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King Kong vs. Movie Pirates

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the movie-sets-better-than-fort-knox dept.

Caoz writes "The New York Times is running an interesting article about movie piracy with Peter Jackson providing some comments. There a couple of comments that I thought were surprising. Like an executive admitting that file sharers are not the biggest threat to Hollywood. From the article: 'There is a very dark, black cloud in this game. It's not in the hands of kids who live next door to you; it's organized groups and organized crime.' Why are they suing bitorrent users then?"

4 of 485 comments (clear)

  1. Bruce Sterling had a great idea in his novel by multiplexo · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Distraction where the Chinese bankrupt the US economy by making all of America's IP, movies, songs, TV shows, etc, freely available on their networks for everyone to download. The resulting loss of revenue for the media conglomerates wipes them all out and causes the US economy to tank. You have to wonder how effective this could be if some government or NGO (crime syndicates qualify as NGOs) actually decided to do this to the US.

    --
    cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
  2. Re:Bitorrent User Group by nickco3 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I can go to the local flea market, and get a nice bootleg video with excelent cover quality that is reasonably water proof, silk screened discs, and something that actually looks like the genuine artical for $5.00. And as a bonus... something that's printed on a real dvd-rom and not one of those funky DVD-Rs that while are useful don't always play well in all players.

    Not only that, if I buy my kids a fleamarket DVD it won't have any unskippable bits, like the copyright warning or 8 minutes of trailers or adverts for Disneyworld. From my point of view the fleamarket DVDs area a superior product at a cheaper price.

    Maybe this is what Hollywood should be addressing instead of chasing BitTorrent users.

    --
    -- Nick "Hallo this is Beel Gates, und I pronounce weendows as ... WEENdows"
  3. Re:From Jackson's own mouth by vga_init · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The point is that a lot of you on here with your anarchistic view of media and all your moaning about DRM is motivated not buy a love of art, but a love of getting something for nothing. I am not an musician myself, but I consider myself a huge fan music. I have yet to read any artist's opinion on slashdot (and I don't count all you wankers who think that your guitar wankery hobby puts you in the ranks of an actual musician) - Diversity of thought is not a strong suite of slashdot - But I think you'll find quite a few real full time artists that don't want their work stolen - and they want to be compensated for their work.

    I am a musician. I play an instrument, and I take great enjoyment in my creations; I love to share them with others. I take pride in my hobby, and it's very disrespectful for you to call it "wankery." Yes, I'm an actual musician. Nobody pays me, but that doesn't mean I'm not a real musician. Look up the word in a dictionary, you insensitive clod.

    I am deeply and personally motivated to make music. Furthermore, I don't believe in demanding money. Sure, I will accept money sometimes or even try to get it if I feel like I can, but that's not the point. I'd rather share with everyone and not take away anyone's freedom. Their freedom to play and enjoy my music if they like it--their freedom to share it with their friends and family--their freedom to change it if they think they can make it better.

    Music is not proprietary; you don't own it. You do it because it makes you feel good and it makes others feel good. When you give something to them, they'll surely give back, but that doesn't necessarily have to come down to a bottom line. You can't measure humanity in dollars.

    I'm sick and tired of money-sucking suits weaseling their way through our legal system and culture, making art into something I wish it weren't--profitable. I'm tired of capitalist entities invading our privacy and stamping on our freedom to manage our data and systems in a way that seems right to us. I'm tired of yuppies like you trying to say that you know what's best for me and my vocation.

    I don't own your computer, the electricity you paid to run it, the data you have stored on it, or any of the equipment or services you use to modify or transmit that data. I DON'T own the CD I sold you or the data that's on it. I DON'T own any of the ideas, concepts, or expressions that may arise from the data.

    I love the art more than you do. You didn't spend hours on an instrument every day for years just because you loved the beautiful sounds you could make. You don't have the dream of making music, or the fulfillment of making that dream a reality. You don't like music enough to do that. You haven't put in the time and effort that I have, and until you do, you're going to have a difficult time of convincing me that you're entitled to that little opinion of yours.

  4. Re:The real reason? by cool_number_9 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One is to go after the uploaders. Make big press with saying that "even though this 14 year old girl makes straight A's..we still took her down because what she was doing was illegal".

    Next thing... some journalist will find out that a son or daughter of a high-profile politician (mayor, congressman, senator) has been downloading all the latest Britney Spears or 50 Cent hits. This will result in court-case with lotsa lawyers and media. Let's see who's going win... the ??AA and their lawyers or the senator and his political power.

    Would be interesting, wouldn't it?