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LucasFilms suing 'net Pirates
Tony Garcia writes "Apparently, LucasFilms was not happy to find out that PM videos were being distributed over the 'net; they hired a mean team of badass lawyers to take care. The story at SiliconValley News. "
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But one needs to recover one's investment if one is to create the next piece of art. Cartooning can be done cheaply. Movies are a bit more expensive.
Still, you are free to create any art you wish, and give it away if you choose, or sell it for what you choose (if someone else is willing to pay).
It's fine to think of the ego gratification that one would get from creating a work of art, but it may be expensive to create, and in that case, somebody ends up paying for it.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Oh great one, please teach me all the NEAT obsolete stuff you learned from the 70s hackers test
you are so ereet it hurts me to think how much better you are than me
LONG LIVE EGOTISTICAL REET-GEEKS!
god damn, those ASFs *SUCK* I mean really, the quality is *horrible*!!!!!!! I got the matrix and the 13th floor, bot look only a little worse the a standard VHS tape.
I have an 800meg copy of american pie, it's "ok" but the screen is full of artifacts the whole way though.
the copy of "the blair witch project" is about 300 megs or so, it fit on 3 zip disks. it looks *terrible* infact I couldn't even watch the damn thing! Instaid I went up to my room while my sister saw it, I didn't want to "ruin" it with the crapy 15 fps, turn to mud whenever there was any full screen movement "version"
damn, when are we gona get wavelet compression!!!
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
ASF files are pure shit
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Yeah, I came out of the theatre feeling as if I'd just watched an SGI showreel, or a demo from one of the NGPS houses!
The whole film should be a free download from apple.com, just to show off their quicktime stuff, or maybe the effects houses could give it away for free in their marketing literature.
But then again, I've never been much of a capitalist.
Capitalism states you can only charge as much for a product as the market will stand. Certainly repeat viewings will form a major part the revenue; I wouldn't waste my $ on going again tho'.
I have seen a pirated copy, the film has not yet
come to my country. Now I have seen the copy, I can't wait to see the real movie.
Without having seen the copy, I would not have bothered, because the previous star wars film was boring.
If Lucas insists on behaving stupid, I refuse to see more of their movies.
The new film is great, except for the jet racing,
where the sound is too close to the sound of a formula 1 race
Most people don't live in NYC...
althoug it does sound nice : )
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
If you don't like the law change it, but until you do obey it. Lucas invested to bring us this movie, no payback no new movies, (gee that math is not too hard.) Besides that, a lawyers retainer is a whole lot more than the price of the movie (in Georgia ~ $5.50), and considerably less than the price of the tape once released.
Never mind that it wasn't as good as the hype.Unfortunately they won't give us back our money for that either.
that looks pretty cheap, and much better then starwars, to.....
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Very true. Thousands may be a more accurate estimate, however, those people are the ones that have hardware hookups and stuff too. So they burn the copy for other people with the instructions "Just open your dvd player and put it in", even people with no concept of VCD or Warez or FTP sites has access to it. But I will totally agree with you that if it stays this way, then the industries are safe, and I don't think it will develop any further, because at that point, the SPA, FBI, etc get involved and thats why those kind of sites are not on Yahoo =] Its the geocities accounts that are on Yahoo, and its a given they WILL go down, just a matter of when.
What kind of grafitti would they employ?
they'd find some way to force the wall owners to put there names up for them
Attack people with brief cases insead of guns?
Lawyers woudln't need weapons, they'd make you so afraid of going out of bussness, or to jail that to other gangs would ether do what they say, or pay another lawyer to talk the first one down...
by the way, did you not see the (TM) next to my orgional sig? "Chad Okere the self apointed, unquestioned lord and master of the internet(TM)" I think that's how it went, I don't have enough room to pu tthe TM back, but clearly you are in violation of my copyright. remove the offending sig now, or I'll be forced to press charges........ (nevermind that its a parody...)
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
How can they give you a call mr AC? you gave no link and no email addres, much less a phone number...
I suppose I could a search online, but I don't know how likely it would be that I would even find you... I don't think I would want to depend on *you* to find this stuff...
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Well I will not say that I cared for the way Picard acted in Insurection (the movie that you aluded to that's more of a thing that sisko would do), but more precisely to the point I dislike things that paint a harsh, grim view of things like the future. What star trek is about is a group of people who have solved most of their problems and trying to keep order for themselves as well as those in the group they have. The level of technology they have is responsible for their ability to get out of situations. Now sometimes this is employed so that the main characters do not get injured. This is natural for continuity of the show and it responses. What is good about science fiction is believability of the reasoning. I really could see the ideas that are advocated in ST as quite valid. This is not to say that our current situation is less grim. Quite frankly getting anywhere near the tech level of ST would require about 100,000,000 years and a change of genetic structure. I just like stable governments that are in real control and people who are also in control. It becomes distracting when people are always fighting, bickering, and generally not getting along in any way except to further self-interest. All the things that ST advcates are the things we look for in a society as well as a government: trust, accomodiation, utilitarian use of force, staunch standing up for principles, etc. What also strikes me from some of these shows is that is what is largely missing from them. People become some sort of rough pioneering type of person who lacks grace. One thing I will say till my dieing day is that I would love to be half the man Jean-Luc Picard is any day of the week. He has more posh, pizzaz, and resolve than most characters. Sisko is the kind of person you would more expect to see on other shows where his actions and lack of tact get in the way of what is really going on. With star trek there is some history with what generally has happened before I would compare ST to linux in that it has history, constantly in development, and will be here for a long time.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
a T1 line costs about one thousand dolars a month, with a $3k setup charge.
most of the stuff is being served of cable/xDSL and dorm room ethernets (like I'll have in just a few weeks woohoo)
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
The author, for creating a vision of the future you don't agree with?
The characters, for dealing as best they could with harsh situations?
The Network? The Fates? The Moon?
Whose?
9 out of 10 Lucasfilms Lawyers agree!
Jar Jar still sucks!
~GoRK
this may be about the movies, but you are all complaining about lawyers taking down web pages over illegal material...
LUCAS MADE THE FILM, HE DESERVES THE MONEY FOR IT!
It is just like what should be happening. People who bootleg and distribute it should get busted... I am not being hypocrytical here, I never have dl'd a movie, nor will I. If I really want to waste time, I will go see it for $7. I look at it as saving me $7 on my DSL charges... I can waste my time dl'ing something worthwhile.
Get over it guys. He is doing what is right, and stop getting all annoyed over it.
I'd be willing to bet that more living people in the world have seen TPM then have read shakespear on there own (not in school)
and yes that movie really did suck......
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
What if someone just posts parts of the movie on usenet ? drops it on their (unpublished) ftp server ? copies it onto cd, gives it to his friend, and their friends who then copy it on to their http server ?
It's all over the place already, I've been offered the movie [on|off]line in a variety of different medias from at least 6 people.
As far as money losses go, I went to see TPM 11 times before I found the movie in mpeg on two CDs. I think Lucas made his fair share from my hard earned COBOL hackin' butt.
/dev/null
Ya, its the other people that need their money, he just needs enough to get by on, say 2 Billion or so.
Oh, maybe he made that on THX 1138.
If you don't defend a copyright, you don't lose anything, except perhaps money.
- A.P.
--
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Some of your arguments were what the theaters used early in the game when TV first came out in the 1950's and was first getting adapted. In essence what happened was the quality of TV was crappy at first but was thought to be dangerous. The same reasoning could be applied to a story about war and the real thing. "Well with real war, you can actually get hurt by bullets have blood and brains spilled on your shirt, stand in a trench, and have a miserable time not for 10 minutes reading it but for a couple of years fighting in it what could be better?"
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
What if I live in Cuba or Iraq and have a web page with the movie? Would it be possible for someone to prevent that from being released? How big is this thing anyway? And where could it be retrieved from? I can't think of many ISP's or anyone who just has an extra 25Gb to spare for just one file.
Normal vcd movies take about 1.3GB - so no need for your 25GB HDD.. but basically you're right, you can't get such a space from most ISP's easily.
--
It has to work - rfc1925
I wonder how the author of the article sees the ability to threaten people into stopping the flow of any kind of information as a Good Thing (tm). If anyone with enough money (or anyone theoritically) can accomplish this, then there really is something to be concerned about. What if I said that I thought that the author's article should not be posted on the web because it was counter to ideals that I held. Then I went out and called his or her ISP and threatened them in order to get them to shut down the web site. I've accomplished the author's goal of removing information that I'm opposed to, but I've also violated the basic right of free speech. Now I'm not saying that piracy is free speech. I'm saying that the generalizations made in the article lead to some, IMHO, bad conclusions.
Episode I (part b)
THE NET MENACETurmoil has engulfed the Internet. The wholesale pirating of MP3s and lousy movies on outlying websites is in dispute.
Hoping to resolve the matter with a blockade of deadly lawsuits, the greedy LucasFilm Federation has stopped all Internet traffic to the small ISPs....
- Richie
If these lawyers have done such a fine job keeping this material off the net, then why do most of my friends who are barely computer literate have copies of Phantom Menace!?
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
I suppose you prefer the Babylon 5 crap?
Simple what is implied is that it just dosn't matter if it gets bootleged at all since it just sucks. I would get one right now it I could. Hmm.. If I leave tonight I can go to China and purtchess a copy in Bejing??? Hmm... Bootlegging.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
"But then again, I've never been much of a capitalist."
Hey at least you came out and said it, and you do have a good point about people liking the movie so much they downloaded it. However, the beauty of capitalism is that it rewards those who give what society wants. I don't think Star Wars would exist as it is today if there wasn't any money in it. If George Lucas makes a heap from Star Wars good for him. I think he deserves it.
No capitalism isn't fair (its more laize faire.. hehe), but it works and the US proves it.
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
No from what I saw of Babylon 5 (very little) the whole concept sucked. Letting a group of idiots try and start a civil war with earth is reprehensible best. I am a star trek person myself.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
Did anyone else find this article particularly lame? I mean, this quote:
"But these were no ordinary lawyers. They had a second whole computer system ready to press their case. The bootlegger ran to another Web site, and the lawyers followed. Then the Internet Service Provider stepped in and shut the bootlegger down."
Gives me an oddly unsettling picture of caped-crusader 'net-savvy, cyber-clued geeky lawyers out to save the world (wide web) from the bad ol' Internet pirates in thier skull&crossbones black matte t-shirts. Jezzum. Makes me want to retch.
"shop smart:shop s-mart" ash
Here's what i sent to her:
Your article looks as though you read some press releases and have no real experience with anything you are talking about.
If you've seen either of the bootlegs, you'd know the audio is superb and the video a little washed out. You'd also know that the real internet is not the WWW, and they didn't slow a damn thing down here.
August 19 is the premiere date for TPM in Sweden. If Lucas just would have released it sooner in Europe, this problem would never have occurred.
here, here.
why anyone would want a copy of that stinker is beyond me.
Of course, how good is your net connection going to be? I'd hate to download a GB from Iraq.
On top of everything else let's be honest with ourselves. What is this really all about? Are they concerned about a moral injustice? Mmm, no. It's the almighty $. What reason does Lucas or any other corperation/agency have for wanting to stop "Piracy"? It's the thought that maybe they'll only make $500 Mil as opposed to $501. Do these movie studios really think they have money to lose by someone downloading a movie in a format that at best is still sub VHS quality? Even if the quality is superb, how many people really have the kind of equipment a theater has to view the media? A big TV and stereo is pretty cool but still pathetic compared to a screen that is 20 feet high. What makes a good movie worth seeing is the whole experience. And am I going to not buy a DVD because I have a crappy little mpeg? I don't think so. Even after seeing an mpeg copy (which I felt no desire to watch but merely examined curiously) I still paid my $ at the theater 2 times and bought my popcorn like a good consumer.
Don't get me wrong, I loved Star Wars, but I saw The Red Violin two weeks ago because I remembered all these people on Slashdot saying how great it was. They were right! So not everyone here is a Neanderthal :)
the're comin to getca!
Get real a stupid movie like TPM compared to Shakespeare, The Bible, Koran, Milton? Hardly!
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
They should too, there was a lot of hard work put into that movie, people shouldnt be ripping it off
Are you looking at my first post? you must be, its the only one here.
I used to respect Lucas - he made some great movies. Then comes the extreme hype (I don't want to see Anakin on my bag of chips), the mediocre at best movie, and gustapo tactics. He's already filthy rich (and getting even more rich), and I don't see him giving it away. He seems to be going out of his way to alienate fans.
Brian Hanley brian@hanley.net
Well, I was "not too happy" with the general suck of the new movie... can I sue for that?
Seriously, though... I've always felt than art should be done for arts' sake. Art as expression, not as market campaigns, will still surely capture our imaginations. Given the same state of integrity, it will surely serve us well. (neil peart) I'm opposed to the idea of a movie which can make the gratutious sums that this one did... however, given the society we live in, the laws must be obeyed.
All I can say is that if I ever made a movie, I'd be happy that people were taking the time to download it on modems... that's a sign that I made a good piece of art.
But then again, I've never been much of a capitalist.
I, for one, pay my $4.50 to see TPM. It took so much time and effort to put together, that ripping it off would be a smack in the face to all who love Star Wars, by not giving them the compensation for their wonderful work.
Andrew G. Feinberg
Since piracy is legal in Taiwan (It's a non-Berne, non-WIPO, non-Wasenaar country), what's Lucass gonna do? Shut down all internet feeds to/from Taiwan (and to/from any other country that has 'net links to Taiwan)? Not bloody likely!
Come and get me Lucass and declare war on Taiwan, I'm LAUGHING at YOU while I watch my pirate copy of PM. Heh heh heh!
toward the masses. It seems to want to provide a convenient security blanket for those who want to believe that the flow of information can truly be controlled on the net. The fact is that it can be controlled somewhat on the web, but certainly not on the net as a whole. The people sending things back and forth just need to practice a little more ingenuity than setting up a public web page. :). ) Yes life can be made more inconvenient for the less clever of the ripper kids out there, but information will still be tranferred.
From what I read, said lawyers were not monitoring DCC bots on IRC nor FTP sites that act as online dumping grounds for such files (should I say FiLeZ
This movie took millions to make; without laws in place so that Lucas & Co. can make that back, groovy movies like this could not be made
:)
You say that like its a bad thing.
The collected works of Shakespeare and all the religious books you want could not compete with the coolness of TPM.
But then . . . my opinion of Religious books and the works of Shakespere is pretty fragging low so . . .
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
was there anybody else who followed the link, read the page, and thought "Nice intro, where's the story?"
People rip off ST:TPM.
George Lucas gets pissed, hires a bunch of lawyers, and threatens lawsuits.
You can do it too!
One more thing. The last part of the blurb pointed out that anyone can stop privacy violations and infringements on the Net.
As long as you can afford a team of top lawyers, that is...
Will that be my contribution to the world: "He solved a head count problem"? - Asok, 'Dilbert'
I'm sorry but I don't think they stopped more then a extremely small portion. I was just at a convention a week ago and 40 percent of the people there had the phantom menace on VCD's offering anyone they wanted to burn a copy.
So Lucas' lawyers sent out cease and desist orders to a couple hundred bootleggers. If they (or this Moira Gunn who wrote the article) think that what Lucas managed to do is control the flow of information on the internet they are dreaming.
If you want a copy of TPM you will be able to find it on the net or on irc and there ain't a damn thing that Lucas can do about it.
To quote Gunn "So, the next time someone tells you -- `You just can't stop information from being passed around the Internet!` -- think twice. We can stop most of it with a little determination."
Ms. Gunn you obviously have no clue exactly how the internet works so don't try to spout off some Lucasian propoganda which has no basis in reality.
"bulk of the pirates"
Hah! Web sites are 1/100000000000 of the distribution of that movie!!!
Everybody and their mom has Z's evilsw-tpm.
Get some 80 minute CDs. They're burnable in all regular CD-Rs (except a couple) with the right software. They cost about twice as much as 74-miute CD-Rs though.
If you have one of the few CD-R drives that support overburning, you can overburn a regular CD, but 750 megs sounds a bit large for that.
Everybody that has ever looked at any of the ripped copies of SWE1 will notice that they will not get the whole emotional feeling without having seen it on the big screen. So everybody that took the time to download it was surely disappointed and went on to watch it on the big screen. So there is no loss there. Most people that are likely to d/l the movie have watched it more than once I would bet.
So why would he bother? Why would he bother with such court costs? He is doing nobody a favor, especially not his image in the public.
The only thing I can see hurt is the VHS and DVD sales but since Lucas wont have them released for a long time from now its his own fault...
"Nimis exaltatus rex sedet in vertice - caveat ruinam!"
A car speeds down a residential neighborhood at three times the speed limit. A policeman steps out in front of the car and holds his hand up. Same situation, only a forty-ton rock falls from the sky and lands in front of the car.
Ability and authority may be, and often times are, two different things.
The party's over
god, everyone from the guardian angels to jerry fallwell has been trying to do this ever since the everyman's conception of the internet widened beyond the myopic view provided by aol.
the only thing that frightens me about that entire article is the arrogant and overconfident tone that the whole thing takes on.
sorta off the point, i don't think that lucas will ever make a movie worth seeing. the whole savant genius thing got buried under a pile of money and a busload of fratboys with boba fett tattoos.
i'm not really that excited but, hey pal, that's life in the breakdown lane.
Correct the only reason he makes any money of this is that he just decided to wait for 10 + years to release the next installment to this. He could have put something like Barney meeting Luke Skywalker and it would sell.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
A gang of lawyers. What kind of grafitti would they employ? Business cards? Attack people with brief cases insead of guns?
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
That article is pure flamebait, the idiot pundit who wrote it, has no clue about the issues, or the technology involved.
Companies that react with the legal department first, well. Shows that they have a limited comprehension of things besides torts, and suits.
I know I could sell anything if I had enough money (say like Bill Gates) in America. Even some old senile man sitting in a chair swearing and mumbling incoherently would sell with the right advertising.
The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of a million is a statistic --Joseph Stalin
Well I haven't seen any of the early versions that were released but the latest screener version (with foreign subtitles) is very high quality. At least that's what I hear 'cause I certainly wouldn't violate any copyright laws.
As far as wasting time... I don't see how it wastes time any more than distributed.net or seti@home. With a cable modem and forte agent it's pretty painless to d/l huge files from usenet. Just point and click then minimize it and go about your business.
You are right, Lucas is doing what he has a legal and (probably) moral right to do. However, the sucess of his product does matter.
Compare these:
1. A starving man procecutes a man who stole a loaf of bread from him (say, a full day's meal).
2. A rich man who has more bread than he can reasonably want procecutes a man who stole a load of bread from him (one that was just going to go stale and be thrown away anyhow).
Which one are people normally going to approve of? Both are acting within their legal and moral rights.
The reason that people hold his army of lawyers against him is that he has no demonstrated need for the money that he is protecting. Also, consider the wrongs being done here. On the one case, he loses some portion of $8. On the other, the bootlegger gets a $50,000 fine and years of imprisonment. He's now doing that to people when he has no demonstrated need to. Yes, he's within his rights, but come on. Doesn't he have anything better to do than get people who did him very little harm very large punishments?
That's why people hold it against him. Because he can easily afford not to go after these people and the net suffering of humanity will be less then when he goes after them.
So is he in the right, in a sense, yes. He may be completely in the right. I don't really know. His soul is his own business. But this is basically the case of the big man bullying the smaller ones. Remember something about rights - Shylock was within his rights in demanding his pound of flesh from the merchant of venice.
They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- C. Sagan
I saw it at the Uptown opening night (I was on TV afterwards), it totally ruled. It was probably one of the best movies ever made.
>Why not have a `Cyber Patrol` which is constantly vigilant, watching the World Wide Web?
Because the internet is not a US only entity, fool! I'm sure it's just totally shocking to imagine, but US laws are not applicable outside the US, and what's more is that the US concept of legal and illegal on certain issues may be totally the reverse in other soverign nations. An example:Son May Records. This is a company in Taiwan that sells CDs, DVDs, VCDs (MPEG1 movies on CD), etc. They sell 'The Matrix' and probably PM by now too. All of their merchandise is copied from elsewhere. No money is paid to the copyright holders. No 'rights' were obtained in any way. And... hold on to your enchiladas...THIS IS 100% LEGAL in Taiwan. Son May is not an underground company. They are locally licensed, pay taxes, and follow all local rules and regulations. They are following the law! IP law is simply non-existant in Taiwan. It's a different philosophy in the East. It's not "backward" or "wrong", it's just different and as equally valid as we hold out own perceptions of copyrights/patents to be (gasp!). Deal with it. The 'net, however, brings radically different cultures and ideas together in a way that's never been done before. There's no "right side" and "wrong side" here. Some people just happened to believe that knowledge or art can't be "owned". This just freaks some people out. Accept it. And cutting off chunks of the world that don't play ball your way won't work either. Isolationism ultimately hurts more than it helps. One must look at the big picture. Cutting off Taiwan for piracy would do far more economic harm to US businesses than the piracy it sought to stop. Recognizing and accepting each other's differences will lead to a better world and a more propserous society.And before anyone laughs saying I'm just taking advantage of Taiwan's "errant lawlessness" let's look at a quick counter example: PORNOGRAPHY is illegal in many nations (not just "backward and oppressive" ones). Many hardcore sex videos are illegal in the UK. This porn is LEGAL in the US and there are countless porn sites on the web up and running in the US. They are legal, the owners are taxed. They follow local laws and regulations. Should they be shut down by the UK because guys in London are downloading porn MPEGs? Should their laws apply here? Should the US shut down these legal businesses for violating forwign laws? How would Americans react if MI6 agents from the British Isles raided local porn web sites operating on US soil? We'd be outraged!Now tell me again that "pirates" worldwide must be stopped because it is "the right thing to do" or "the law". We may not agree with it. I don't agree with Taiwan's stance on IP law, but we must tolerate the world so long as we expect the world to tolerate us.
First, I'm not a communist. I simply believe in freewill. Capitalism is actually better for freewill in general than communism.
I agree with you that much of our modern economy is based on these laws, and much of what happens would not happen without these laws. Without greed law to allow license agreements, Bill Gates would probably be on the streets begging for change.
The thing I don't agree with is throwing people in prison for sharing intellectual property. The reason I call it greed law is because laws are used to scare people in to spending money on things. If you spend money on something, it should be because it is a superior product, not because we are forced to buy it.
I think we should make it illegal to copy Linux, becuase otherwise, groovy software wouldn't get made. Yeah right. OK.
--- "So THAT's what an invisible barrier looks like!" - Time Bandits
With a victory like this Episode II should be out on usenet and IRC feeds sometime in the next year:)-
THe person who wrote this article evidently has a problem with the Big BAd INternet. Look at the opening paragraph..
Another clueless reporter making a living on bad ink.
Sad to say she has an audience.
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
Just to note that publicdata isn't run by the State of Texas, it's run by a private company who's more than happy to charge you for the data. It's not free, but then, why should it?
yep, I subscribe to it, but my real info isn't in there.... Just like my phone is caller ID blocked but I also block incoming anonymous calls. GTE calls it "hypocrite mode"
One thing to remeber..dealing with bootlegs is a crime. You may not like the fact, but unless you get your ass out of your computer chair and change the legislative branches of the
So if you are going to deal in an act of less than legal standing..SHUT THE FUCK UP ABOUT IT!
Can you image the stupidity of a criminal who offs someone and then jumps on line with a web page full of gifs and mpegs of the act....
Its like those idiots who videotaped themselves robbing houses. Darwin will out and hopefully this level of genetic damage will filter out of the gene pool.
Get smart and stay smart. An undergound activity that is raised to the light of the mass market is worthless.
Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap! Poor little clams! Snap! Snap! Snap!
Bah. Nerds are interested in whatever is interesting, which for the most part is everything. So maybe all of us don't know why the 74S is nearly obsolete, but I would venture to guess most of us are interested. (If I remember correctly, S is fast, but drawbacks to it. heat/power... something)
Every time I read an article, I see someone who has written in there "Is this REALLY news for nerds?" The answer, in short is, yes. No matter what you pick, you can find a group of nerds/geeks/hackers who are interested in it. This is probably true for everything up to Disco, and then we'll go with a "maybe".
So let up on the posters, get a life, and don't worry about what type of TTL is in your machine.
As far as the _topic_: I think that the people who produce a work, be it a painting, a piece of music, or a movie, these people should be able to have control over their own works. On the other hand, these (heh) lawyers (rotfl) have about a snowballs chance in hades of stopping anyone from downloading anything.
>>>>>>>>> Kvort
-Don't mind me, I'm personality-deficient and mentally-impaired.
I'm afraid you are not a worthy vessel, oh little one.
heh
But lets get real here. We're all either geeks, pirates or both. The VCD scene has been getting bigger and bigger (The Matrix seemed to kick it off) for months now. Star Wars hit the internet just under 2 days after is public release in the US. I have personally seen over 5 different copies going around the latest of which features surround-sound and widescreen. Im not saying this is a good thing, Im just saying its a fact. If poor Lucas thinks he can win where music companies for months and software companies for years have lost... he's got another thing coming. In 5 minutes online Ive seen the matrix, american pie, star wars, the blair witch project, the haunting, and 2 other movies Ive never heard of online available for download in both asf and mpeg format. VCD's online are here to stay, not to sound like a pirate supporter, But get over it!
And not even then, apparently.
First drink coffee, then read
Will that be my contribution to the world: "He solved a head count problem"? - Asok, 'Dilbert'
This is so typical of people who think the Internet is just Email and the WWW...they aren't even looking on Efnet and Undernet for these things. I don't think I've even attempted to download phil3z off webpages because it's totally unreliable...I always prefer to grab my tarballs from FTP sites because it's faster and ncftp can resume in case something pukes.
If these lawyers are serious about cracking down on VCD trading, they should hire some 14-year old kids for minimum wage to spend 8 hours a day on IRC and write down the domains of the FTP servers...and knowing lawyers, they probably realize this but opt to get paid the big bucks for doing relatively nothing.
www.cdmediaworld.com - Everything you want to know about cd burning.
I have a decent 32' direct view widescreen tv (sony wega) and compared the bootleg VS the official trailer in terms of av quality :
vcd on encore dxr2 with SVHS out :
- too much reverb to comprehend the dialogue, mono sound
- lame 4:3 ratio
- resolution : even worse than VHS
- a lot of mpeg1 artefacts
- noise appears suddenly, on screen display switched on/off during movie, stupid moving Z
- very badly done
VS
officiql quicktime 4 preview on TNT2 asus card with SVHS out
- very good picture quality
- orginal theatre aspect ratio
- stereo sound
- decent resolution
The only good VCD I ever saw was a legal copy of star trek 6 from philips.
Since DVD is out there, VHS and VCD are as good as dead. I will definitely watch the movie in the theatre, but it's a big shame we'll have to wait until october the 5th !!!
Well, wasn't Scientology well known for their very 'determined' ways of stopping anyone spreading information about their organisation, be it with lawyers or by other means?
I'm not to happy about the message that the people with the most money and hence the most 'determined' lawyers can control the flow of information, but i'm also not too surprised about it.
R.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
The Web will grow until at least there is
point-to-point streaming HDTV video to every desk,
phone or TV now. Maybe 50 times greater bandwidth
needed and 10 times more terminals. (Preview of
this in scifi show Final Conflict.)
Audio is just on the threshhold of this convergence with web-telephones, web-radio,
and web-jukeboxes. The copyright legal/technical
issue will resolve there first.
But these were no ordinary lawyers. They had a second whole computer system ready to press their case.
Is she kidding me. Thad had another computer with a different ip address. How clever of them. I bet some one got a raise with that idea. And here are some more great treats:
For the `Phantom Menace`, it was a success to have simply stopped the great bulk of the bootleggers.
So, the next time someone tells you -- `You just can't stop information from being passed around the Internet!` -- think twice.We can stop most of it with a little determination.
Wow, those are some bold statements. The funny thing is that I know a ton of places to get the VCD. In fact, all of the places I know of have not been shut down or aproached by lawyers. And just wait until the new semester starts. This VCD stuff is going to be huge. And I was the industy I'd be really worried. Sure the quality isn't great but it is good enough.
--------------------------------------
in a world without bounderies or fences, who needs Gates anyway?
George Lucas: a guy that got rich because he made a movie basically about rebels fighting an evil empire.
How ironic.Lucasfilm has themselves to be blaimed for most of the demand on the bootlegs from outside USA. If they had decided to start showing the movie at about the same date all over the world, instead of for instance withholding the movie for three whole months before showing it in Europe, the demands on the bootlegs would not be as large, and thus neither would the supply. The tickets will be released next week in my country, but most people I know have already seen it ... I don't blame them.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Again, this is a flawed argument. I see it over and over again and its really starting to bug me. The GPL only protects things _against_ copyrights. It depends on copyrights to do this, but the whole purpose is to prevent somebody from copying the source and RELICENSING it. THIS is what a copyright does. If there were no copyrights the GPL would not be necessary, since the "copy" of the "GPL'ed" could be again LEGALLY copied, and resubmitted into the public domain.
My room-mate downloaded TPM and burned 2 cd with it. The copy is not bad, around VHS quality. We did this little side-project at the lab driven by the curiosity to watch the movie. We would die if we had to wait until 30 September... Obviously Mr. Lucas is not going to lose money on us (and the zillions that borrowed the cd) because we plan to do a pilgrimage to watch it as soon as it opens. Even knowing the movie really sucks... We were just forced to do it by the satanic forces that control Hollywood marketing. It was well worth the eternal damnation from the copyright enforcers, just to watch the pod race on the *borrowed* faculty video wall and surround stereo...
I don't think I'll do it again soon. It was an exception, as I never buy or hunt for bootleg stuff. I respect the work of people and will pay for it when I want to enjoy it. But agonising in this wait would have been too much for me.
Antonius Coward
That might have been *preferable* to Jar Jar.
- A.P.
--
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Look people: copying a movie is THEFT. George Lucas made the movie. The movie belongs to George Lucas. If George Lucas doesn't want the movie distributed on the internet, that is George Lucas's decision.
Even Richard Stallman, the Saint of Free Software, believes that it is okay to copyright and protect entertainment.
Most of the comments I see here are completely juvenile. "It's not FAIR that George Lucas not just give away the movie he spent millions of dollars making! He is a jerk! He should just give it to me!"
Grow up.
What a loser.
I don't know anything about the different families of TTL, but I bet I'm a hell of a lot more of a geek than you. Any idiot can memorize stupid facts about hardware. Just like any idiot can memorize pi to a thousand digits, but that doesn't make them a geek.
One problem with the amount of material on Usenet is that there is so much of it that ISPs just can't handle it. My ISP for example has a full newsfeed but purges the binary groups every 24 hours to avoid overwhelming its news servers. This is fine for .jpg and .wav files but for the big bulky stuff, it can be pretty inconvenient. So I can download MP3s and MPGs but half the time, they'll get purged in mid download.
That still hasn't stopped me from downloaded a couple of hundred MBs of the stuff.
"spread so more people could see it."
Are you kidding? TPM is one of the most-seen films in the history of the world! Indeed, probably among the most-seen works of authorship of all-time. Still further, I doubt you can get to more than a few digits by counting the number of people who would be capable of obtaining an internet copy who have not already seen it at least once in a theatre.
Exposure to his art is not George Lucas' problem. He has that problem licked, and it is not at all apparent to me that any free distribution would accomplish as much or more widespread interest than his proprietary closed model. It would appear that the IP/market regime is doing just fine in terms of satisfying his concerns for his art so far as distribution is concerned.
Make no mistake, this art costs money to make. But for the astronomical revenues the work can produce, it would not have been produced.
for $9.25 should receive a free copy since it was so bad. I personally think they made plently of money on the movie...what is the difference if a few hundred/(thousand) people have a crappy copy with bad sound and peoples heads poking into view from the row in front of the filmer...it isn't going to take any money away from the movie. If you see the bootleg and like it your going to see it anyway because you want the good sound and better visuals...if you don't like the bootleg you won't go see it. Think of it more like a "try it before you buy it" deal. After all the movie did blow...I'm sorry I spent MY money. Jar Jar must die
======== In the future, everything will be artificial. ========
What's absolutely clear from this exercise is that you can really make it uncomfortable for people who do irritating things on the Internet...So, the next time someone tells you -- `You just can't stop information from being passed around the Internet!` -- think twice. We can stop most of it with a little determination.
...and a pocket like George Lucas'. How much would I have to pay a fleet of badass lawyers to hunt down my e-mail/name/phone all over the web?
I would say a bit more than a bit wouldn't you? If I remember correctly finding the Matrix was easier on some silly "hotline" thing for windows (essentialy an IRC rip off from what I saw) As all of these sites were passworded they wouldn't find anything unless these lawyers were good social engineers. While I think hotline is a stupid proprietary interface I am sure IRC has the same level of movie trading. I bet these folks didn't even know about the lawyers. While I don't believe in ripping off movie makers I also think $8 is a bit rediculas for a movie. I jsut don't see them all that often.
I think you are completely wrong. I'm pretty sure most of the people who downloaded the movie did so because they LIKED it. It gives them something to watch while we have to wait for a year or whatever between the time it leaves the theatres and shows up on DVD/VHS. I would also guess that the same people who download it are going to buy it when it comes out on DVD/VHS. The people who wanted to see it first, saw it in the theatres. The people who didn't like the crappy first release, would probably just download the newer, widescreen version.
Downloading movies now a days is a lot quicker and easier than ever before. As much as people don't want to admit it, I think its here to stay.
-- toolie
However, it isn't totally about throwing money at advertising. Lucas is a marketing genius, far better than he is a film maker. It's unfortunate that a lot of people confuse the two.
Using Microsoft software is like having unprotect sex.
Bite the hand.
Frankly, phantom menace was so incredibly overrated, overhyped and ended up being such an overall piece of crap and waste of my money, I find it almost difficult to believe someone would want to pirate it. And it serves Lucas right. The man sometimes sounds as though he is the second coming. I mean really, Phantom Menace sucked. Lucas should be happy that there is interest in it at all. And isn't the man supposed to be forward thinking?
This is lovely. Too bad there wasn't an article there after all that lavicious worship of Lucasarts lawyers. Pirates of the stripe that take in cameras to movies and then sell the tapes are less than ethical, but lawyers will always be somewhere down there with them.
Choice quotes from the article:
"The lawyers actually got organized back in April. They started out by warning some 700 Internet Service Providers they would be held responsible for anyone offering bootleg copies on their services."
In other words, in a typical corporate lawyer maneuver, they threatened and hassled a good number of people/ISPs who probably never engaged in piracy of SW:TPM or presented resistance to Lucasarts, now or later.
"But these were no ordinary lawyers. They had a second whole computer system ready to press their case."
This doesn't make a shred of sense. Perhaps she meant they had another IP to come in from? (Probably just something caught up in techie-jargon-to-journalist translation.)
"In the end, some 300 Internet Web sites were shut down and hundreds more individuals withdrew their offers to sell stolen copies. All in all, it was a great success."
Until site #301 opened up somewhere in a former Eastern Bloc nation for free (this is a possible EXAMPLE). Of course it was a great success - one doesn't tell one's clients otherwise, epsecially if they happend to be a one Mr. Lucas. This is just a publicity statement.
"Why not have a `Cyber Patrol` which is constantly vigilant, watching the World Wide Web?"
Of course. Those of us who are law-abiding citizens have nothing to hide, right? *shudder*
"So, the next time someone tells you -- `You just can't stop information from being passed around the Internet!` -- think twice. We can stop most of it with a little determination."
Pirates get what they deserve, especially if they sell their stolen wares, but that line gives me the creeps. How would we like it if that quote came from Louis Freeh, let alone some corporate lawyer?
Again, it appears mainstream press and corporate lawyers do not understand the concept of information: once it's out, it's out, regardless of legality or origin. (Or regardless of accuracy for that matter...)
----- The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they will be when you kill them.
I just want the clip of the final lightsaber scene (with the Gungan battle edited out).
But isn't the purpose of the Doomsday machine lost if you keep it a secret!
Laugh, but that pirate copy of PM sucked, a waste of CDs. Go see it in the theater or wait for DVD. Sorry, I like high resolution and good detail, as well as Surround Sound.
Lucas lost more money on the lawyers, ha!
Funny I found a widescreen version on efnet that has thai or turkish or something subtitles and the sound and effects are excellent. I no longer possess these files and never did I try to redistribute them. NOT paying the 20 dollars or so a movie costs in total is my way of slapping jar jar in the face.
Lucas is rich enough. I'm sure he won't go hungry over this.
Because the internet is not a US only entity, fool!
spot on!
-
this is the only way we can fight jar-jar. on his own turf...
which brings me to the next point, cgi (therefore jar-jar) is taken from the internet. he is happy to take the use of internet for his advantage, but is not willing for the internet to work the other way...
besides i'm sure every pirate is 'geeky' enuff to watch it at the movies and buy many of the products
As a Taiwanese, I feel ashamed about the piracy situation. I was talking to a mainland Chinese today about piracy. The Chinese pretty much tells me:"If you want me to pay you copyright, i will tell you that i don't have the money. You can lock me up, take my life, but I won't have anything to pay you."
(I'd like to mention, also, that this PHD candidate also mentioned about Chinese schools considering using Linux because they simply cannot afford MS products.)
Earlier Taiwanese adapted the same idea about copyright. However, US 301 Treatie pressured Taiwanese government to cooperate with the US regarding to the copyright issue. I personally understand that those VCD's sold in Taiwan are not current film showing in the theaters. They are copyrighted... just like selling videotapes. US did have copyright contract to those legal VCD sellers, but the contract is much more flexible. Why? i.e. Taiwanese don't pay as much for the same movie as the Americans do. There are many reasons for this.
1. because the industry supply-and-demand curve is totally different from that of the US. You cannot expect a Taiwanese willing to pay the same price for the same entertainment.
2. because if US productions studio charge too much for copyright, Taiwanese will simply start pirating. They don't usually pirate through the network. The population is so dense, that all you need to do to get a pirated copy is to get into the backdoor of a local computer/CD store.
All and all, Taiwanese has much improved in the last ten years or so regarding to this issue. It's still far from the U.S. but believe me, if the copyright owner is willing to sue, the Taiwanese court will rule in favour for the copyright holder.
I don't think this is really the case in mainland China.
a frequent example is Microsoft in Taiwan. You and I know that MS is usually flexible about piracy, and you can find those "appoligies to Microsoft" open letters on just about every computer magazine in Taiwan.
You normally don't need to. The pirate groups cut them to the length so that if you burn them in VCD format, even if they are 780+ megs, they WILL FIT.
BTW, i downloaded star wars EP1, watched for 15 minutes and fell asleep. it sucked soooo badly. can they sue me for downloading but not watching it?
The point of here is not that you can totally stop the information from flowing, but by aggressively policing the net, you can stop the average web surfing person from easily downloading the information
The other point I would like to make is that ISPs are probably the next ones to feel the heat. If they are notified there is a violation, they are supposed to "monitor" that user to ensure that they don't put up the infringing material.
Also I bet after a few ISPs spend a couple of thousands or tens of thousands losing a court case, they will quickly shut down any infringing material (and unfortunately they will probably start shutting down people for the weakest reasons, look at whats happened to anonymous postings)
Copyright violation is copyright violation. George Lucas is using legal means to slap the wrists of little kiddies who distribute property he holds a copyright on. Good for him. It won't really work but its amazing so many people hold it against him.
If I tomorrow grab the source tree for Linux, strip out all that nasty copyright information and redistribute it sans license (or maybe under my own license) hoards of screaming Free Software zealots would beat down my door bearing torches and rightfully so.
The success or lack of success of the object who's copyright is being violated doesn't make a difference except in the minds of the deadbeats who think everything everywhere should be free regardless of the authors intent.
Is violating the GPL on Linux any more ethical now than it was say 4 years ago when it was less successful?
I certainly don't feel I'm ripping George Lucas off. I've seen the movie in the theater seven times at $7 a pop. Each time, I brought my girlfriend. Sometimes I would bring other friends along too. I always payed. This adds up to over $100 for his movie. I plan on getting the dvd and vhs movies when they come out. I've spent an assload of money on merchandise. Also, the movie isn't even in the theater here anymore so if I want to see it, this is pretty much the only way unless I'm in the mood for driving for a few hours.
Hey, have a nice one, guy.
I saw TPM available for download on hotline just the other day. The wasn't good enough in my opinion to spend hours doing on a 56k modem though.
IRC is pretty good, but it might be nice to have something a little more automated, i.e. you go on IRC before the release date find someone who claims to be able to offer the movie (Yes some people will be full of shit) set up download.. and 2 or 3 days later when the person really offers the movie there bot or whatever automatically sends it to you. Seperate the hassel of looking for the thing from the hassel of downloading it.
Get a decent video card with tv-out and a good SB card... plug it into you home entertainment system and watch it on that 50" screen..... As often as you like.
This is just like pirating anything else. Nobody's making money off the piracy (well with the exception of a few lamerz and YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE), it's all about collecting baseball cards in the 90's. I've got this, I've got that, watch it once then burn it to a cd which will soon be dust-covered and forgotten. Lucasfilm isn't losing any quantifiable amount of cash from this because as someone said earlier, anyone who takes the trouble to download it has probably already paid the dough to see it in the theatre. And who in their right mind would pay to see it twice?
At any rate, art shouldn't be so expensive. Not even bad art at that. Eventually, will people have their memories erased after seeing a movie? Because once you watch something, you remember it, which means you have an illegal offsite copy of something that's copyrighted! I can hear the thought police lawyers now...
An anonymous user wrote: Hehe. And here you are, whining, "It's not FAIR that warez puppies can rip movies. It's THEFT. It's George Lucas' decision whether the movie will be distributed on the internet [sic]."
Actually, if it were George Lucas' decision, the movie wouldn't be getting distributed on the Internet. I guess we'll all have to live with that. ;)
I'm not an entertainment ripper myself; I don't like the (admittedly unlikely) downside of possibly getting caught by lawyers with an axe to grind. But I'm not sure there is any significant ethical content to the assertion that our bloated intellectual property system deserves a groundswell of support.
I like the sig.
I just saw a bumper sticker on a pickup truck last week that said:
One Country, One flag, One Language
next to a picture of an american flag. Really makes you wonder what kind of people worry about a symbol being burned as well as other people in the country only knowing a non-english language. And worrying enough to put a bumber sticker on their truck over it!
The truth is more important than the facts.
-Frank Lloyd Wright
I just read the article through for a second time. I am absolutely amazed at how moronic it is. The author hardly put any thought, if at all, into this article. She make gross generalizations that are unsupported and unfounded. I get mighty sick of people going around claiming to "know all about the internet". I know more than them, and I hardly claim to be an expert, merely an experienced user.
this is the coolest tag-line i have seen all day. oh wait back to the post... i dont think that stopping piracy etc, etc will ever happen.
1). there are too many people willing to pirate/steal intellectual property.
2). software/music/video are entirely overpriced.
3). humans dont have any morals (especially Americans).
no matter how hard you try to stop them humans will continue to steal, now you may be able to put the axe down onto the necks of some of these big distributors, but i can tell you right now there is no way in hell that you will ever stop friends sharing info/software/mp3/vcd with friends, and let me tell you; everybody has about 3 barrels of friends.
so go ahead and stop the big distributors they are stupid for trying to put up such big sites anyways, but you will never stop the public from this theft with lawsuits. the issue is much deeper, and only education, understanding, and tolerance will bring the theft of intellectual property to a halt.
Well... Katz gets a verbal kick to the head everytime he tries to define geek, so I don't see why you shouldn't.
Since when did you get to define geek for everyone? I always thought it was 'smart and unpopular in highschool'. but whatever...
enough venting.
at least I get laid. >:)
(I'm sorry, I just _had_ to throw that in)
Let's see. A number of consumers have an unsatisfied need(want), to be able to view the latest releases in the theater, in their own home.
There exists an infastructure to deliver the good to the number of customers that demand it.
Where are the marketing people when you need them? Consumers want a product that costs little to nothing to replicate? Sounds like capitalism isn't doing it's job....
The consumers are the core of capitalism, and when the buisiness don't fufill their material wants, do the consumers have any other choice except to aquire them by illegal means?
This is simply the logical consequences of big buisiness choosing to provide seven dollar buckets of popcorn while the customer demands new technology... The best way to stop that is to make it unprofitable...
And I might be just kidding... so don't flame me..
Saved me from having to say it.
OTOH there are tons (er, I mean gigs) of this material available on usenet. I know that a very high quality MPEG of TPM was just posted last week (in addition to the lower-grade copies that have been around for some time). Not that I would download it of course. I just happened to notice that it was there. Really.
On a completely unrelated topic. Does anyone know how to "overburn" a CD 'cause I've got a 750MB file that I'd like to move off of my HD.
I am continuously amazed at how much of a control-freak Lucas is. That man is so anal retentive it is amazing. I am actually shocked that he never did take Francis Ford Coppola's advice and start a new religion based upon the idea of "The Force".
Creativity and inspiration should be (and can be (and is, if you are childish enough :))) free.
How much do you think lucas is making from ticket sales and royalties? A hell of a lot more than it cost to make, thats for sure
``Phantom Menace'' is not the only film to be peddled on the Internet. Several publications have reported that ``The Matrix'' and ``Shakespeare in Love'' were among the films that could be found in recent weeks.
These guys are really out of the scene if they think that these were the only movies being moved around two weeks ago. Shakespeare? Um, didn't that come out almost a year ago???
``This was cutting-edge stuff,'' McMahon said, noting that the law firm staff worked around the clock, seven days a week for much of May and June scouting for pirates.
Achieving that required some serious cybersleuthing, McMahon said, though he declined to provide any technical details. Those are trade secrets, the lawyer said.
Gosh, wish we were all privy to those 'trade secrets.' He sure is smart.
There were certain spots that they would regularly patrol. ``You have to know the dark street corners of the Internet -- the bad neighborhoods,'' said Neel Chatterjee, another Orrick, Herrington lawyer who worked on the case.
Oooh...the 'dark street corners' of The Internet. Thank god those lawyers are patrolling the bad places for us, and making The Internet safe for everyone...
The major underground scene you claim exists is _extremely_ easy to find, even for someone not even looking hard.
For example, head to any major IRC server and issue the command "/LIST -MIN 25" and up will pop up a list of warez and mp3 channels where you can (painstakingly) pick up the latest goods. I guess every goes where the good stuff is, why wouldn't Lucasfilm lawyers do the same? This is easy.
Or, head on over to any of the conspicuously named alt.binaries.* Usenet groups where GBs of pirated warez are posted every day, assuming your ISP doesn't filter them. This is the second minute of effort to find pirated copies of TPM. Not hard is it?
For our third minute, head over to your favorite search engine and search for "download Phantom Menace", "TPM.VCD", or any of several obvious searches. Up pops 100 webpages to weed through.
Wow, this underground stuff is really hard. The underground is far above ground and easy to find. The real underground is just vapor, it doesn't exist.
Movies are the next big thing beyond mp3. With better formats like mpeg4 on the horizen and cable and asdl modems becoming common it is inevitable. For some with fast connections it is allready common place. I can assure you they didn't hurt anyone with this media campaign. Do they really think they can stop this? ha.
Once again it all comes down to the money, I heard Lucas in a previous interview say "If I could do it for free I would, but the other people want their money". How noble. If Lucas really cared more about the art and less about the money he would want the movie to spread so more people could see it.
"The availability of films on the Internet does not mean that anyone with a home computer and
Internet access can download them. For instance, ``Phantom Menace'' is about 1.2 gigabytes, and
even with high-speed access would take 10 hours to download, said Ens, the editor of the
www.TheForce.net Web site. Trying to do it with a modem could take at least five times that long,
he said.
Another problem is that the pirated copies are frequently very poor quality. In many instances,
someone sneaks a hand-held digital video camera into a movie theater, though on some occasions
the film itself has been stolen. "
What?
If the movie is 1.2 gigs, it is _not_ low quality.
If its low quality, it could be from 1/4 to 1/2 as small as 1.2 gigs. They argue that both are "dettiments" to d/l'ing movies, yet the two are often murually exclusive. Yuck.
man, this artical really sucked, i mean "websites"? how can you cut someone off a website? I think they were probably talking about IRC anyway. and "all in all" man, I'm sorry, but this reporter really sucks.
oh well
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I never meant to say that the people who pirated Lucas's work were justified. I never said it, either. I just said that noone is going to be particularly sympathetic to him because he doesn't need the money. That and do you really think that $50,000 fines plus up to five years in prison is really justified by cheating Lucas out of some portion of $8?
My point wasn't that people should pirate Lucas's work, they're not justified in doing it. Just when you compare relative evils (stealing Lucas's work (less than $8 dollar value to lucas) versus $50,000 + five years imprisonment), which do you think is worse? That's why people are against Lucas. Not because he's fighting innocent people, but that he's breaking ribs in return for insults. The retribution is many fold more than the crime.
This actually is due to the fact that if you made the punishment fit the crime, noone would care about the penalty. Still, does it make sense to make the punishmet 1000 times more significant than the crime just so that the punishment acts as a deterrent? I guess the argument is that the damage is done to the fabric of society, and that's what the punishment is about. Maybe. I don't really buy it, though. Society did just fine without copyright for too long to believe that we're that dependent on copyright now.
Besides that, there's just too much piracy going on right no for me to believe that piracy really is going to rip apart the fabric of our society.
Oh, and I saw the movie in theaters twice, and I never saw it in bootleg copy on the net. If Lucas keeps up this money-grubbing unforgiving greed that he seems to be displaying ("I wish that the toys were cheaper but it's the manufacturers who are driving the prices up, my licensing fees don't have anything to do with it... really."), I may not see his next movie on the principle of the thing. Given how much money the guy is making, it really doesn't make sense that he cares about the piracy going on. It's got to be a drop in the bucket, when you get down to it. As you pointed out - how many people actually have the systems and bandwidth to get a bootleg copy and didn't go see the movie?
They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- C. Sagan
It has nothing to do with money, it has to do with Lucas and his hype machine (the best there is) making sure he is in complete control of everything you see and hear. The financial hit doesn't come from the people who actually watch the bootleg, it comes from the people who then find out the movie sucks and were previously undecided.
Using Microsoft software is like having unprotect sex.
Bite the hand.
Yes, ripping movies and distributing them on the Internet is wrong. But personally, I have very little sympathy for Lucas or his cause. He deserves this and a whole lot more. Why? Because, contrary to popular belief he, not Jar Jar ruined Star Wars. With his 'digital movie' bullshit, he asked a very talented group of actors to divert their effort from creating dynamic characters toward just trying to act on in an environment that isn't really there. Lucas wanted them to act in front of a blue screen, and what he got was them acting LIKE they were in front of a blue screen. Asshole.
I realize this might violate some nerd ethic by recommending you leave the digital world for a moment, but if you really want a pirate copy of any movie, head down to chinatown. It doesn't matter WHICH chinatown, or which movie--they _all_ have them all, in stock, cheap.
I can't believe they let people like this Moira Gunn write articles. I had a good laugh reading it, I'm amazed at the level of stupidity.
If some people think it's bad now, just wait until the real deal comes out, none of this cam crap. Then there will be some serious 'bootlegging'.
Spread butter on the table and dance!
Aren't I taking more money away from movie producers if I pay to see one movie in a googleplex theatre and then spend the rest of the day going from cinema to cinema and see all the movies they have during the course of a day?
Maybe he should put THX-1138 style cops outside the doors checking tickets.
I went and paid my $6.50 3 times. I also have a copy of it that a friend burnt to 2 cd's for me. I still supported the film by going 3 times.
Besides, A pirated copy is nothing the the experience of a HUGE digital theater, the only people who are getting jipped here are the one's who didnt see it in the theater.
Just my $00.02
- "My name is Legion, for we are many" -Mark 5:9
These bastards think that by any long shot they are gonna stop the flow of information? So the shut down a bunch of lamer websites on geoshitties? BIG FUCKIN DEAL! There are thousands of FTPs and Fileservers on the internet serving this stuff! I don't even have cable, yet I've somehow managed to get ~ 24 movies in the past year.. (off and on) Hell, I don't even go to theatres anymore, just because I'll have the movie downloaded before I get around to going to the theatre.. I bet lucas doesn't even know what IRC is! so as for him, BLOW ME!
Au contrare,
It does work. It's just not fair in your estimation.
When you have people involved, there is no such thing as a totally fair system. Someone will always be in charge, count the vote, make the rule, etc. Even if someone decided to have anarchy as the only form of society, that person had to make that decision. It's not fair to the rest of us that WANT MORE RULES to tell us we can't have them.
Two quotes:
"When you choose not too decide, you still have made a choice."
"Those who know what's best for us must rise and save us from ourselves."
Airneil
"waste their time downloading over a gigabyte of movie where "use the force" sounds like "OORGH A WORTTSHK!" "
"Assuming a few jerks with no life actually download it"
Seeing as how it sounds like you've experienced one of these early releases... Does that make you a jerk with no life?
What base do they have to call it a success? I still run into PM on FTP sites every day. On my providers cable network alone there are at least 50 servers left that have it....
N.
You say it's possible to stop internet piracy? You say that it's wrong to rip the movie off? Because of hard work? I don't care about the MPAA. Make donations to Lucas or something. Oh, and your copyright laws mean nothing in China.
I'm a gnu world man.
This rant sounds like the work of egotist, not a geek.
Different nerds have different specialties - there's programmer nerds, microprocessor nerds, network nerds, sysadmin nerds, webmaster nerds...
Just because someone doesn't know your particular specialty doesn't make them a wannabe. Do they wannabe like you? Probably not.
Sorry about the flame. Just think your post was pure drivel.
--- "So THAT's what an invisible barrier looks like!" - Time Bandits
Just another happy, fluffy story of how the "good guys" (big filmmaking corporations and their equally big lawyers) kicked the "bad guys" (those nasty internet pirates! Fear!) squarely in the pants. Not quite.
Wow, they caught 300 people selling TPM? That's barely scratching the surface. They only trolled the WWW for pirated copies, nothing else.
The lawyers actually got organized back in April. They started out by warning some 700 Internet Service Providers they would be held responsible for anyone offering bootleg copies on their services.
How can they hold an ISP liable for stolen information? That's like the FBI holding the owner of a parking lot liable for any stolen cars found in the lot.
Then they switched their focus to the bootleggers themselves. With Electronic Cease and Desist Orders at the ready, the lawyers lie in wait, constantly patrolling the Internet. When a bootlegger would pop up, they'd email the order, threatening the possibility of a $2 Million fine and 10 years in jail.
Most complied immediately, but some cyber-pirates didn't take kindly to these digital equivalents of bad news on legal letterhead. One indignantly replied, `Who do you think you are?` and promptly cut the lawyers off their Web site.
Can someone explain this last bit of drivel to me?
Why not have a `Cyber Patrol` which is constantly vigilant, watching the World Wide Web?
Who would control such an orginization? The government? A private company? Who decides what is acceptable and what is not?
For example, what about those Web sites that offer personal information about citizens like you and me? Does the world really have a right to our home address and telephone number?
Sure does. Ever heard of a phone book? (BTW, how did this article shift from "bootlegging" to "loss of privacy"?)
Here, I think we can take a page from George Lucas' book. For the `Phantom Menace`, it was a success to have simply stopped the great bulk of the bootleggers.
So, the next time someone tells you -- `You just can't stop information from being passed around the Internet!` -- think twice. We can stop most of it with a little determination.
"Great bulk"? "most of it"? Yeah, sure.
What a load of crap. With the insane amount of money Lucas has made off of TPM and its marketing blitzkreig (please stop playing those damn Pepsi can commercials with that rapping idiot; I couldn't care less about finding the Golden Yoda) I don't think he needs to worry about loss of revenue from bootleggers. Anyone who wasted enough time to download a copy of the movie almost certainly saw it in the theater first.
paranoid.android
As somebody that's seen the pirated DVD:
PM sucked. I sat through the first 20 minutes until I switched to Blade Runner which is a far better movie, and event today is quite watchable. Too bad good science fiction isn't made anymore. The only reason I had the CD's is because a friend got it for the pure novelty value.
Oh well, Alien was a good movie even if Alien Resurrection was CRAP.
Disclaimer: this is all a lie.
It's not actually the impact to movie ticket sales and video rentals that's at stake. It's the copyright issues. If Lucas does not attempt to defend his copyright, he looses it. He has to hire lawyers to register complaints etc, otherwise he will loose the rights to the movie.
This is the same reason that Star Trek sites were shut down...
Luhar
The author of this article suggests that Lucas was somehow successful in stemming the flow of the bootleg TPM. The only movie easier to get than TPM is The Matrix. This article is just spreading censorship propaganda, saying specifically that public information should be controlled in the name of privacy.
While I'm all for privacy, public information should be readily available and the Internet is the perfect medium. Phone numbers, addresses, criminal records, and anything else that is considered a matter of public record should not be censored.
Texas has an excellent website at www.publicdata.com that contains all sorts of useful stuff - all public record.
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -- Homer Simpson
And the ISP community at large laughed them back into the shadows. Some even sent back forms to the lawyers describing their hourly consulting rates for finding and deleting said content, and included an application to start consulting service.
Why not have a `Cyber Patrol` which is constantly vigilant, watching the World Wide Web?
Because you're on crack? A good portion of trading happens independent of the public, and independent of the World Wide Web. Policing those means would be a breach of privacy for the traders, and therefore would be unacceptable.
Does the world really have a right to our home address and telephone number?
Of course they do.
So, the next time someone tells you -- `You just can't stop information from being passed around the Internet!` -- think twice. We can stop most of it with a little determination.
No you can't. 99.99995% of the time, it'll be mirrored somewhere. That's the good thing about digital media. Providing you have the space to store it, there's really no cost for materials to reproduce it, aside from possible bandwidth costs.
And you can't track it. Most of the best stuff is being traded on the inside, you are only privy to the stuff that bubbles to the surface.
Truthfully, most of the crap that comes out of the big studios isn't even worth the disk space it occupies. Especially the Phantom Menace.
For the overburning issue, use a VCD creator, you're obviously trying to burn a MPEG file into a VCD and the only way to burn it is burn it in mode 2 (XA mode). I use Adeptic's VCD Creator which is quite easy to work with since it's wizard-driven.
I'm staring right now at a bitmap of the 'bruised lower lip' woman character from that movie "Star Wars, the fourth episode renumbered as episode one" and realizing they've made a ton of money from the movie already.
Granted they've invested considerable money into the form of Black Magick that we in this culture call 'advertising' and should be able to reap the benefits from the mindspace they now own in each of our heads.
So let them take down anybody who 'pirates' the copyrighted images. It's nothing new. I don't even feel it's Stuff that Matters. But I'm a real geek, not a wannabe.
Real geeks know, for example the relative merits of the different families of TTL (74, 74S, 74LS, 74ALS, 74C, 74HC, etc.) Ubergeeks even know why the 74S family is nearly obsolete (except where screaming speed is necessary, ie a few gates on video cards,) and which chips in the LS family their code is most likely still flowing through in the late 90's (i.e. the 74LS244 and 74LS373, though in a lot of cases it will be HC families instead).
Wannabies just get confused by all this.
It will not impact the bottom line of video rentals or threaters one bit.
Fact is, very few people can download an almost
1 gigabyte MPEG. I have a T1 myself and it would be painful, to say nothing of the HD space on my poor 18gb HD.
On top of that, the quality *sucks* compared to even VHS, and it has shitty sound. Even VHS
bootlegs suck.
Nothing compares to the real experience of seeing a movie on a HUGE screen like the Uptown in DC, with a kickass sound system. If you sit at home watching bootlegs on your monitor, you are a penny pinching loser.
People have been bootlegging forever. They are a nuisance, but they don't impact the general viewing audience (except in Hong Kong where VCD's are killing the movie industry). They may impact VHS sales, but probably not.
Even MP3 pirating isn't affecting music sales. The fact is, the vast majority of people still pay for stuff, and they won't spend all their time hanging out in EFNet #warez/#mp3 (assuming they even know what IRC is)
Well, Microsoft is now working with the Chinese government.... "reassuring" isnt it.....
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
They don't want the bootleg floating around because it's um.. BAD QUALITY. The sound is a rather dead mono and the video is murky, dark, and postage stamp size (on the monitor resolution of the person's machine I saw it on at least :-) )
YMMV. Not worth the bandwitdh to download it. But at least you can get a preview and save the $8.00 of going to the theater!
While it's true that the "underground" as you put it is alive and well, I think you are greatly overestimating it's size. In order to reap the benefits of these private FTP sites, you have to make a significant investment of time and effort in order to be accepted and gain access. The vast majority of people are not going to bother making that investment (even if they could figure out how.) While you say "millions more downloading it from private ftp sites", I would guess that the actual number is probably more like thousands.
What the studios, Lucas, RIAA, etc, are worried about are easy to find pirate sites. If somebody has a high speed FTP site, and gets a link up on Yahoo so that anybody who searches for "Phantom Menace" gets back a working link that says "download your own copy here", Lucas is going to have a problem. So, he hires a few lawyers whose job is to make all the pirates keep their heads down so that 99% of the population can't find the goods. Trying to catch that last hard-core 1% just isn't worth the effort on their part (especially considering the fact that they aren't likely to be successful anyway.)
If the pirate underground was really home to millions of people trading goods, the entire commercial software industry would have collapsed years ago. The reality is it is not easy to find out exactly where to go to find reliable sources of warez. And once you do find out, it's still a pain in the ass to actually find what you want and get a copy. And then it's often of dubious quality. All the studios have to do is make sure it stays this way. As long as the underground is actually underground, they don't have anything to worry about. If it manages to become highly-visible and reliable, then they are screwed.
Quite frankly getting anywhere near the tech level of ST would require about 100,000,000 years and a change of genetic structure.
/. post about some guy saying that it might be possible with low energy...
Guite frankly the level of technology in star track is impossible. The amount of energy required to replicate something is at all times equal to mc^2 where m is the mass and c is the speed of light.
As for warp drive, well there was a
anyway, I like star track, (well except for voyager, that show really just sucks, unfortunately) star trak insurrection also sucked, a lot worse then SW:TPM IMO. (although generations was amazing)
btw, re read your post (although I know it might be painful to do so, next time ether post as plain text or make frequent use of the <br> HTML tags) All you did was say why star trak was great, not about what makes b5 *bad* other then that you don't like the idea of "dim" worlds. In fact you only referred to b5 in one sentence!
as for the topic at hand... what was the topic at hand?
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I sent this to the "comments" address at the bottom of the column. I kept it a lot milder than I felt...
I was concerned by several comments in Moira Gunn's recent article on Lucas' attempts to stop Internet piracy of Episode 1. I began to worry when she wrote, "They started out by warning some 700 Internet Service Providers they would be held responsible for anyone offering bootleg copies on their services." Last I heard, ISPs are not responsible for content that they don't edit, especially if they're not aware of it. Has this changed? I hope not, because that would chill a lot of socially valuable communication--ISPs would have to become much too restrictive, rather than simply allowing the law to deal with the people who actually commit the crime. But if ISPs are not in fact responsible, then what Lucas did was simply dishonest bullying.
My worry deepened at the end of the article, where she proposed, "you can really make it uncomfortable for people who do irritating things on the Internet.... Why not have a `Cyber Patrol` which is constantly vigilant, watching the World Wide Web?" Well, there are several groups I don't trust, such as the NSA (remember the Clipper Chip fiasco?) and the Religious Right, who would be delighted to build such a "Cyber Patrol." Let's not give them too many ideas. Her mention of combating loss of privacy is ironic--a Cyber Patrol would likely "expose" much legitimate business that should not be taken out of context, such as speech that is normal for California but violates the community standards of the Bible Belt. Let's not forget that people have been arrested and dragged cross-country--and convicted!--for pursuing legitimate, legal, normal business that some minor official in Tennessee didn't happen to like.
Finally, Ms. Gunn writes, "We can stop most [Internet information] with a little determination." Is this really what we want? Do we want the ability to stop information about civil rights violations around the globe? (Remember Tianeman Square?) Do we want the ability to silence debate about dangerous organizations? (The Scientologists are doing a pretty good job of that now.) Do we want to give special-interest groups the ability to legislate what can and can't be said between adults? (The Communications Decency Act was an unconstitutional travesty--but it's not dead yet!)
Governments and lawyers are quite appropriate when engaged in preventing actual theft. But covering the whole Web in a blanket of lawyers will do far more harm than good. Imagine how different our society would be if every telephone conversation and postal letter were monitored as a matter of course. It's hard to see a dividing line between such monitoring and Ms. Gunn's proposal. It looks to me more like a slippery slope.
As a side note, Ms. Gunn claims that Lucas' lawyers "stopped the great bulk of the bootleggers." How confident are you in this claim? The article gave no evidence whatever.
Chris
Ask me about Nanotechnology, Dyslexia Correction. Tell me about A.I., robotics, infrastructure.
America has been working on getting rid of socialists for so long, I must say that it's sorta vaguely refreshing to see one on /. OTOH, the idea that this is "greed law" is ridiculous. This movie took millions to make; without laws in place so that Lucas & Co. can make that back, groovy movies like this could not be made.
Dammit, my mother is NOT on the cover of Crack Whore Magazine!
Jesus H. Christ, what fucking decade do you live in, anyway? Why don't you take your TTL logic and a few million running ECL transistors while you're at it, along with a couple of broken glass vacuum tubes, and your entire library of thick yellow databooks and shove it all up your arse. And with any luck, we can cram a whole fucking CMOS boatload of HC chips in there too, when you're good and ready for it, maybe in about, say 20 years.
I know the following isn't what most /. readers want to hear, but I think it needs to be said.
Certain Slashdotters characterize how "easy" it is for them (and thus, their friends) to obtain bootlegs, inferring from this how ineffectual it is to undertake enforcement activities with respect to these works. Taken in the broader context, this misses the point, and all evidence is to the contrary except in the narrow context of those statements.
I am here to tell you that media clients do not casually call a lawyer to chase flies -- in exchange for the sizeable fees they pay, they want measurable accountability. They wouldn't do what they are doing and pay what they are paying if it didn't accomplish what they wanted. Arguing that LA is not getting what LA wants because they didn't eradicate piracy is merely pounding upon a straw man.
The bottom line of LA's activities to date is that it is no longer trivial and cost-free for average joe to obtain his bootleg, or to manage and distribute a bootleg haven. Despite allegations made here to the contrary, I think Lucas has the better of this argument.
While it is easy to find TPM bootlegs when you know where to look, only a small percentage of the population (and our immediate friends) know where that is. Yes, yes, with sufficient perseverence, it is possible to find whatever you want on the net, but Average Joe doesn't have that attention span, and AJ's parents won't let him risk the family abode to watch a movie. AJ's ISP will auto-punt on receipt of a DMCA letter, and by and large, the deed was done precisely as LA wanted it.
The goal is simply to assure that the vast percentage of AJ's out there won't have a bootleg, and won't harbor bootleg sources.
Lucas isn't trying to STOP piracy (he would like that, but it isn't close to important to do so), he's trying to preclude a piracy so rampant as to have a financial impact on his revenues exceeding his cost of enforcement.
And with all respect to my colleagues here, I think it is hubris for us to presume that our estimates of the financial costs of piracy are better than those of Lucasarts and media players. Unlike us, LA actually measures the cost of piracy and demonstrates faith in their beliefs by paying Yankee dollars for enforcement. They budget these costs based upon actual research and agressive bean-counting. If they didn't think the expenditures were justified, they wouldn't do it.
In short, they are never going to have the straw man absolute non-piracy, but who cares? They are getting enough protection to suit their purposes and satisfy the market infrastructure whose purchases are their primary source of revenue -- good enough for Jazz, so to speak. And they are getting protection whose value exceeds the costs of enforcement (or the cost of non-enforcement) -- or else they wouldn't be paying those costs.
From what I read, it actualy sounded like they were talking about IRC, I don't see how a person could "cut you off instantaneously" from a web page... It really didn't sound like that woman knew what she was talking about.
She also said that the lawyers told ISPs that they would be held responsible, witch is incorrect, and quite frankly an evil thing to do ( there is no way that that would stand up in court, ISPs are *not* responsible for there clients content, but many ISPs don't have the legal $$ to fight off a law suit, so even though there in the right, they still have to do what Lucas says...)
at the end of her article, she said "all in all it was successful" or something like that. first of all "all in all" is a horrible klee-shay(sp??), and second of all it was a failure. Just about anyone can get TPM if they look. (for people "in the know" on places like #vcd)
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
wget can resume http (from most servers, some old ones do not implement Content-Range or have bugs with it) and ftp (only from servers with resume). Here I use wget -c ftp://dgdsg when I want to get something and never had trouble. It's good also to mirror web sites (it acts like a crawler).
Do they really think that even the lamest of the "31337" are going to waste their time downloading over a gigabyte of movie where "use the force" sounds like "OORGH A WORTTSHK!" and you can't see half the screen when they can go into a theater, plunk down a few bucks and watch it with surround sound? Even if they have to wait a week or two? And if you have a bad connection, the movie will be *released* before you have time to download the whole thing! Assuming a few jerks with no life actually download it, they're going to go see it in theaters anyway because it sucked so bad on the little screen. Oh, no! Lucas is going to lose a couple thousand bucks on this, at least!
~ Give me 101 plastic soldiers, and I will conquer the world.
I downloaded a pirate version of the originol teasers for the movie, but I do not know anyone who actually downloaded the entire movie. I wanted to know as little as possible about the movie, so that when I did see it in a theatre, I would have a better experience (Whether my experience was that much better is open to debate). Were there that many people so desperate to watch a crappy version of the film just to say they "had seen it first".
pretty lame.
true true
I think that any company wanting to stop their product from being pirated, whether it be Software, Video, or even Playstations and N64 Games is crazy to think that we are not on track if not one step ahead of them. They aren't in the underground (at least to our knowledge), they don't see whats ACTUALLY going on, all they know is that a couple of script kiddies put it on their web page for people to download of their hacked shell accounts. In reality, its the fast FTP sites that are moving the stuff, with the introduction of FXP (proxy) to the masses, it has made a whole lot of difference in the way people pirate things. These FTP site have username/pw/ip/ident checking to make sure you or I cannot give our password out to a friend, port scanners dont work on the ports because the ip checking is done by the TCP_Wrappers and the ftp daemon before it even prompts you. With the use of port sentry most likely the firewall will ban you subnet before you even get to the port range you're looking for. So by shutting down 300-400 web pages, it may look good in their eyes, but thats about it. There is still millions more downloading it from private ftp sites that will never be stopped, IMHO.
Those versions (especially the early vcdeu one) were indeed terrible. The Malay screener rip made up for it though. Exceptional video, exceptional audio - the only minor annoyance is the Malaysian subtitles, which are easy to ignore. I guess they didn't want the readers to know that their carefully-controlled, well-oiled machine didn't work as well as one would like to think (otherwise, how would someone have gotten their hands on a screener in the first place?)
"So, the next time someone tells you -- `You just can't stop information from being passed around the Internet!` -- think twice. We can stop most of it with a little determination."
Uh huh. I'll go back to downloading MP3s now. Not that I do that or anything.
- A.P.
--
"One World, One Web, One Program" - Microsoft Promotional Ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"