|
|
This topic comprises 9 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
|
|
Author
|
Topic: 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine' Leaked Online
|
Bobby Henderson
"Ask me about Trajan."
Posts: 10973
From: Lawton, OK, USA
Registered: Apr 2001
|
posted 04-17-2009 05:57 PM
quote: Greg Anderson
If you released an unauthorized copy of a U2 album to the whole world, you should be punished accordingly. But should the person who downloaded it from you be sued for many thousands of dollars too?
Accepting stolen property is a crime. Even if the property is merely "intellectual."
quote:
This also points out the hypocricy of web sites like Aint It Cool News. They have no problem posting reviews from test audience screenings or even reviewing a script! But they suddenly found "standards" when they refused to review this particular work print. Oh, I admire them soooo much!
The difference is they're writing reviews from material that is not available to just anyone. Few people get to attend test screenings. Few have access to scripts of movies in production. Everyone has access to that "work print" of X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
quote:
Too late. Treating it as a major crime now just antagonizes the customer. The average consumer is thinking, "Wait a minute! The music industry is just part of "Big Business." Big Business created the CD, the Internet, MP3 files and the iPod. I'm just using what they made for me to use, and I'm being creative about how I use it!"
One could try using that rationale to steal a notebook computer from an Apple store or walk on a car lot and steal a Cadillac. After all, the companies that made those products are big business corporations being corporationey and doing corporate stuff and stuff. Or maybe they could just drive away from a gasoline pump without paying for the fuel because big business created the car and now that car is just being used in a more "creative" way.
quote: Greg Anderson
Today's average teenager thinks absolutely nothing of sharing music with his friends. That kid's going to grow up and still think very little of it. And then that kid's going to be elected to legislative positions and, well, I wonder how copyright laws will look after that.
The average teenager also isn't trying to justify what he's doing as somehow being right. They know what they're doing is wrong, but they don't give a damn about it.
Anyone that likes watching movies and TV shows with any kind of budget at all had better hope the copyright laws are maintained and enforced. If copyright laws are seriously limited or eliminated the content creation pipe lines for movies, TV, music, computer gaming, etc. will be largely ruined. The talent and crews involved in making such content aren't going to work for free. They'll just get jobs doing something else for a living.
Much of what is on YouTube is unwatchable shit featuring people videotaping themselves or their friends doing crap only they care about. That sort of shit is all that will be left to watch on TV or a computer screen if people in creative industries cannot make a living doing what they do. They have to get paid to keep doing it. If everyone insists on getting it for free then everyone will just do without.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Greg Anderson
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 766
From: Ogden Valley, Utah
Registered: Nov 1999
|
posted 04-17-2009 06:25 PM
Okay, it's cool. Simmer down. I'm really not trying to be an advocate. I'm just trying to analyze how we reached this point.
quote: Bobby Henderson
Few people get to attend test screenings. Few have access to scripts of movies in production.
Yes, and those few are usually subjected to some kind of non-disclosure agreement. So it's still wrong. And it's especially unfair, I think, to "spoil" a movie based on a script which might not even be the final draft. Whenever I've worked on movies and TV shows, the revisions are continually pouring in during production. By the end, the script supervisor's notebook is a rainbow of colored paper. (In case anyone is not aware, that's how they track script revisions during production. Different colors represent which level of re-writing has been reached.)
quote: Bobby Henderson
Anyone that likes watching movies and TV shows with any kind of budget at all had better hope the copyright laws are maintained and enforced.
Sadly, the trend seems to be moving away from high-budget TV. Kids today might be more interested in video games or going online than watching another incarnation of Law and Order or CSI. And the so-called "reality show" craze has certainly hurt episodic TV drama production around these parts. And I know a fair number of independent musicians who are simply going out of business.
I talk about kids "sharing" files online and calling themselves clever for doing it and you equate that with stealing cars. Again, the escalation in your analogy is what's hurting our cause. Most kids who think nothing of "sharing" their favorite song with their friends would never dream of stealing a car or stealing gas. When you lecture them and suggest that connection, you lose credibility with them.
Besides, the gas stations have figured out how to make you pay before you pump or use a debit card. I wonder how the music industry will come up with an air-tight way to prevent anyone from sharing a music file. And will it merely be a gigantic pain in the neck for those of us who just want the freedom to play our legitimately purchased songs on whatever stereo we already have?
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Frank Angel
Film God
Posts: 5305
From: Brooklyn NY USA
Registered: Dec 1999
|
posted 04-18-2009 08:15 AM
quote: Greg Anderson
I talk about kids "sharing" files online and calling themselves clever for doing it and you equate that with stealing cars. Again, the escalation in your analogy is what's hurting our cause. Most kids who think nothing of "sharing" their favorite song with their friends would never dream of stealing a car or stealing gas. When you lecture them and suggest that connection, you lose credibility with them.
I think that really is the crux of the problem -- the perception of whether or not watching a movie is hurtful to someone. You can make something illegal, you can even go after offenders like ASCAP going after some guy running a pizza store who plays music, or suing a housewife because her kid has downloaded songs on the family computer, but in the end, if the general population cannot make the connection that downloading a song is the same as stealing a car, no amount of legal har-rumphing is going to change anything, unless they think getting money from lawsuits of this kind compensates them adaquately for what they calculate they loose to downloading.
The real problem is in that 6 BILLION dollar figure the MPAA likes to trumpet as their annual loss because of pirating. They've kept upping the ante on copyright laws to favor and protect copyright owners over the years. Congress has pretty much given in to all the demands of the industry on how it wants the laws to read, but that hasn't stopped (evidently) the piracy nor has it gotten the general public to alter its perception that watching a downloaded movie is the same as stealing a car (or if you believe the MPAA, stealing a hundred cars....and Lamborginis at that). There are just certain perceptions which the industry seems not to have been able to change, and not for lack of trying, what with all the promotional efforts in this regard.
And as much as I understand Bobby's concern as an artist who earns a living by his creativity, you have to admit that there is quite a distinction between that song writer or graphic artist or novelist who actually do the real creating, and say a big record label which notoriously been known to steal from those very same artists. 20th Century Fox isn't exactly a starving artist in some loft in Soho, yet they were able to get the copyright laws changed to their decided advantage in terms of length of protection to read "the life of the artist plus 50 years" instead of the much more limited 48 year protection that was originally intended by the copyright authors. What exactly IS the life span of 20th Century Fox? Copyright monopolistic protection was supposed to be a LIMITED protection, balanced against the public's interests; it never was intended to be protection in perpetuity. But the big guys were pretty much able to rip that concept out of the law, virtually doing away with the Public Domain protection which the original law afforded John Q. Public's right to access. Those kinds of maneuvers don't help their cause.
As far good movies drying up due to piracy and downloads, I think reality seems to be proving that to be a pretty fallacious argument; if the industry can loose 6 billion dollars annually to piracy and STILL release tent-poles season after season with the occasional blockbuster, then it seems it will take allot more than piracy to make the creative juices dry up.
I am not arguing this as a justification for stealing copyrighted work, but only that the reality seems to be that in spite of all the downloads that are available in the internet and all the DVDs which I can buy on the street corners in NYC (at least 50% of the PRISTINE copies, not cam rips), the industry seems to do quite well for itself. And crying on the one hand about the dastardly consequence that the downloaded copy of Wolverine will cause, while on the other hand, making sure every tv and newspaper announces the grosses in millions on opening weekend, bragging that their feature beats out all other releases and pulls in however many millions, this is a disconnect which is not lost on the public and, like it or not, does little to change their seemingly immutable perception that downloading is nothing serious and hurts anyone. Right or wrong, it's now built into the culture and changing the perception is the only way to change the activity.
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Greg Anderson
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 766
From: Ogden Valley, Utah
Registered: Nov 1999
|
posted 04-18-2009 11:57 AM
I think the situation is a little more complicated, still. Friends getting together to listen to music has always been a big part of how songs become popular in the first place. It’s just that, from the dawn of the record industry up until the 1990s, you couldn’t make a “perfect” copy of your friend’s recording before you went home. Now it’s easy.
The budget-strapped teenager 30 years ago (who was desperate to have his own copy of a song) might just call up his favorite radio station, request the song and then stand by with a cassette recorder until it played. This, apparently, was not illegal. So today’s teenager (whose dad used to record stuff from the radio) has a difficult time figuring out why it’s such a huge crime to “borrow” files from a friend.
(Again, I’m not an advocate… just trying to observe why we’re at this point now.)
A few months ago I listened to a speech from a “music industry expert” (I don’t really know who it was so I can’t vouch for his credentials, but he seemed to know what he was talking about) and he had determined that the proper pricing for downloaded songs (like on iTunes), considering supply-and-demand, “manufacturing costs,” royalties and a host of other factors was actually just 5 cents per song. I dare say that kind of pricing would kill most piracy. I do wonder how many record labels will try out iTunes’ new 69-cent pricing on new releases and how well that’ll boost their profits. Hmmm.
I found this satirical article last night…
RIAA Declares Using Brain to Remember Songs is Criminal Copyright Infingement
quote:
"The brain is a recording device," explained RIAA president Cary Sherman. "The act of listening is an unauthorized act of copying music to that recording device, and the act of recalling or remembering a song is unauthorized playback."
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Greg Anderson
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 766
From: Ogden Valley, Utah
Registered: Nov 1999
|
posted 04-18-2009 01:45 PM
I admit that the 5-cent song theory sounded extreme to me too. But you can listen to the guy yourself if you want to.
It's LEGAL to download this free MP3 file of a podcast. And then listen starting at about the 31:15 mark for the relevant speech.
I suppose the reason this seems so crazy is that we've been conditioned to believe, for the past 20 years or so, that a CD should cost $15. Odd, then, that the price hasn't changed despite changes in manufacturing costs, studio costs and everything else related to creating an album. We just know, without wondering why, that a CD should cost $15. So, I found the speech interesting, to say the least.
I don't really know for sure, but I've always heard that the only way a band really makes money is by touring and selling T-shirts. The profits from the recordings are pretty-much eaten up by the record company anyway. (Again, not that it makes it okay to steal recordings, but I'm just saying that I'd rather pay the artist for the music I enjoy.)
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
All times are Central (GMT -6:00)
|
This topic comprises 9 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
|
Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM
6.3.1.2
The Film-Tech Forums are designed for various members related to the cinema industry to express their opinions, viewpoints and testimonials on various products, services and events based upon speculation, personal knowledge and factual information through use, therefore all views represented here allow no liability upon the publishers of this web site and the owners of said views assume no liability for any ill will resulting from these postings. The posts made here are for educational as well as entertainment purposes and as such anyone viewing this portion of the website must accept these views as statements of the author of that opinion
and agrees to release the authors from any and all liability.
|
Home
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
); the idea is that they are deprived of some (hardly distiguishable by a human) lines and beats.
Printer-friendly view of this topic