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MPAA Blames BitTorrent for Star Wars Distribution
AI Playground writes "Slyck News reports on
the MPAA's press release (.doc) blaming the BitTorrent protocol for the leak of Episode III. MPAA President and CEO Dan Glickman: 'There is no better example of how theft dims the magic of the movies for everyone than this report today regarding BitTorrent providing users with illegal copies of Revenge of the Sith. The unfortunate fact is this type of theft happens on a regular basis on peer to peer networks all over the world.'"
Look, most people I know who have the ability to download the movie chose not to. They want to see it on a big screen, with big sound, with other fans.
well, no sith sherlock! from the screencaps i've seen, the timecode was still in there.
an industry whose purpose is the distribution of media recordings has been obsolete since the late 1990's. it is now cheaper and easier for people to do it themselves. by sticking blindly to their business model, the MPAA is simply refusing to accept changes that they have no control over.
Ethically wrong? Illegal, certainly. In many places. For the distributor usually, not the distributee.
But we're well beyond a universal system of ethics aren't we? I can imagine a number of arguments that could be used to by people who have no ethical problem with copyright infringement.
For one, copyright is a contract between the government and authors on their people's behalf. Since it's made without the individual's say-so, he might not consider himself bound by it.
For another, copyright has only existed for a few centuries. The great ethical minds of the past never had a problem with appropriating the intellectual property of others.
Another argument that could be used is that modern copyright terms have been manipulated by big business into lengths of time that violate their intended purpose. Therefore the law is unjust and should be disobeyed.
Another argument could be that copyright itself is a bad idea that stifles creation. In music, for example, the case could be made the copyright has killed live performance. Therefore the law is wrong and just be disobeyed.
So on and so forth.
I can imagine arguments in the other direction as well. But the point is that there is no universal morality on the subject.
Well thank God America isn't in control of the Internet!
No matter how much control, how many laws, how many overbearing policies are slapped on the Internet, there will always be an underground.
The only people these new laws and forms of control will stop are folks like my dad. It is no different than using software protection to help stop piracy; only average joes are affected.
it doesn't seem too improbable that the MPAA purposely leaked the print just so they could make a big deal about it.
Actually, it's very improbable. The slight benefit they'd gain from having the ROTS leak as lobbying ammo would be minute, and far outweighed by the damage that would occur if they were caught doing it.
These guys are basically corporate types. They tend not to care about the issue as much as all you reading this do. They do their job, then they go home. It just wouldn't be worth the hassle for them to come up with convoluted plans like that.
The official movie distribution involves a sytem trucks driving the celluloid rolls to chosen addresses. It involves people driving their cars or use public transport to reach same addresses. It involves big and expensive buildings and a lot of expensive employees, reservation of tickets and standing in line (sometimes twice)
/picz
It is a part of your experience. So are 200-300 other people sweating, eating smelly foods, taking their smelly shoes of, eating candy out of noisy plastic bags, having their mobile phones ringing, etc.. All that for $10 pr. seat.
The distribution is both expensive and the movie theatre experience does not please the modern consumer, who would like to enjoy the magic of movies without getting p*ssed off.
Bittorrent delivers right to the computer in your living room through an established network. It's fast and cheap and gives you home cinema system something to do. You can even pause the movie and go get a snack or a cop of coffee. Now, that's magic.
All people believing in capitalism should hail the BT for it's efficiency and low costs. The old and rusty movie distribution system can not compete with the smooth functionality of the modern computer networks and comfort of home cinema (even if it's just a 28'' TV).
MPAA should start to think about improving their product. If I could download a legal copy of Star Wars today, I would do it.
At this moment the only competition to the distribution monopoly of movie theatres are the P2P networks.
------- Look mum! I have posted another Slashdot comment! --------
I want to view this at home in my home theater without all the trouble that is involved in going to the movie theater. I would pay a price comparable to the movie theater for this.
You're forcing me to take your goods in a way that is inconvenient to me, and then complaining "my poor lost revenue" because I don't want your goods in the single way you're distributing them.
You've married yourself to the movie theater with your exclusive distribution deals. Well, here is the result. You customers don't like your exclusive deals and they work around it. Don't complain to us about it.
Want to fix it? I don't care what your method of delivery is. Video over IP to my cable company's DVR. Pay Per View. Firewire from PC to TV. PC download and viewing. A high def Akimbo type box. Picking up a DVD rental.
Give us a freaking choice that works for us, and we'll give you the money.
Piracy and theft are charged words designed to generate a strong emotional response.
True enough, but the emotional tug only works in the short term, then people rapidly become jaded.
Besides, it works the other way too. I wanted to get a copy of Buster Keaton's The Navigator a few weeks ago, spent an hour on the phone tracking down a video store that had a VHS copy (I'd have preferred DVD), only to find they wanted $39.95 for a video containing the film I wanted, plus two additional shorts. I called them gougers, which made them strongly emotional.
The end result though, was that I hung up, found a bittorrent, downloaded the movie, watched it, then deleted it. In other words, while I broke the law to avoid being ripped off, I still knowingly chose to break the law.
The *AA have made it impossible for me to purchase a 20 minute film made by artists now long dead at a reasonable price. Films like those have long since amortised their costs, but we are still being charged prices which equate to more dollars per minute than a current-run movie. The law supports the *AA, but that says more about the current law makers than about justice.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
> 3. Stealing $100 from me means I'm losing $100. Downloading illegal
:) They'd want it for their personal (and now more complete) collection. To them, this is one of those "you can't buy it in stores" items.
:)
> movies means they are not getting extra $xx. Little difference, but
> still, a difference.
This argument has been played out, but can't ever been proven. It's been used by software "pirates" for years. The regular argument is, "I'll use it if it's free, but if I have to pay, I'm not interested."
I'm sure there are more than a fair share of Linux users out there, who used the older versions of Windows, and now that it's more difficult (but not impossible) to acquire a free copy, they find it easier to use the free solution.
That's not to say Linux users are theives. I'm a Linux user and administrator, with over 150 boxes. I use it because it's better (IMHO).
Back to the question at hand.. Do the people downloading this movie intend to watch it at the theater? Maybe, maybe not. I didn't pre-buy my ticket. I didn't wait in long lines. I didn't see it, and have no intention to kill myself doing it. Now, if someone handed me a DVD with a pirated copy burned on it, and I watched that, did it make a financial difference to MPAA, or the Star Wars enterprise? Nope, not in the freakin' least. **BUT** they'll scream piracy if they found out.
I'd be more than willing to say, a good number of the people (Errr, immoral bastards, in MPAA terms) who are downloading it, not only already spent the money on a ticket and watched it in the theater, but they're the big fans. They have VHS, DVD, and Laser Disc copies of every Star Wars movie ever released. They have an action figure collection dating back to when they were 5 years old. They can say "Luke, I'm your father", with a straight face.
But yes, it's still stealing. Even if it doesn't apply to you, the fact that this commercial product (yes, Star Wars is a commercial product), because they are only offering it as a *PAY* product, it is only a pay product, and it is not up to the general public to make the decisions for them.
Lets twist this for you. Think sexuality.
People like having sex. Most people love having sex.
Some people charge for having sex.
If a woman charges $200/hr to have sex with her. This is her commercial product.
If you see this same woman, is not working at a particular moment, due to not having a paying client, should you be allowed to take a free romp? Sure, why not, that's what she does, and she's just sitting there.
I think the same of Ferarri's. I go down to a dealership twice a week, and when I see a Ferarri just sitting there, all lonely, with no owner, I steal the car, and drive it around. It wants to be driven, right?
So, the movie wants to be watched, right? No. You want to watch it, and if you're going to watch it, you're going to pay for the product, just like you would with the whore, or you would in buying the Fererri.
Myself, I'm happy without having a whore, without having a Fererri, and without seeing this particular episode of Star Wars. I may have one of each someday, I won't make any decisions quite yet.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
People like you don't like DRM, or region-locked DVDs, and all that crap.
;-)
And if it weren't for people like you being so blatantly selfish, the rest of us wouldn't now have to put up with it.
Region coding had nothing to do with >cough copyright infringement. Where you get off on this tanget I don't know. The truth is, they would have done region coding anyway. They concieved of region coding as a way to put up a technological barrier to being able to see movies earlier in your own market than they were released, if they happened to be released already in another market segment. It was nothing to do with not paying for the movie. They simply thought that they could maximize profits by staggering theater and DVD releases in different markets.
The other truth is, DRM would have come anyway. Macrovision was setup before VHS copyright infringement was ever a big deal, and it (just like every method before it) was quickly circumvented and tools were available *before* its introduction to do so. (Your pre-198X VCR didn't have the feature and wouldn't recognize it.
Ethics indeed. Companies have long sought ways to make you pay for things again & again. I don't see the movie industry as that much different from G.E. making lightbulbs that were designed to last less than half the length advertised. You would have to go buy it again. Or appliance makers designing a product to fail after a certain period (common house fans are a good case in point).
In the same way, DVDs are made on a material with a shorter than advertised life, they wont replace the media if it goes bad, and they have made it illegal for you to make a backup of your media that you paid for. They are advertised as "OWN IT ON DVD", but you don't own it. Maybe your version of ethics is different from mine, but I consider (and so do many state attorney generals) the tactics of G.E. to be unethical and illegal. It's no stretch to say that the movie industry is just as unethical and had performed the exact same kind of fraud as G.E., but they went 10 steps further with their fraud an unethical behavior. They tried to circumvent your rights to the material even while the media is working.
If these same extended tactics were applied to lightbulbs, no one in the right mind would buy them if they were advertised as such. This would be a lightbulb that doesn't turn on when you tell it to, it only comes on when G.E. allows it to, it doesn't turn off when you tell it to so you can't save the bulbs life - it only turns off when G.E. tells it to, it wont work when you try to do things that G.E. doesn't like you having light for, or if you travel with it it wont work in certain locations, and even though it fails in less than half of the time advertised they wont replace it. You have to buy another one. It would also code your socket so you couldn't use a different light bulb, and if you modified your light socket to work with other bulbs or to make the lightbulb behave like all light bulbs should knowingly behave (despite it still having a reduced life), they would sue you and have you thrown in jail.
People who copy movies may be copyright infringers, but the MPAA are pirates.
Freedom is merely privilege extended unless enjoyed by one and all.
If you're going to disagree with him, could you at least make an effort at a reasoned argument? Your one-liners aren't going to win any people over. The "Are you with the MPAA by chance" is tired if-you're-not-with-us-you're-against-us-rhetoric that doesn't advance the cause of sharing.