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Paramount Claims Louis CK "Didn't Monetize"
Weezul writes "Paramount's 'Worldwide VP of Content Protection and Outreach' Al Perry has insinuated that Louis CK making $1 million in 12 days means he isn't monetizing. Al Perry asserted that 'copyright law gives creators the right to monetize their creations, and that even if people like Louis C.K. decide not to do so, that's a choice and not a requirement.' Bonus, Slashdot favorite Jonathan Coulton apparently grossed almost half a million last year."
Would it have killed the submitter to include about three to five words informing us who the frack "Louis CK" is? Yes, it's just a Google away, but it would have been nice to mention it in the submission. (Or the editors could have added it.)
Louie said on the Opie and Anthony show that he's never seen any of the money from the sales of his comedy specials.
Exactly, according to them they couldn't make a profit from revenues of almost 1 billion USD (Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
I'm starting to believe that Hollywood really doesn't want to make money. After all, why else do they not want to put their films on the UK version of Netflix, when they're available on the US version? In the hope that we'll buy them on DVD instead? Good luck with that one.
Movies that Hollywood has claimed a loss for:
- Forrest Gump (as a result, the author refused to sell the studio the rights to the sequel)
- Spiderman (Stan Lee successfully sued over this one)
- My Big Fat Greek Wedding (most of the cast then sued the studio for a share of the profits)
- Babylon 5 ("Basically", says Straczynski, "by the terms of my contract, if a set on a WB movie burns down in Botswana, they can charge it against B5's profits.")
- Lord of the Rings (resulted in Peter Jackson not directing The Hobbit, also - 15 actors suing the studio for not receiving their cut of the profits)
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (reported a $167 million loss... which is roughly equal to the film's budget.)
Based on Al Perry's comments do we assume that "monetize" is defined by Paramount and the rest of the MPAA/RIAA as the use of extortion tactics to gain revenue from copyrighted materials, or maybe it's not monetizing unless the courts are involved?
The fact that Louis CK was able to make one million dollars in 12 days yet not meet Al Perry's definition of "monetize" implies this.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Great article. I'll save the media production bashing to those already on the trail and go to what I thought was an interesting theory by Lewis CK. "The key to success is being polite, awesome, and human".
I don't think the first one makes that much difference. Lewis Black makes me laugh so hard I cry, and he's not polite. He is awesome, and to me funny. Steven Write is polite and human, but not what I would call awesome. Monotone is something that many people just can't handle.
Anyway, I think that being human is probably the biggest factor. Glad to see something positive coming out of all this!
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.