Gary Shapiro, the CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association has an intersting response. Below are some paragraphs from his response that I thought were intersting.
Maybe it's because the RIAA's own attorneys argued in the Grokster case two years ago before the Supreme Court that consumers can legally make copies of their CDs that Mr. Sherman feels he needs to rewrite the history of fair use here. To say that the RIAA has moved away from the position they outlined for the Court is an understatement. They have attempted to turn the concept of fair use into a flaccid technical defense used only by journalists and obscure authors and creators.
Mr. Sherman also takes great pains to incorrectly and deceptively quote from a speech I gave five years ago prior to the Supreme Court's Grokster decision, and in the process seeks to paint us as money grubbing extremists. Yet, the RIAA won the Supreme Court case and yet still wants more from Congress. This should come as no surprise. When technology companies agreed to limit technology by agreeing to pay royalties directly for each recording device and by restricting how those devices were built, they promised to end their costly and frivolous lawsuits against our companies. Yet, they still want more. We kept our half of the bargain and they sued XM for selling a recording device which can't even send a signal over the internet.
Why shouldn't a student be able to use lawfully acquired music in a school project? Why can't my wife use the song she bought on ITunes on a DvD she is making of our photos? Why can't I make a favorite hits CD with music I lawfully acquired.
Mr. Sherman paints us as downloading thieves. But the RIAA litigation machine, which has extracted millions of dollars in settlements from over 10,000 Americans, wants bigger tools and new laws.
Enough already. Americans have rights to use lawfully acquired music for non-commercial purposes and the effort by the RIAA to paint them as pirates is unfortunate. That's why the Digital Freedom campaign is a movement whose time has come.
The obvious answer now is no different than it was 6.5 years ago.
Repeat after me: There we no Weapons of Mass Destruction! It was a lie then. It remains a blatant lie today.
Second:
"Underserved flak"? This coward who used the blood of other people's children to assert his manhood long after his opportunity had passed, managed to destroy a military force that had already demonstrated its inferiority to the US military machine in 1992. No, sir, he deserves all the flak coming his way and more.
Third:
"Unjustified investigations"? Are you insane? Why did all those people, on both sides die in Iraq? Why is Iraq falling into the guagmire of civil war, just as the critics of his bullshit plan predicted? Where is Osama? Where is the connection between Osama and Saddam?
Oh, sure, you can claim he made the world safe by taking down a dictator. Just try telling that to the Iraq people as they bury more people in a single day than Saddam killed.
Oh, one more thing. Rummy did a GREAT JOB telling the world that if you don't have nuclear weapons, you better get some quick like North Korea, or you'll end up like Iraq. See Iran for more on this subject.
I have a bunch of 3.5 inch floppys sitting on my desk and decided to take apart a TDK disk. I chose the TDK disk over the memorex because I have only four memorex disks and nine, well, eight now, TDK disks.
The disk is very floppy. The metal center is the only rigid part. The floppy plastic of which the disk is composed does not flop because it is too small, measuring only 1 3/16 of an inch from the metal hub.
In this Washington Postarticle on Sony Corps. 94% profit plunge they mention that Talledega Nights was only marginally profitable, but was also one of their few successes.
Given that the article states that Sony Corps. profit has fallen so dramatically I'm surprised that they can give away anything.
Just because it's corporately and governmentally acceptable to encumber devices with DRM may mean it's legal, but it doesn't mean it's right.
After all, "WE THE PEOPLE" grant "creators" the temporary right to restrict others from copying their work. We in no way, shape, or form grant a permanent right to restrict others from copying works. So, what happens at the end of "the temporary right"? I mean, will iPods suddenly allow us unrestricted use of legally purchased files?
The dedicated DVD players I have at home will all remember the last scene I stopped a movie on and ask me if I want to resume play there. Most of the time, when I remember, I will stop a movie at the credits. This is good, but for the most part the machines will only remember a limited number of movies.
I don't know what's WRONG with the morons at the MPAA that they don't realize that they are PISSING OFF PAYING CUSTOMERS!
Do they actually expect me to buy into HD disks knowing that this shit will be MORE PREVALENT? Kinda makes me glad that recent movies stink up the theaters so much.:) I still haven't seen Mission: Impossible III or Superman Returns. I can wait until they get to satellite.
Has anyone seen the crappy DVDs that have been released in the last couple of years? I have older DVDs, The Matrix, The Day The Earth Stood Still, 2001: A Space Odyssey, that actually PLAY when I insert them into my DVD player. Recent DVDs run STOOPID advertisements for movies that have already come and gone from the theater or something else I would rather NOT WATCH! I don't see myself buying many DVDs in the future for this reason alone. Add to this the crappy movies that are being released and I've just about given up.
On anther rant, Linux machines won't be affected by this. Even if I bought one of these disks it would only stop me from using it on my work computer, not my laptop, not any of my homebrew computers or my Mac Mini.
For the last year or two I am suddenly seeing very marginal movies in Best Buy. Some of it is in collections where you get fifty movies for twenty to thirty bucks. A larger portion of it is in small movies that haven't been available in the past, and/or collections of unpopular movies bundled two or three together.
Notice also, that Disney and Lucas are suddenly releasing a lot of material on DVD.
I think the studios are ready to bet big on Blu-Ray or HD-DVD to supplant DVD and are getting what they can from the DVD cash cow before it goes belly up.
I don't agree with them. I have a large screen, HD TV with surround sound, and I have no interest in either format. Still I think they have a lot of faith in HD formats going forward.
Neilson media does NOT pull viewing statistics directly from people's television sets. The vast majority of their data comes from...
...drum roll please...
viewing diaries!
Boxes set up in people's homes cost money to make and money to install. It is far cheaper and easier to ask people to keep a simple diary of what they watch and then collect the diaries. I would'nt be surprised if the diaries are kept online now instead of in dead-tree editions in the home.
Hey, there's a great programming project!
Somebody hack Neilson to grab and distort the online diaries. >8^D Maybe we can get Star Trek: Enterprise back on the air. >8^P
"Spider-man" and "Pirates Of The Carribean" are the only successful summer release movies I can think of in recent years. As you have said, the Thanksgiving Holiday releases are doing much better. That may be because TH movies are simpler and geared for families, whereas summer releases are for hormone saturated teens during school breaks.
How could you have missed "The Conversation" and have an account on Slashdot? It's about TECH GUYS who build surveillance equipment and spy on people. These guys were "hackers" before the term was invented.
If you have seen "Enemy Of The State", look for the old picture of the Gene Hackman character. That's a picture that I would swear came from "The Conversation".
I won't argue whether or not Barry Lyndon is a "good" movie. It still did not make any money. The atrotious "Love Story" was cheaper to make and made ridiculous amounts of money.
On an unrelated note: I wonder which one Ryan O'Neil thinks better of today.
"Cleopatra" is another movie that made lots of money but just didn't do for it's audiences what Jaws and later movies did. As you stated, there were lots of movies that made lots of money, but few movies that transformed the movie going experience into the event it became after that.
...failed. Just that there was a perception, and a LOT of critism of big budget movies during that entire time period.
I actually LIKED "The French Connection". A better Gene Hackman movie from the 70s was (no, not "Superman") "The Conversation". "The Conversation" was directed by "Godfather" director Francis Ford Coppolla and was well recieved, though it did not make as much money.:) "The Conversation" is playing periodically on The Independant Film Channel. It also stars some guy named Harrison Ford, and some chick who would go on to star in some crappy sit-com, spun off from another sit-com based on life in the US circa the 1950s.:)
Also, I would NEVER state that "movies prior to Jaws were crap". That would leave out excellent movies such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, one of my all-time favorite movies. HD Net movies premiered a High Definition version of 2001 over the summer. If you have access I strongly suggest you try to catch a repeat.
In short, my original point is that the "summer blockbuster" was started by Steven Spielberg with "Jaws". There were SOME successful big budget movies prior to Jaws, but not ALL of them were released in the summer. It was AFTER "Jaws" that studios started saving large budget movies for summer release instead of releasing them during the Thanksgiving holidays or other periods during the year.
Barry Lyndon was crap. Deal with it. It cost way too much money and was NOT intersting. The box-office receipts (or lack of) will confirm what I have stated.
BTW, nowhere in my post did I say whether I liked or disliked any of the movies. I was making a point about summer blockbusters and their origins.
Anyway, since I got such a rise out of you with my comments I thought I would make another. This time I will call "Fried Green Tomatoes" a piece of unadulturated shit. I'm picking on "Fried Green Tomatoes" simply because I think it's something you would like.:)
Oh, yeah, for the post below yours: yes, I am your Grand father. Not only that, but I'm one of the few who remember that at one point when George Lucas was writing Star Wars he was "inspired" by "True Grit" and made Luke Skywalker a girl.
Most people would assume the candy to be poisoned or otherwise tampered with. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that you need to use another analogy. Especially with the Spinach debacle so fresh on everyone's mind.
George Lucas did NOT invent the summer blockbuster. Steven Spielberg did with Jaws in the summer of 1975. Hollywood was dying up to that point with films like "A Bridge Too Far" and that "Barry Lyndon" or whatever it was called movie with lots of big name stars and huge budgets. The only movies that were making money up to that time were the "Blaxploitation" movies and other low-budget films.
Those of us who lived through those times might remember when directors were critisized for spending too much money on their films as that was seen as a sign that too much emphasis was being placed on sets, stars, and other things besides the story. I remember Steven Spielberg being interviewed on Dick Cavett. When asked about the budget for his upcoming movie (ET: The Extraterrestrial), he was reluctant to talk about it because he feared some complaints and he gave the humorous example of using a multi-colored bedspread and being critisized for production values that were too high.
What George Lucas did give us was the dreaded sequel. Give him credit for that, but don't rob Steven Spielberg of credit for the summer blockbuster. Jaws had people waiting in lines around the block and dwarfed even "The Godfather". It was an impressive accomplishment.
Back in 1977, $20,000,000.00 was high. The average movie back then cost about $7,000,000.00 to make or less. My memory may fail me on the exact figures but they were around those areas. I may be confusing the cost to make Star Wars (yes, Star Wars. What the hell is all this Episode Four shit?) with the cost to make Cattlecar Galatica. It was a LOOOONG time ago.:)
BTW, The new season of Battlestar Galactica premieres tomorrow night on Sci Fi!:) Check out the webisodes on http://www.scifi.com/ today. They update you on what happened between the two seasons.
Hmmm. I seem to have digressed. What was I going on about again? Oh, yeah, Star Wars was NOT a "low budget movie". Anyway, who cares. Watch Battlestar Galactica tomorrow night.:)
A friend of mine, who was very successful in business, once told me that he always looked for a location that already had a business similar to the one he wanted to start. When I asked him why, he answered that people already knew the established business existed and would naturally come to that location when they wanted what that business sold. He then expected to draw a certain percentage of business from that existing business for various reasons: curiosity, pissed off at the older business, looking for a bargain, and many other reasons.
Yes, he was a bricks and mortar type guy, but in reality you still want competition. For instance, if you have an idea for a better search engine than Google wouldn't you be glad that Google already exists and has proven the idea to the world? I mean, if I had an idea for a better search engine, I imagine it would be very easy to attract VCs who missed out on Google by telling them I had a better engine and needed money. Assuming I could actually demonstrate the superiority of my software, I imagine I could get a LOT OF MONEY really quickly because Google already exists and has proven the concept.:)
It is the player's choice to kill, or rob, or rape, or maim. Just like in real life. I can ask you to do something vile and reprehensible, but it is always your choice as to whether or not you will comply.
This reminds me of a woman I met a few weeks back. She told me she plays WoW but that she doesn't get too far in the game because she refuses to kill anything with a humanoid shape. In essense if it walks on two legs, has two arms and a head centered on the upright torso she will not kill it.
She still enjoys the game, but she realises that she will never get too far. It's the same thing with GTA.
By the way, in GTA:San Andreas you get to fly a plane. Why haven't we seen an increase in plane thefts if GTA is such a good tutor? In the many Spider-man and Batman games we see characters seinging from roof to roof. Why have'nt we seen an increase in morons trying this if video games are like Jedi and have so much influence on the weak-minded?
Slashdot Mirror
The obvious answer now is no different than it was 6.5 years ago.
Repeat after me: There we no Weapons of Mass Destruction! It was a lie then. It remains a blatant lie today.
Second:
"Underserved flak"? This coward who used the blood of other people's children to assert his manhood long after his opportunity had passed, managed to destroy a military force that had already demonstrated its inferiority to the US military machine in 1992. No, sir, he deserves all the flak coming his way and more.
Third:
"Unjustified investigations"? Are you insane? Why did all those people, on both sides die in Iraq? Why is Iraq falling into the guagmire of civil war, just as the critics of his bullshit plan predicted? Where is Osama? Where is the connection between Osama and Saddam?
Oh, sure, you can claim he made the world safe by taking down a dictator. Just try telling that to the Iraq people as they bury more people in a single day than Saddam killed.
Oh, one more thing. Rummy did a GREAT JOB telling the world that if you don't have nuclear weapons, you better get some quick like North Korea, or you'll end up like Iraq. See Iran for more on this subject.
The disk is very floppy. The metal center is the only rigid part. The floppy plastic of which the disk is composed does not flop because it is too small, measuring only 1 3/16 of an inch from the metal hub.
Given that the article states that Sony Corps. profit has fallen so dramatically I'm surprised that they can give away anything.
Wish I had mod points. :)
After all, "WE THE PEOPLE" grant "creators" the temporary right to restrict others from copying their work. We in no way, shape, or form grant a permanent right to restrict others from copying works. So, what happens at the end of "the temporary right"? I mean, will iPods suddenly allow us unrestricted use of legally purchased files?
Need to "KILL" the mod I accidentaly gave this remark.
The dedicated DVD players I have at home will all remember the last scene I stopped a movie on and ask me if I want to resume play there. Most of the time, when I remember, I will stop a movie at the credits. This is good, but for the most part the machines will only remember a limited number of movies.
I don't know what's WRONG with the morons at the MPAA that they don't realize that they are PISSING OFF PAYING CUSTOMERS!
Do they actually expect me to buy into HD disks knowing that this shit will be MORE PREVALENT? Kinda makes me glad that recent movies stink up the theaters so much. :) I still haven't seen Mission: Impossible III or Superman Returns. I can wait until they get to satellite.
On anther rant, Linux machines won't be affected by this. Even if I bought one of these disks it would only stop me from using it on my work computer, not my laptop, not any of my homebrew computers or my Mac Mini.
So why does anyone care?
Notice also, that Disney and Lucas are suddenly releasing a lot of material on DVD.
I think the studios are ready to bet big on Blu-Ray or HD-DVD to supplant DVD and are getting what they can from the DVD cash cow before it goes belly up.
I don't agree with them. I have a large screen, HD TV with surround sound, and I have no interest in either format. Still I think they have a lot of faith in HD formats going forward.
I still think the majority of their data comes from diaries. I know a family that was using them in 2004 or early 2005.
viewing diaries!
Boxes set up in people's homes cost money to make and money to install. It is far cheaper and easier to ask people to keep a simple diary of what they watch and then collect the diaries. I would'nt be surprised if the diaries are kept online now instead of in dead-tree editions in the home.
Hey, there's a great programming project!
Somebody hack Neilson to grab and distort the online diaries. >8^D Maybe we can get Star Trek: Enterprise back on the air. >8^P
How could you have missed "The Conversation" and have an account on Slashdot? It's about TECH GUYS who build surveillance equipment and spy on people. These guys were "hackers" before the term was invented.
If you have seen "Enemy Of The State", look for the old picture of the Gene Hackman character. That's a picture that I would swear came from "The Conversation".
I confess: I was wrong about that. Sequels existed before Star Wars.
On an unrelated note: I wonder which one Ryan O'Neil thinks better of today.
"Cleopatra" is another movie that made lots of money but just didn't do for it's audiences what Jaws and later movies did. As you stated, there were lots of movies that made lots of money, but few movies that transformed the movie going experience into the event it became after that.
I actually LIKED "The French Connection". A better Gene Hackman movie from the 70s was (no, not "Superman") "The Conversation". "The Conversation" was directed by "Godfather" director Francis Ford Coppolla and was well recieved, though it did not make as much money. :) "The Conversation" is playing periodically on The Independant Film Channel. It also stars some guy named Harrison Ford, and some chick who would go on to star in some crappy sit-com, spun off from another sit-com based on life in the US circa the 1950s. :)
Also, I would NEVER state that "movies prior to Jaws were crap". That would leave out excellent movies such as 2001: A Space Odyssey, one of my all-time favorite movies. HD Net movies premiered a High Definition version of 2001 over the summer. If you have access I strongly suggest you try to catch a repeat.
In short, my original point is that the "summer blockbuster" was started by Steven Spielberg with "Jaws". There were SOME successful big budget movies prior to Jaws, but not ALL of them were released in the summer. It was AFTER "Jaws" that studios started saving large budget movies for summer release instead of releasing them during the Thanksgiving holidays or other periods during the year.
BTW, nowhere in my post did I say whether I liked or disliked any of the movies. I was making a point about summer blockbusters and their origins.
Anyway, since I got such a rise out of you with my comments I thought I would make another. This time I will call "Fried Green Tomatoes" a piece of unadulturated shit. I'm picking on "Fried Green Tomatoes" simply because I think it's something you would like. :)
Oh, yeah, for the post below yours: yes, I am your Grand father. Not only that, but I'm one of the few who remember that at one point when George Lucas was writing Star Wars he was "inspired" by "True Grit" and made Luke Skywalker a girl.
I just used my last mod-point. Otherwise I would do it myself.
Most people would assume the candy to be poisoned or otherwise tampered with. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that you need to use another analogy. Especially with the Spinach debacle so fresh on everyone's mind.
Those of us who lived through those times might remember when directors were critisized for spending too much money on their films as that was seen as a sign that too much emphasis was being placed on sets, stars, and other things besides the story. I remember Steven Spielberg being interviewed on Dick Cavett. When asked about the budget for his upcoming movie (ET: The Extraterrestrial), he was reluctant to talk about it because he feared some complaints and he gave the humorous example of using a multi-colored bedspread and being critisized for production values that were too high.
What George Lucas did give us was the dreaded sequel. Give him credit for that, but don't rob Steven Spielberg of credit for the summer blockbuster. Jaws had people waiting in lines around the block and dwarfed even "The Godfather". It was an impressive accomplishment.
BTW, The new season of Battlestar Galactica premieres tomorrow night on Sci Fi! :) Check out the webisodes on http://www.scifi.com/ today. They update you on what happened between the two seasons.
Hmmm. I seem to have digressed. What was I going on about again? Oh, yeah, Star Wars was NOT a "low budget movie". Anyway, who cares. Watch Battlestar Galactica tomorrow night. :)
Yes, he was a bricks and mortar type guy, but in reality you still want competition. For instance, if you have an idea for a better search engine than Google wouldn't you be glad that Google already exists and has proven the idea to the world? I mean, if I had an idea for a better search engine, I imagine it would be very easy to attract VCs who missed out on Google by telling them I had a better engine and needed money. Assuming I could actually demonstrate the superiority of my software, I imagine I could get a LOT OF MONEY really quickly because Google already exists and has proven the concept. :)
This reminds me of a woman I met a few weeks back. She told me she plays WoW but that she doesn't get too far in the game because she refuses to kill anything with a humanoid shape. In essense if it walks on two legs, has two arms and a head centered on the upright torso she will not kill it.
She still enjoys the game, but she realises that she will never get too far. It's the same thing with GTA.
By the way, in GTA:San Andreas you get to fly a plane. Why haven't we seen an increase in plane thefts if GTA is such a good tutor? In the many Spider-man and Batman games we see characters seinging from roof to roof. Why have'nt we seen an increase in morons trying this if video games are like Jedi and have so much influence on the weak-minded?
Arbeit Macht Frei is the slogan that was posted above Auswitcz(sp?), a Nazi concentration camp. It means Work Makes Free, literally.