New Round of Lawsuits in Preparation for Oscars

An anonymous reader wrote to mention CNNMoney's coverage of the latest round of MPAA lawsuits targeting end users. From the article: "The civil suits against unnamed "John Doe" defendants seek up to $150,000 per downloaded digital file and come as the film industry prepares for its annual Oscar telecast in Hollywood where awards for top films and stars are given out."

Comments

150K per file?

[Tuxedo Jack]

My god, that's completely insane. Why not just charge twenty bucks plus court costs? That'd prove far more agreeable to the users and pirates - it's the same price as a DVD, and you can claim Fair Use with what you do with it.

remember that nauseating grammy speech?

[havaloc]

I remember seeing/hearing this speech by Michael Greene in 2002. I suspect we'll hear the same this year, should you be watching the Oscars.

Stupid lost revenue

[ChaosCube]

I can see it now, "We've lost an estimated $2 billion so far this year; all due to peer to peer file sharing." There's a big flaw in their argument. Who is to say that users would pay for these movies in the first place? Let me explain. I have downloaded a few movies and songs in my day, but I would not have paid for them in a store. The studios are claiming lost revenue, but the reality is that the people are downloading them simply because they are there and a movie may be cool to watch. I have downloaded exactly one (1) movie that the MPAA would consider theirs, but I never would have paid to see it in the theater or purchase it at a store. There was no lost revenue, not even close. So, as we know, these numbers come straight out of people's asses. I suspect that many others share similar views about the movies. They are downloading them becuase they are there and may be entertaining, but would never actually pay money to see them because that would be a waste.

Re:"capitalist scumbags"

[NardofDoom]

Let's talk about evil.

In just about every creative work, evil is archetypical. Take vampires. They have an insatiable thirst for blood. They can never get enough. Same with werewolves. Same with demons. Same with The Flood from Halo. Same with the Aliens(TM). Same with the Cylons and the Goauld. Same with the Necromongers and Voldemort. They take what they want, by any means necessary, and won't stop until they have it all.

So what does this mean, culturally? Do we find things that consume without end to be evil? There's one thing that knows no limits to consumption; that doesn't know the meaning of the word 'enough' and doesn't have any qualms about using whatever means necessary: A corporation.

By now you're probably thinking "but corporations are run by people, and normal people aren't asshats." Well, corporations are designed to shield individuals from prosecution, and are motivated to maximize profit. Individuals in a corporation who make profits go up are rewarded, and ones that make profits go down are not. And, for the most part, they use a short-term view.

So what you have is a race to the bottom. People who are willing to work the hardest for the least amount of money get the jobs. People who are willing to sacrifice their morals for increasing profits get rewarded. People who are willing to exploit others and make messes and not clean them up and even break the law (if the fines are less than the returns) are rewarded. In this environment, it's hard not to become "evil." This is particularly true in large organizations, where red tape and bureaucracy and sheer size make it impossible to monitor everyone's behavior.

So, if you use the literary archetype of evil as your definition, corporations and the capitalists who run them are, in general, evil.

I'm just sayin.