain, violate and then charge anyone caught with any technology being used to record the film.

When I returned home, i stole 3 movie off the internet... and I never download movies from the internet.

When, oh when, is the MPAA going to notice that even the foolish RIAA is way ahead of them? At least the RIAA has tried to "meet us halfway" with things like the iTunes Music Store and Napster 2.0, etc. The MPAA is still locked into their early 20th century mentality and shows no signs of change. Perhaps when the current crop of studio execs retire and the younger, more enlightened next generation takes over, things will start to improve.

Then again....

Here's the great irony

[Hershmire]

Ah, but you forget that they need encryption for their DVDs. And here's the beautiful part: once they add an encryption layer to BitTorrent, it will be impossible to sue anybody over movie sharing. Thanks to the DMCA, if they sue you, they obviously illegally broke encryption somewhere along the line and would be liable themselves (as well as nullifying their evidence). So they're heading to an oh-so-delicious Catch-22. If they lobby to repeal the DMCA, it will become legal to crack DVDs. If they don't lobby, they can't legitmately find out who's actually trading movies.

Of course, they'll then sue for the movie rights.

Re:Here's the great irony

[SiliconEntity]

Thanks to the DMCA, if they sue you, they obviously illegally broke encryption somewhere along the line and would be liable themselves (as well as nullifying their evidence).

Sorry, this won't work. The DMCA makes it illegal to decrypt without the copyright owner's permission. In this case, it would be the copyright owner himself who is suing. He has his own permission to do the decryption. The DMCA will not stop this.

Re:movie commercial database

[musikit]

call the movie theater and ask what time the movie ENDS, and how long the movie is.

if the movie starts at 6pm and is 88 minutes and ends at 8:42 then you can go buy your ticket and get in at 7:15 and not worry about watching the 75 minutes of commercials.

not going to happen

[RyLaN]

It's an interesting court case, much more so than the P2P cases. First off, they're suing the people who operate the web sites, not the seeders // leechers of the files.

Second, the three major sites (btmusic, suprnova and pirates bay) are all located entirely outside of the United States, where our wonderful copyright system does not apply. The folks at Pirates Bay are on the record as saying that in no uncertain terms to Sega's lawyers, after they received a C&D.

My favorite is the fact that more than 90% of the trackers I've seen are passed out over IRC. BT doesn't require anything more than a small file with hashes and a list with at least 1 other peer before it will work correctly. The seeders themselves have blocklists that are updated about once a week with any known **AA subnets. And then, once you get the file, you have to get the key from someone that trusts you. Generally people use the GnuPG password encrypt.

The final interesting point is, the RIAA suits are succeeding because they have thousands of incriminating files all on one user's computer. For this to happen in the BT world, they would have to start watching trackers and recording each time they saw your IP. The chance is astronomically small, but still there.

I don't think they can practically achieve a lockdown or manage to scare people off. Perhaps it will stop casual piracy, but anyone who's looked at the BitTorrent system is laughing at them.

Re:Okay, guys, let's hear it

[AndrossUT]

Well, there are just some movies out there I never planned to buy or rent or even have anything to do with that I downloaded, then actually liked and bought. Also, I'm a cheap bastard and would gladly screw over a faceless conglomerate of corporations by downloading a movie, rather than giving my hard earned $7.50 to watch it in a crappy movie theatre, only to be interrupted by that jackass with the cell phone three rows ahead.

They changed it for the VHS/DVD release too.

[Bob_Robertson]

It's interesting to watch Sly's mouth say "Taco Bell" and hear him voice-over "Pizza Hut". Also, the Pizza Hut sign didn't quite fit into the scenes it is seen in. Just that little bit off that screams "FAKE!"

I wonder if the voice-over was included in his original contract? Hmmm..... Paid by the word?

Bob-

Re:another approach

[Ianoo]

I find that taking a flash photograph of the "cameras of any kind are banned in this theatre" notice usually gets some laughs.

get back at them

[macshune]

I detest those ads too. Here's what I do to get back at them:

Caption:Movies. They're worth it.

Me [yelling]: YEAH! WORTH DOWNLOADING!!!

Always gets a laugh and makes me feel better.

Re:ATTENTION - Hate About Suprnova

[Nom du Keyboard]

Bittorrent sites here on Slashdot, such as suprnova.org.

What I hate about sites like suprnova.org is the trapping code that attempts to disable your back button when you try to leave the site.

What I wish search engines like Google would do is, when they scan the site, flag all those with trapping code, viruses, attempts to download known adware/spyware/garbage-ware, as well as list how many pop-ups to expect from the page linked to. Now that would be a useful search engine.

Commercials at "The Movies".

[michrech]

Apropos of nothing, I saw a movie in the theaters a few days ago. At the official start time, the lights dimmed. Then there were 14 minutes of commercials (Pepsi, hair mousse, cologne, etc.) followed by 13 minutes of movie trailers (which are also advertising), followed by a few minutes of junk, followed by a 100-minute movie. I can't imagine why people would want to download movies when they have that great theater experience to compare against.

I've already told the local theater owner that if I ever go to see a movie at his theater and get ANY commercials except the movie trailers, I will never go there again, and do as much as I can to make sure no one else does either. When he started to stammer, I told him that if he wasn't making enough to pay the bills that he needed to raise prices, not put advertisements in. It's bad enough that he has a slide show with local ads (but they play before 'start time' so they are easy to avoid if you don't go to the movie on the day it's released) We don't have any of the 'national chains' here. It's a locally owned theater.

If he ever does put the ads in, I'll just wait for the DVD. And before someone chimes in about how they will be in the DVD too, well, let's just say that my modded Xbox doens't care. I can start where ever I want on the DVD. That includes skipping the commercials.

Re:You don't understand Slashdot

[zod1025]

My concerns lie with the enforcement of overly-restrictive legislation It is my belief that I have the freedom to do as I please with my digital data, so long as I do not attempt personal financial gain from someone else's work.

Surely everyone can agree that downloading a DVD rip of, say, Shrek 2 and selling copies of it on ebay for "cheEp" is horrendously immoral and wrong. In line with that, no one would rightly complain about copyright legislation that prevents such scenarios *through civil remedies, not criminal!*

I see no reasonable argument for preventing my from copying CDs/DVDs/etc for my own personal uses (whatever those might be - stripping off forced commercials, the stupid FBI warning, editing out graphical sex scenes, etc).

Further, I see no reason why I should be prevented from obtaining a work online that is not available through other means (old roms, old movies, etc), especially if I already own a copy in another format already.

I think we all agree that "w00, free movies!" is not the point. Today's reality has brought us criminal punishments for civil crimes, the inability to legally watch movies in Linux, inability to legally even talk about bypassing encryption schemes, and other ridiculous craziness with the DMCA that frankly pisses me off.

The *AA's have made themselves representatives of all of the least-sensible aspects of current copyright legislations, and so it's not surprise that people hate them. If the legislation made sense, and we didn't have to worry that we might face criminal charges or ridiculously huge fines for doing something that used to be Fair Use - well, that'd be nice, wouldn't it?

Re:ATTENTION - Hate About Suprnova

[lessthanjakejohn]

your saying suprnova.com?

if not WTF are you talking about?

Suprnova.org is pretty clean.

Ob. Simpson's Quote

[Abcd1234]

[Paul Anka]
To stop those monsters 1-2-3
Here's a fresh new way that's trouble free
It's got Paul Anka's guarantee...
[Lisa]
Guarantee void in Tennessee!
[All]
Just don't look!
Just don't look!
Just don't look!
Just don't look!

Re:My opinion

[Antony-Kyre]

Boycotting based on one day of the week doesn't do much. It just shifts the gas need to the other six days. I guess an extreme and unlikely result could be having less employees work on Mondays, and hiring more workers during the rest of the week.

Correction to my post..

[mowler2]

Crap, should have used preview... Anyways, here it goes again:

Good luck suing Piratebay... :)

Re:Put on shoes this morning?

[John Courtland]

I can still avoid all that bullshit. I buy combat boots for every day wear. I have a pair of Land's End something-or-anothers for loafing around when I'm too lazy to strap up. My shoes have warranties, not logos and ads.

Use Earthstation 5 . anonymous filesharing !

[zymano]

www.es5.com

They are based in palestine which REALLY PISSES off Hollywood. They hate the jews.

Bittorrent needs a better name

[TheNarrator]

Somebody should spin off bittorrent, make some slight changes to it and call it "I'm a whore and so are you". Then when the MPAA goes and talks to the news media and get interviewed they will say "Yes, Mr. Oreily we here at the MPAA are taking a tough stand against 'I'm a whore and so are you'". The hilarity will make the whole fear of "cookies" debacle seem barely amusing.

Re:Ok, Michael

[The Ultimate Fartkno]

Absolutely and unequivocally. Anyone - *anyone* - can go to school, amass a certain amount of technical knowledge, and become a perfectly serviceable doctor or teacher or what have you. Yes, it's a long, hard road to get there, and I don't mean to diminish the contributions that doctors and teachers make, but there's really no barrier to getting there other than "do they know the material?" Can you take a test to be an actor? Where do you go to apply for a position as a matinee idol? At any point in an actor's life there are dozens of people who can instantly end their job that day (or that week, or their career as a whole) because of a reason no more substantial than "I don't like his eyebrows" or "her tits are too small." If Miss Bliss' first-grade class turns out to be a bunch of simpletons and half of them fail then Miss Bliss won't find herself blackballed from the entire teaching industry for life, but do you think Halle Berry will get the same break after "Catwoman?" You can coast on your past record for a while in Hollywood, but eventually it all comes down to putting asses in seats. If you're not a box-office draw then you don't work - period. Now how many of you can name *horrible* teachers that you had who just keep going year after year because of tenure? Or doctors who are heartless, arrogant assholes who keep working because they can get the job done? Yeah, there are terrible actors (and writers and producers...) who keep bringing in an enormous paycheck, but can you name one who's been doing it for more than a few years? Sharon Stone? Stallone?

I've said it before and I'll say it again - the day 20 million people will spend their weeknight in front of the TV watching Polly Perky teach algebra, *then* I'll believe that Tom Cruise (or Barry Bonds) is overpaid.

Create. Don't Consume.

[runamok1]

That is a beautiful sentiment. I completely agree. This isn't much but a "me too" post but I think your premise can extend to every area of your life.

I kind of realize how much help and enjoyment I gather from the internet and all of it's multitudes. So I decided I needed to start writing down my own knowledge (in my case, running, computers, books, etc.) to sort of give back.

I would gladly pay more for all the information I find on the net than the I would for the latest movie.

And yet the information is freely given while the 2 hours of enertainment sold by hollywood continues to go up in price.

FREE MOVIES

[Aggrazel]

There's this place I found in my neighborhood that has a LOT of movies, books, and CDs, and they let me take them for absolutely nothing... and keep them for a week, sometimes more.

Sure, sometimes I have to wait for things, but hey, the price is right. All I had to do was sign up for a little card that said I promise to bring it back before its due.

FREE!

They call it a "Public Library" ... apparently they've been in business for years, but I don't see how. What a funny business model, letting your customers take your stuff home for free... HA HA!

Why are the trackers not "torrents"?

[monkeyfarm]

I'm not the most tech savvy person around, but it seems to me that it should be possible to have a BIG master list that serves the purpose that suprnova serves that itself is passed around by a bittorrent like application. That way there's no one place to go after.

I guess you'd have to have some way of initially connecting "your" bittorrent to this network to get "on board", but once you're in, you're in, and no one can ever break it apart.

Seems pretty straight forward to me, what's wrong with this idea?

The difference between copying and theft

[laughingcoyote]

Actually, despite all this "piracy", the RIAA's sales continue to increase, as shown. The November 11, 2004 press release from the MPAA shows similarly for the MPAA:

"The movie industry's share of the American economy is growing--faster than the rest of the economy. And the copyright industries are creating jobs at twice the rate of the rest of the economy." (excerpted from above)

I fail to see how you can call something "theft" when someone is seeing greater sales happen while the "theft" is occurring. Theft would presume a model in which, for every download which occurs, one sale is lost. This is quite simply not true, as many, many people download things to preview them and see if they are worth the money. Given the large amount of garbage put out by the **AA's and the inflated prices they charge for it, this does not seem an unreasonable precaution.

The true solution for the **AA's is one which is known to all businesses which don't have a virtual monopoly and routinely have to deal with competition: Improve your product, LOWER YOUR PRICES, and find innovative ways to market and deliver the product.

Don't put ads on something people have paid money for, it will turn them off very quickly. (A trailer or two generally won't turn a consumer off if placed on their DVD, but a non-skippable Pepsi commercial most certainly will.) There is NO quicker way to turn off a consumer than making it so that the product they purchased (their DVD and DVD player) do not do what they expect it to (fast-forward when they hit the fast-forward button.)

Imagine your car not starting for 5 minutes after you turned the key so that it could play ads over the car's stereo. If you wouldn't be extremely frustrated by this, and very unlikely to purchase that brand of car again, well then, you are the definition of corporate whore. But the reason car manufacturers -don't- do this is because other manufacturers exist, and would refrain from doing this and take away their business. However, the MPAA has no competition, at least not on anything even remotely approaching their scale. If it takes suprnova and Kazaa to create the competition, then I'm not sorry to see it, whether or not there's a technical violation of law.

If these companies are not willing to address the fact that CUSTOMERS ARE NOT SATISFIED, and the ONLY reason that they have stayed in business is a lack of real competition, they deserve to die off and I don't care if people do pirate the stuff.

Re:The difference between copying and theft

[laughingcoyote]

And that while sales were up, they were still well under that of every year since at least 1994.

Because, again, they are selling a lousy product (CD's which might contain one or two "radio songs" and the rest filler, and 45 minutes worth of music on a CD which we well know can hold about 80), at an inflated price.

Jobs that will be destroyed without copyright protection. Pretty simple.

Unfortunately, jobs are lost and gained every day. And going to a new distribution and marketing business model will simply shift the jobs, not destroy them. We don't government-mandate that anyone else has a right to profit competition-free off of their product to "save jobs".

And movies haven't even begun to be hit with big problems from downloading - bandwidth is still way too limited for most people.

So what are they yowling so loud about?

So, um, where in my post did I call anything "theft"?

"Gandhi didn't take British salt, he made his own." You equate an act of theft (stealing salt) with an act of copying (online sharing of music/movies). You do that again in your current post with the comparison of chop shops (theft) to copying.

Would you agree to work for your boss for a year and at the end of a year he or she would evaluate your work and decide if they felt it was worth paying for?

While I will grant you that most employees do not work this way, most businesses do. If I own a business, customers will come into my store, look at my stuff, and decide if it's worth buying. If they purchase it and find out it looked good but was really a turd, they'll request their money back. If my products, service, or presentation are poor, they won't buy. However, in this case, they'll have competitors they can buy from.

I've got a better idea - get away from the entire *AA groups and seek out independent artists who will gladly let you download their products to evaluate them.

Great idea, I fully agree and already do. However, not everything I like is on an indie label.

The RIAA is so far from having a monopoly at this point that it's laugable. If you really want a starting point, I'll give you a list of independent musicians who are well worth supporting.

Send the list to my email if you like, always glad for a good indie band recommendation. (This is not intended to be sarcastic at all, if you know some good ones please let me know.) However, your next point clearly states that the smaller labels -can't- deal with what is -for now- the dominant distribution medium (the stores). This, in theory or practice, gives the *AA's a virtual monopoly-no one else has near the major labels' resources or connections, and massively successful acts are almost always major label.

This applies even more to movies, indie filmmakers without major studio backing have vanishing to no chances of ending up in a theater or being marketed so that more than a handful hear about them.

The good news is that this internet thing has changed all that, so consumers can now buy music directly from the small artists.

Amen.

The reason that the RIAA has a grip on stores is the same reason that you'd have a very hard time selling a BBQ sauce that you manufacture directly to grocery stores - it's simply not feasible for retailers to deal directly with the tens of thousands of small manufacturers, hence the necessary evil of distributors.

Not so, most retailers -choose- to deal through a distributor so that they have to hire less people to oversee purchasing. I don't have much sympathy for that.

Movies are tricky because even an inexpensive indy film costs more than most people will earn in a decade to make. Have you worked making a movie? Do you actually know what the costs are when you say how much they *should* cost? And those inexpensive movies are the ones that are most likely to die in the creation process, leaving the investors with nothi

Re:Ok, Michael

[Snaller]

Easy enough we pass a law that only says a movie can only make back what it cost to make it plus a fair salery to all involved and the rest must be donated to charities. Instead of this imoral greed.

heh...

[interactive_civilian]

gordgekko said:

I don't know a single person who ever thought that show was funny or entertaining.

Heh...And right now I am imagining you covered in green slime. ;)

sleeping with government

[kardar]

I suppose (or maybe wonder is a better word) with some of the "Hong Kong movies", now that HK is no longer with England, to what extent do the people who make the movies there "tune in" to what is acceptable and what is not -- what morals are being put forth, are there tighter limits on the types of issues that can be addressed in the creative realm than there were before - are the producers, writers, etc... more paranoid of having the government give them a hard time? I am not an expert in this, perhaps it's just a cultural thing - but there is probably some kind of attention paid to these things in a policital environment such as Hong Kong. Really, not that HK movies are bad, I like them very much - "Breaking News" was one I saw that was cool, and that was very recent. It's just in terms of creative freedom that I pose this question, and any limitations real or perceived, of that creative freedom.

But here in the states, where we normally shouldn't be as concerned about what our government may or may not think about what concepts or ideas we are using our freedoms to express - provided it's not for TV - it strikes me as odd that the entertainment / multimedia arts community would be attempting to forge stronger bonds with the government, bonds that are strange - bonds that appear to be advanced in part by lobbying money, in part by a shameless appeal to the merits of harsh punishment that would cross the interests of tens of millions of Americans. In any case, point being that if the *AA's don't think the government is going to "want something in return" for this request for VIP status from the *AAs, they are smoking something that is messing with their ability to think clearly.

Isn't it better for the movie industry to present a counterpoint to the "goody goody two shoes" mentality? Isn't there something "cool" about a good movie? Not to be completely rebellious, but to just kind of stand out there on its own, make its voice heard, and exhibit a "coolness" that would be inappropriate and out of place in a government agency.

It's just something that has never made sense to me. One decade, fighting to not get warning labels on CD's, another, trying to earn massive brownie points by shamelessly appealing to government regulation in the worst way. Showing a wanton willingness to sacrifice any and all artistic or creative freedom in exchange for strict, broad, governmental control over any and all creative multimedia, with massive profits acting as a light at the end of a tunnel of inaccurate information and a lack of understanding of the "end-users" of the movie industry's artistic efforts. Who ARE these people? Human beings are multi-faceted creatures; there is more to human existence - and this is what the multimedia arts ought to address.

When the *AA's get closely involved with government, the profits of maintaining a stranglehold on an ineffective and antiquated distribution model become more important than the expression of ideas and concepts, and the artistic creativity of the people making the films.

This is not good - going to a movie becomes more like flying on an airplane - checking for camcorders, people with night vision goggles spying on you, being forced to watch "educational" materials.

Of course, they can argue that their morals are correct, that file sharing does have some negative consequences, or "piracy", as they put it (and piracy does have negative consequences, it's just that filesharing is not exactly piracy) - but in any case, I can understand the point of view that if everyone fileshares for free there may be problems from that... but here's my point...

You have all this freedom of expression in America. You have this big Hollywood industry. Isn't it a waste of the artistic and creative freedoms that we all enjoy here in the US to go hop in bed with the government? Isn't it almost like a self-inflicted censorship? Can Hollywood simultaneously expect to retain its creative freedoms while trying to forge a tighter, closer, more intima

Re:another approach

[sl4shd0rk]

Those commercials always make me feel guilty........So guilty in fact that I put my camcorder away.........for a few minutes.

Not quite that simple...

[godivx]

Hollywood is, in essence, a huge artificially inflated market; quite possibly, the biggest scam in the free world. Ironically, some of the world's most celebrated leftists are worshipped in an industry that resembles a third-world country. In Hollywood, we can always witness a handful of rich elites juxtaposed with masses of impoverished starving artists and a rather nominally sized middle class who do whatever they have to do to remain in good standing with the elites.

Strange situation, when you consider how these guys are so famous for "caring" about the less fortunate, and so infamous for demeaning the "greed" of OTHER industries.

But just consider this: How irreplacable are the extras in those fast food commercials? How about the boom operators or the production assistants on those movie sets? Have you ever witnessed a Hollywood set in action? Can you believe the number of people who are, half the time, doing essentially nothing?

And no, it's not necessarily because the work they do requires the most unique skills.

If the culture of Hollywood weren't so fundamentally wasteful and profuse, more movies would get made, more people would get hired, and consumers overall would have more venues to enjoy a more robust selection of movies. Hell, just take a silly union like SAG out of the picture, and we'd see a difference overnight.

The central problem here, from Hollywood's point of view, is that the instantaneous "what you want, when you want" free market environment of the Web is intrinsically antagonistic to their culture. After all how many Hollywood productions would survive in a free market environment like the Internet? Far fewer than what we see today. I can guarantee that.

Hollywood isn't interested in free markets or anything similar. They want to continue producing as little as possible for as much money as possible. And the nature of the Internet threatens them at the most fundamental level.

If they have to sell the public and/or the governments a bill of goods like "Piracy is harming artists at all levels" or whatever, they will do so. If they have to sue everybody and their mother throughout the world, they'll do that, too. They'll do anything OTHER THAN adjust to the new environment.

Which is another way of saying that Hollywood's days could be numbered. Hollywood could easily become a shell of itself in a few generations if they don't wake up.

Which would suit me just fine. =)

You may be the greatest guy on the planet

[slappyjack]

...but a nice juicy FUCK YOU for buying an ad to place in front of a movie I just paid damn near $20 to see with a woman I will be hopefully having sex with later that evening.

See, thats was the point of the movies back in the day. I wanted to see a story without having to be interrupted at any point of the evening to be told how to releive my inflamed ass or how buying a new car will get me hand jobs from hot women.

I fucking hate going to movie theatres now.

and I was gonna moderate in this thread, too...
shit.

I made my own

[guet]

and i didn't take anyone else's copy of any movies, i made my own

Oh, and that copy took so much effort, and now you feel you have the moral high ground? Whilst the comparison with salt can be stretched too far, someone claiming that copying a file is some form of civil disobedience shouldn't claim so unless they're willing to stand up for what they believe and go to jail for those beliefs.

Being an anonymous thief on P2P networks is not heroic. If there was a *real* world-wide clampdown on this kind of thing 90% of the users would drop it and stop copying, because it would actually involve the credible possibility of punishment.

If you don't like Hollywood, make your own films (not copies) or watch independent films. If you do like Hollywood films and choose to steal them, please don't try to convince people it's something other than opportunism. You're stealing because it's convenient, free, and there's little chance of being caught. When ISP networks are locked down and searched for this material and the distributors routinely punished, will you still be copying?

Re:Ok, Michael

[Andrew Cady]

If acting required that much talent, there would be no room for nepotism in hiring practices, yet Hollywood, mainstream music, and politics are filled with it. For comparison, there is absolutely no nepotism in sports, because there is such strict competition on talent that selection by any other means would mean sacrificing talent. In Hollywood there is an abundance of talent. Tom Cruise is expensive because he's popular, but hundreds of people could have taken his place and become just as popular. They didn't, so they're not expensive, but that doesn't change the fact of the matter. Fame is something of a natural monopoly, that's all.

Unncessarily Abusive Post Follows

[the_mad_poster]

Wow. Congratulations. I don't think you could possibly have been any more wrong about so many different things in a single post if you'd have pulled that little marble-sized lump of hardened carbon out of your head and flushed it down the toilet before you began spilling your infinte lack of wisdom for the masses.

First of all, if "miss priss" fails half of her class of simpletons, not only will she answer to the principal, school board, and parents, if it continues to happen she will lose her job and, possibly, her teaching credentials. On top of that, "miss priss" is charged with educating people regardless of how dumb they are. That puts the burden of success squarely on her shoulders and, unlike big bad Mr. Matt Damon, she can't write her miserable failings at her job off on bad writers.

In addition, whereas "miss priss" cannot "coast" through her job, Halle Berry has been coasting for years. Sorry to point out the obvious to you, since you're clearly too much of an ignoramous to see it yourself, but Halle Berry is a pretty face, not a good actress.

Continuing on this romp of mindless ignorance you called a thought, we'll point out that a doctor's real job is to save your arrogant ass from death, not make you feel like you're warm and loved (unless they're a head doctor, but if I were you, I wouldn't worry about it because it's hard to hold cognitive therapy sessions with a person who clearly has no cognitive processes). In addition, the reason you had any bad teachers, I'm sure, is that you are a complete and utter moron and they simply got tired of trying to teach the kid who just couldn't figure out that he wasn't supposed to eat the glue.

If your post is any reflection on you as an individual, your competency, or your knowledge, you are a terrible person, you are a complete idiot, and you couldn't possibly know less if you actively tried to forget things. I have no doubt in my mind that you are a bible belt Bush voter, and, if nothing else, you certainly are stupid enough to fit right in with them. I think you should strongly consider suicide before you have the chance to procreate, as we really can't afford to have you dragging down the national averages for any future generation.

Re:Ok, Michael

[miskatonic alumnus]

Anyone - *anyone* - can go to school, amass a certain amount of technical knowledge, and become a perfectly serviceable doctor or teacher or what have you.

It's amazing that such tripe gets modded up as "Insightful". So you are saying that the only thing different between Joe the Janitor and Ed the Engineer is the type of work they like to do? Unbelievable.

The fact is, some people are better at some things than others. At the extreme ends, a few are talented in many areas, and some have no talents at all.