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Bootleg Movies for Download
Druppy writes
"I just got an email about this article in our local paper here in Santa Cruz. It's basically about illegal copies of movies like The Matrix being moved over campus lines. Needless to say since my school was mentioned 4-5 times in the article the administration is starting to crack down. "
So are people sneaking cam corders in to movie theaters now?
I get nervous just trying to sneak in a candy bar.
Posted by infect:
I'm an avid user of these movies.
There are several types of VCDS (video cds) that get released:
Camcorder: Usually very low quality
Telecine: Professional camera in booth, usually offers much higher audio quality as it has seperate audio source. Video quality a little higher than cam, but often also slanted.
Workprint: A unfinished version of the full movie, usually high quality in both video and audio but you may be missing soundtrack of special effects.
Screener: Usually a direct rip from tape, high quality in both audio and video.
DVD Rip: Very high quality rip, but not much different from a screener in my opinion.
Recent releases include:
04091999 - La Vita é bella (Life is Beautiful) - Screener
04111999 - Analyze This - Telesync
04191999 - 10 Things I Hate About You - Telesync
04201999 - Velvet Goldmine - Screener
04201999 - A Walk On The Moon - Screener
04211999 - She's All That - Screener
04211999 - Edtv - Telesync
04221999 - Forces Of Nature - Telesync
04221999 - Election - Workprint
Some more famous than others, but you get the idea. At 1.1 GB a piece (~), you need some space to hold them though. This concept of "anyone can make one" is BS. You need real time MPEG hardware, fairly decent hard drive speed and capacity, and the know-how. The Broadway Pro is the card of choice, as is the snazzi or dazzle - but the high quality only comes from the Broadyway or similarly high end cards. CNN always likes to exaggerate things.
Bootleg movies, campus based sites, warez and the like are nothing new at all...
Bootleg movies? Warez?
Back in the 70's, my hometown library had a large selection of super-8 movies and many racks of cassettes and albums we could check out. We would all get together in somebody's basement and have little block parties. Those were the days.
Television used to have good entertainment, too. Last year, I was paying $65 a month for some cable access. After a few months, I wised up to the fact I would be seeing repeats all year. Cable is the seat of greed.
Now it seems like the RIAA is trying to outlaw MP3's. The technology I looked forward to has been all but ruined due to coorporate greed and misinformation campaigns such as this: "Anyone with a computer is now a video pirate." What kind of shit is this? They are the greed that sets new technology back in the dark ages. Secure MP3? What kind of use is that for me? I cannot work with that. New technology now is a buzzword and filled with hype and misinformation due to firms like the RIAA. I wish they would go to hell. They can do without this government protection of IP that they enjoy. Programming content would be so much better if the masses are allowed to make media for free distribution.
Control the media, controll the world. Imagine a world where we do not have access to video compression and encryption to allow common people to freely distribute local news and entertainment. You have China and Russia where it is outlawed.
Greed kills.
The proper thing to do, if you don't like the conditions of the agreement, is to find another producer, or cut back on your consumption.
I am really angry that none of you seem to have a problem with the distribution of these pirated films. Anyone who is involved in trading these wares is
The only thing that protects free software from being undermined by greedy proprietary software makers is the GPL and other licenses under which free software is released. These licenses protect the openness of our projects and also are the reason why we can claim the moral high ground. The open source revolution, part of a larger backlash against proprietary information, is founded in its software licenses.
Because of this, all of us would be justifiably tweaked if part of the Linux kernel was lifted and included in a proprietary software product. We would rant on about how they had violated our license. We would call for the offending company's figurative head, a revocation of their charter, monetary damages, criminal prosecution, and multiple types of medieval torture. And we would be right, because the copyright an open source product is sacred.
But many of those self-same potential indignant open software boosters are here bragging about the magnitude of their stolen film collection. Let me say for better effect.
Stolen
None of us has any justification for stealing these films from their owners: the studio which holds the copyright. They alone can, unilaterally and arbitrarily, set the conditions under which their product can be distributed and consumed. If we violate their copyright, we might as well discard the GPL, because it will be clear to everyone else that we don't really take the issue seriously.
Through my amazing future prediction ability, and a small Perl script, I can predict the rebuttals that will come from the skript kiddie crowd. I will now answer them.
skript kiddie: "But, the movie theaters are operated by The Man!"
jwb: Don't patronize them.
skript kiddie: "Most people go to movies after watching the pirated film."
jwb: Is this a reasonable statement: "While Microsoft acknowledges having stolen Linux kernel code, it pledges that most of the affected products will eventually be released under a similar license."? No, it clearly is not.
skript kiddie: "Movies are too expensive."
jwb: Don't attend them, and The Man will get the point. Better still, build your own studio, theater, and marketing machine and charge less for the movies you make.
Instead, somebody got ahold of "screener" VHS copies of the movies - pre-releases that get shown to test audiences or sent to video stores - then they digitized and MPEG-encoded them. In The Matrix, the only thing wrong was that the "club" scene didn't have the techno background music that appeared in the final version of the movie, and the whole picture was a little too dark. Cruel Intentions looked MUCH better, and since there isn't any fast-moving action or editing, the overall effect was great.
Here's the really cool part - a friend of mine burned Cruel Intentions onto a CD-R, and can now play it on his DVD player because it's technically a VCD. The picture and sound are very good, he saved about 1.2 gigs of hard drive space, and he doesn't have to look at a puny box on his monitor.
The industry shouldn't be worried about this - yet. I think that in about 2 or 3 years, if everybody gets fat pipes, movies that look nearly as good as the theater versions will be readily available on the Net. The industry knows from the MP3 experience that they have something to fear, especially if movies start getting created in an all-digital format. Any sound or video editor (or intern, for that matter) could snag the digital version, take it home, encode it, and post it. Instead of "Star Wars" text spoilers, we'll see actual pre-release footage in all stages of development! Within 5-8 years, all the high-quality codecs and bandwidth could be in place to make this situation very real.
I get angry over people who pirate software, video games, and yes, VCDs.
However I myself have also been guilty of pirate oftware, and only once, a VCD of the Matrix. I really hope this won't get me burned =)
I don't believe in pirating video games because I can and do rent them. I don't believe in pirating software, but I do *try* before I buy. It's taken a while, on a student's budget, but I own almost everything now except Adobe Photoshop, which is really expensive but definitely worth the price, and WinZIP, which I just keep forgetting to pay for. Everything else I use on a daily basis, I own. I usually borrow a game from a friend, though these friends seem to have less compunction about pirating vs intelligent consumerism. If a demo exists or it is a well known game, I don't have to borrow at all.
The Matrix seems to be the only real violation of my moral code. Why? Because it's not available yet. If a legal DVD, VCD, or VHS existed for it, I would have bought one the moment I stepped out of the theatre. Why don't I just go back in and watch it again? I would, just for sheer entertainment value, but I especially want to be able to re-watch specific scenes, specific lines, to see the special effects and the fight scenes, the choreography and the dialogue.
There is no spoon.
For those who 'legitamately' pirate, there is hope. There is less need to borrow or steal a copy when more and more online demos and trial versions for games and software exist. Most games are rentable at Blockbusters, so the need to try a console game illegally before buying it is also negligent. Anyone who actually pirates a game has a much different reason, most likely wrong. I think there is one game I'm willing to pirate, and that is an older PSX game that I haven't been able to find, and I've been looking all over the state of CA for the last 2 years. What choice do I have but to pirate at that point?
The problem of pirating video is not as bright. I'd imagine the turnaround time between release and DVD should be shortened as more film goes digital. Would it ruin the movie experience? I don't know, but I would definitely see good movies on a big screen several times, even if I owned it on DVD as well. I don't know that I can speak for anyone else however. I'd imagine the market for the Matrix VCDs is pretty good, and it would be interesting to see if the box office receipts for the Matrix suffer for it. I don't think so, personaly =)
Likewise for the upcoming Star Wars. The day of or after it's release, I'd imagine a VCD would get leaked. Probably a pre-release copy on VCD, from some crafty cinema student at USC or something, what with USC's ties to Lucas, and it's cinema school.
I don't condone pirating or stealing. If you like something, pay for it. If you don't like it, why would you waste the time and effort to download a 2 CD VCD? Same goes for software and games. If you don't like it, don't keep it; it just wastes HD space and CDs.
AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
They have been sneaking in video cameras for years, it was even on Seinfeld. the only new aspect is the net and campus involvement.
--- If you don't want to know the answer, don't ask the question.
People need to remember that the CEO of a media company doesn't "feel the pain" when a company loses money to piracy. Instead, its the administrative assistant at the low end of the totem pole whose job means they can finally afford a decent house in a good neighborhood.
Take a look at your own lives, people. You pour time, effort and, in many cases, money into your creations. Imagine if you had written a piece of software like The GiMP? Ok, it instantly becomes one of the more popular graphics programs. Adobe comes along and changes it into PhotoShop 8. You'd cry hell.
Why is that any different from thousands of people a month running off with a pirated copy of a movie? Looking at ticket prices alone, 1,000 stolen and, hence, unpurchased ticket viewings, priced at $5.50 apiece results in $5500 a month, or $66,000 a YEAR! That's someone (or two, maybe three someones) salary!
--Rant Mode OFF--
The bootlegging of movies while still in theaters is not at all a new practice. They have been selling such movies here on the streets of NYC for years. A a matter of fact, there was a Curtis comic strip about it nearly 8 years ago, if i remember properly.
.mpg or .dat ending. They can be viewed in some laserdisc players and some dvd players on regular tvs, or as mpeg files on a computer. I believe that they are done in 320x240, which is the standard for NTCS in the states. They aren't that bad wither ;) Just look around online for a bit, and you can find out tons of info on VCDs...
The VCD (Video CD) trade has been around for nearly as long, since the format's introduction (I believe it was by Philips.) Only since the recent proliferation of high bandwidth connections hs the trade moved from hardcopies of VCD bootlegs to transferring the files (always over 1gig) over the net. Just hop onto EFNet and search for rooms with VCD in the title, there must be at least 20 at any given time.
The VCD culture is actually quite diverse, as are the qualities of the films. Though many are poor quality recordings of theater releases, there are also:
telesyncs - supposedly a special rig set up by which one can transfer directly from 35mm to video
workprints - prints used by production companies to preview movies among prosucers, etc.
screeners - similar to workprints, but usually the finished film
They are recorded in mpeg format, and they usually have a
-- "the revolution will not be televised" -Gil Scott-Heron