Slashdot Mirror
More Star Wars Hype
We break the week barrier, and tons of people email to
gloat that they've seen screenings. The rest of us will
have to settle for massive media hype including
mantid's note from harper's
that proclaims that Reagan's Star Wars project costed $4.166
billion, but Star Wars merchandise costed $4.5 billion.
mattdm noted that
Moviefone blew up under the ticket demand yesterday.
ZD-Net has a report.
DH1 sent us a really top notch interview at Salon with Empire Director
Irvin Kershner- kinda
nice to read something cool about the original movies after all this
gas over the new one.
Lastly Jethro73 sent us a
George Lucas's take
on piracy of Star Wars. Basically,
he will be very angry and fight very hard (big surprise) against
pirates.
Update: 05/14 01:59 by CT : My ticket plans haven't happened, so if anyone
has bright ideas on getting tickets for the Slashdot crew while
we're at LinuxExpo, lemme know...
Is LucasFilm's legal eagle team providing such a nice public service, educating the ISPs on copyright law? Don't bet on it.
You know, I remember the copyright police saying that the DMCA would only kick in for ISPs after official notification for *specific* violations. In other words, you still can't be held responsible for copyrighted material on your site unless you're notified and refuse to take it down.
Now LucasFilm is playing fast and loose with the rules and "informing" all ISPs of the "specific" violation that copying Episode 1 is illegal. This so that the hyperactive legal department at LucasFilm can kick in and sue under the DCMA the moment a file is found, without having to bother with the messy notification clause. After all, they've all been notified of the potential violation, so if a file is found, that must constitute refusal to remove it.
This is the most blatant lawyer-screw I think I've ever seen. LucasFilm stands to make millions on the film, but that isn't enough; they have to twist the law to screw the poor hapless ISPs who happen to harbor a bad apple or two, or who are unlucky enough to get hacked by the wrong hacker.
I hope they sue some ISP and lose, so that the language of the law gets some clarity in case history. And I hope the ISP they sue countersues, and gets a big chunk of those Star Wars revenues.
What's wrong with getting a little, or a lot, excited about something pointless and childish?
the bombs are falling, everyone is making enough that they can take a week out to stand in line, or hours to wardial a ticket line. we all just want to have fun. there is not much left in the world that people care about, no charismatic leaders to follow, no religions to throw mad festivals, we have to create our own myths. and heck this one is better than most, like the marshmallow man, let's concentrate on something simple and innocent, and hope the crap goes away.
pease