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Competing Contests To Create Pro- and Anti-Piracy PSAs
An anonymous reader writes "New York City recently announced a PSA contest, in which it asked schoolkids to create a video about how evil piracy is. Techdirt found the whole marketing campaign questionable, and via some Freedom of Information Act requests, discovered the whole thing was really a propaganda front for NBC Universal. They also looked at the fine print on this 'pro-copyright' contest, and discovered that in entering, you agreed to give up your copyright. And, you were only allowed to repeat NBC Universal's talking points. Don't try suggesting that perhaps the industry should have adapted. In response, Techdirt has launched a competing video contest, where they ask people to create videos on the impact of technology on creativity. The Techdirt contest doesn't give you specific talking points, lets you present your own opinion, lets you retain the copyright on your work ... and is paying twice as much as the NYC/NBC contest."
> A better reason would be "Don't pirate movies because most of them stink anyway and you don't want your mind warped by what constitutes scripts, dialogue or acting these days.
Well yeah, but I'm eight years old fer chrissake. We have much lower standards for entertainment.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Everyone needs to see this PSA.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALZZx1xmAzg
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
Just in case anyone was wondering (as I was, initially). PSA = Public Service Announcement.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Disney is actually one of the few studios who will replace damaged discs for a nominal shipping and handling fee. Probably because so many kids destroy the discs and tapes. In that respect, they are upholding the "you only bought a license" model of buying DVDs. The other studios are cheating by telling you you only bought a license, but if you try to get them to fulfill their obligations as a licensor and request a replacement for damaged media, they'll tell you to buy another one.
It's not legal in many countries to make them. To "legally" make a DVD player (that doesn't violate the US DMCA or another country's similar laws) you have to get a license from the DVD Forum that include the CSS decryption key. They will not give you a license if your player does not respect parts of the standard, e.g. the "skipping isn't allowed" sections. Since CSS has been cracked it's perfectly feasible to create a non-licensed player (such as VLC) but technically those players are illegal in the US since they include software for circumventing copy-protection measures (CSS). Also they can't have the DVD logo or anything like that on them due to trademark violation. Same thing in regards to region-locked players.