You don't find paying $7.50 for the privilege of watching 20 minutes of advertising offensive? They're even running advertising "shorts" with Goofy, trying to convince people not to set up a home theatre.
I went to a movie theatre this weekend and an interesting thought occured to me: Would people who download copyrighted works feel guilty about sneaking into a theatre to watch a movie? You're not physically taking anything, and the cost to project the movie would cost the theatre the same regardless of whether you were there or not.
Basically, worrying about the actions of people who download movies or music and don't also buy a copy means the copyright holders are worrying about the actions of people who, with or without the ability to pirate, are not, never have been, and never will be, your customers.
That's quite an assumption. I, on the other hand, believe there are a lot of people who would be paying customers if they couldn't download movies for free.
Calculating copyright infringement's impact on the MPAA's bottom line is indeed problematic, but that doesn't justify it either.
If you know or assume the movie is shit, why download/watch it? And what makes you think it's your right to partake in a good/service where you only have to pay if you deem it a worthwhile experience? It doesn't work like that, Sonny.
You are 100% correct. All I said is that the all-too-common "It's OK to download movies because most of them are crap." (which I now understand that the GP himself wasn't suggesting) is a counter-productive argument against the MPAA.
The time spent watching the film was deliberately omitted because most people tend to enjoy this process.
The GP's assumption, though, was that most of these movies are "shit", which would make the entire process a questionable investment. I'm curious as to why so many people waste time downloading such "shit" in the first place.
If a movie is good (which you won't know until after watching it - at the cinema, download or TV), it's worth paying for. Either because we want to watch it again, or simply because we want to own it.
Let me see if I understand you correctly.
You (not literally "you") download the movie and watch it, so you can determine whether or not it's worth owning. The logical problem with that is that for all intents and purposes, you already own it. Sure, you can do the legal thing and go out and buy the movie (assuming you deem it a worthwhile purchase), but there's nothing stopping you from simply keeping (and/or burning to DVD) the downloaded copy for which you paid nothing.
Now I submit that the MPAA could adequately fulfil your desire to evaluate/preview a movie before purchasing it by, say, offering the first 15-20 minutes of it as a free download, after which you can choose whether or not to purchase the full movie. I suspect, however, that such an idea wouldn't fly very far here. I'll leave it to you to figure out why.
I just see that justification around here pretty often, and think it detracts from the many legitimate gripes people have against the media industries, because it plays right into their hands.
It's sure comforting know there are groups out there that are tackling important issues like this. Otherwise, I might be inclined to believe that people in this country have their priorities out of whack.
"What you fucking imbeciles don't realize is that the people pirating your movies WOULD NOT PAY FOR THEM OTHERWISE (mostly because they're shit, but that's really beside the point here)."
TRANSLATION: A movie is "shit" only when you have to pay for it. Otherwise it's a justified use of bandwidth (downloading it), storage (burn it to media), and maybe even time (watching it).
When you're armed with little more than those bullshit, hypocritical arguments, you really aught not be surprised when your opponents don't take you seriously.
Go away. You aren't doing any serious, rational opponents of the MPAA any favors.
"So they did the research to see what the public believes, and what kinda attitudes the public has (like how the negative ones got more comments, etc)."
But the fact (alone) that these videos exist don't even prove that anyone believes they are true, let alone convincing anyone who didn't previously believe it. They are in no way able to gauge what the public may or may not believe about anything.
What makes these "researchers" think that people are coming to YouTube for medical advice? I'd bet that a lot (if not most) people are watching these videos for the absurd entertainment value they provide.
It's one thing to simply count hits. It's quite another to infer the reason(s) behind them.
Indeed, it sounds right out of the DSL tech support training indoctrination manual. They bullshit their employees even more than their customers, probably because they want their techs to sell service upgrades. That was just one of many reasons why I left after only a few weeks.
Until these companies offer stand-alone ("naked") DSL service, and stop trying to scam their customers ("variable speed" service, look up what that REALLY means) , I won't consider them a viable competitor to the likes of Comcast.
"She apparently circulated an e-mail that was critical of ID -- although state regulations require her not to have any opinion 'on a subject on which the agency must remain neutral.'"
She wasn't sacked because she published an anti-ID opinion. She was sacked because she published ANY opinion.
While the merits of such a policy are certainly questionable, this isn't necessarily about evolution vs. ID.
"The reason for doing it is to reduce the impact of the over-bearing and over-controlling adults who get too wrapped up in the scoring and the winning/losing."
So we stunt children's psychological development because their parents are immature asshats? That doesn't solve the problem; it perpetuates it.
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I hope you're just trolling, because that kind of stupid usually only comes from trolls.
It's not as if anyone in Congress is inclined to reign in one of their most prolific lobbyists. What is the point of such musings?
Could we make 2008 the year we bury the sophomoric "M$" cliche? It really shouldn't surprise anyone, anymore, that Microsoft is out to make money.
I really REALLY mean it this time!
So you are saying that anything of a non-physical nature simply doesn't exist?
You don't find paying $7.50 for the privilege of watching 20 minutes of advertising offensive? They're even running advertising "shorts" with Goofy, trying to convince people not to set up a home theatre.
I went to a movie theatre this weekend and an interesting thought occured to me: Would people who download copyrighted works feel guilty about sneaking into a theatre to watch a movie? You're not physically taking anything, and the cost to project the movie would cost the theatre the same regardless of whether you were there or not.
I thought the great thing about standards was that there are so many from which to choose.
I didn't RTFA, but are they really implying there's some kind of relevant comparison between Wikipedia and Yahoo! Answers???
So then this isn't about Republicans or Democrats, but politicians and corporate lobbyists. Singling out one party for laws like this is pointless.
You DO realize that this particular gem of a law was authored by both Republicans AND Democrats. Of course you do.
Basically, worrying about the actions of people who download movies or music and don't also buy a copy means the copyright holders are worrying about the actions of people who, with or without the ability to pirate, are not, never have been, and never will be, your customers.
That's quite an assumption. I, on the other hand, believe there are a lot of people who would be paying customers if they couldn't download movies for free.
Calculating copyright infringement's impact on the MPAA's bottom line is indeed problematic, but that doesn't justify it either.
If you know or assume the movie is shit, why download/watch it? And what makes you think it's your right to partake in a good/service where you only have to pay if you deem it a worthwhile experience? It doesn't work like that, Sonny.
You are 100% correct. All I said is that the all-too-common "It's OK to download movies because most of them are crap." (which I now understand that the GP himself wasn't suggesting) is a counter-productive argument against the MPAA.
The time spent watching the film was deliberately omitted because most people tend to enjoy this process.
The GP's assumption, though, was that most of these movies are "shit", which would make the entire process a questionable investment. I'm curious as to why so many people waste time downloading such "shit" in the first place.
If a movie is good (which you won't know until after watching it - at the cinema, download or TV), it's worth paying for. Either because we want to watch it again, or simply because we want to own it.
Let me see if I understand you correctly.
You (not literally "you") download the movie and watch it, so you can determine whether or not it's worth owning. The logical problem with that is that for all intents and purposes, you already own it. Sure, you can do the legal thing and go out and buy the movie (assuming you deem it a worthwhile purchase), but there's nothing stopping you from simply keeping (and/or burning to DVD) the downloaded copy for which you paid nothing.
Now I submit that the MPAA could adequately fulfil your desire to evaluate/preview a movie before purchasing it by, say, offering the first 15-20 minutes of it as a free download, after which you can choose whether or not to purchase the full movie. I suspect, however, that such an idea wouldn't fly very far here. I'll leave it to you to figure out why.
Fair enough.
I just see that justification around here pretty often, and think it detracts from the many legitimate gripes people have against the media industries, because it plays right into their hands.
It's sure comforting know there are groups out there that are tackling important issues like this. Otherwise, I might be inclined to believe that people in this country have their priorities out of whack.
I never said you pirated any movies. I just said the justification you threw out there was bullshit.
"What you fucking imbeciles don't realize is that the people pirating your movies WOULD NOT PAY FOR THEM OTHERWISE (mostly because they're shit, but that's really beside the point here)."
TRANSLATION: A movie is "shit" only when you have to pay for it. Otherwise it's a justified use of bandwidth (downloading it), storage (burn it to media), and maybe even time (watching it).
When you're armed with little more than those bullshit, hypocritical arguments, you really aught not be surprised when your opponents don't take you seriously.
Go away. You aren't doing any serious, rational opponents of the MPAA any favors.
"So they did the research to see what the public believes, and what kinda attitudes the public has (like how the negative ones got more comments, etc)."
But the fact (alone) that these videos exist don't even prove that anyone believes they are true, let alone convincing anyone who didn't previously believe it. They are in no way able to gauge what the public may or may not believe about anything.
What makes these "researchers" think that people are coming to YouTube for medical advice? I'd bet that a lot (if not most) people are watching these videos for the absurd entertainment value they provide.
It's one thing to simply count hits. It's quite another to infer the reason(s) behind them.
Indeed, it sounds right out of the DSL tech support training indoctrination manual. They bullshit their employees even more than their customers, probably because they want their techs to sell service upgrades. That was just one of many reasons why I left after only a few weeks.
Until these companies offer stand-alone ("naked") DSL service, and stop trying to scam their customers ("variable speed" service, look up what that REALLY means) , I won't consider them a viable competitor to the likes of Comcast.
"She apparently circulated an e-mail that was critical of ID -- although state regulations require her not to have any opinion 'on a subject on which the agency must remain neutral.'"
She wasn't sacked because she published an anti-ID opinion. She was sacked because she published ANY opinion.
While the merits of such a policy are certainly questionable, this isn't necessarily about evolution vs. ID.
"The reason for doing it is to reduce the impact of the over-bearing and over-controlling adults who get too wrapped up in the scoring and the winning/losing."
So we stunt children's psychological development because their parents are immature asshats? That doesn't solve the problem; it perpetuates it.