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- Would you accept a trade organization's opinion (for example, vaccine manufacturer's) without checking out alternative opinions? That's what 60 minutes did with this story.
It was a video press release for MPAA - a TRADE organization for movie studios. Not actors, not writers, not directors. The major hollywood movie studios - ONLY.
And the report was confused as the studios would like the public to believe. Leslie Stahl was gullible enough to fall for it, hook line and sinker. It's bad enough that the public has to suffer with judges that are caught clueless about the internet or that most in Congress have no idea what www. means, but I thought CBS News would've had someone more informed in their office to fill some details. I don't know how 60 minutes is produced or gets on the air without that kind of information.
Bit torrent is not fast. It is not new and when anyone can be their own producer, director and star with commonly available equipment with some very professional results, bit torrent is not used for only illegal purposes.
There is more competition for entertainment than there ever has been. The major studios would like to eliminate some of that. Look at the ongoing copyright battles at You Tube and also notice there are well done regular shows, some with millions of hits. And there are business' like Veogh that use bit torrent legally.
And Ms. Stahl fell right into the trap of comparing personal downloading with thieves who are selling thousands of illegal movies for money - and yet the MPAA sounded as if the personal downloader was their number one concern.
What they failed to mention is that everyone has a legal right to make a copy of their movie. The MPAA has made that nearly impossible and technologically advanced to do - and it's not always possible with their DRM code.
They ban new technology if they didn't invent it. Usually the protections they develop are so rudimentary that most kids can figure out how to click "no" when their computer asks if they want to download a program they weren't aware of being on the dvd or cd. By law, that's "circumventing protections" and is a felony. That is how stupid they think the public should be and in Congress, on talk shows, the MPAA has met with success.
I paid for lp's, cassettes, VHS, cd's, dvd's, HD's and now blue-ray's. Three of those appeared within the last 5 years. Many of my favorite movies never made it to dvd and I doubt they will make it to blue ray - just like me. My video store tells me they are going to be stocking only blue-rays now and my electronics store has phased out most of the dvd players. Don't I get a choice?
Next time you do a story, I hope you dig further. Google the "sampling effect". Most non-industry supported studies and reports say that downloaders are sampling things they would have NEVER bought. The result is that they end up buying 30% more. Another new study was just published today saying the same thing.
The studios admit their target audience is age 13 and doesn't have to speak english (no plot). I'm tired of stereotype casting 20 year old, size 4 super models in action/horror comic books. Warner Brothers have stated "no more female leads" after another of their ridiculous movie flopped. That's not MY fault if I've turned to other media that's more entertaining. They made their own bed. I'm certainly not wasting my money on it.
Look at how hard they've tried to shut down sites like You Tube and tell me they don't realize there's plenty of competition. But I guess if they are rich enough and employ enough lobbyists, they can connivence anyone they should be the police of their own industry too.
I hope your producers got paid well for promoting MPAA's advertising.
PS - Whatever happened to the tax that I'm paying on every recordable media? - Reply to this comment
- Instead of trying to control the internet, why not give people options. I would love to be able to sit down at my computer when "I" have the time and watch the newest releases. I pay netflix for this option, even though most of the movies available for instant view are not exactly "new". Why? Because it is convenient and fits "my" schedule. The movie industry has options, they should use them or accept the fact that they will go the way of the dinosaurs.
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- Unbelievable! Both the RIAA and the MPAA site pirating as a the cause of their members' declining sales. No examination on the outrageous cost of movie tickets or CDs.
Remember Napster? The RIAA, got caught with their pants down on the change in technology, sued Napster out of existence, instead of co-opting the technology realizing that their customer based had changed from brick and mortar to electronic delivery.
Then both the RIAA and the MPAA convinced congress to create the most onerous legislation on consumer technologies - the DMCA. This one piece of legislation has done more to stifle innovation and kill entrepreneurial development than any other law. How many companies have been sued out of business? 321 Software is a perfect example: this company produced a simple tool to allow the consumer to make copies of their purchased DVDs so the originals could be stored away as backups. You've just spent $29.95 on the new DVD and shouldn't you, the consumer, be allowed to make a copy and keep the original stored as a back up? If you drop that DVD, a single scratch will render it useless.
So now here we have 60 Minutes, usually reporting on the bad guys, being nothing more than a mouth piece for the MPAA. There was not any attempt to examine the claims that piracy is really hurting the movie industry or that these pirated copies are anything other than just crap. Ever try a bit torrent - how long does it take to down load just one 90 minute film - days. What is the quality like - horrific. Can you even find any torrent reliably - No! And quite often the files are mis-labeled so you think you've just spent the past 36 hours downloading some cool action film and it turns out to be some chick flick or worse some religious message. Where were the hard facts backing up the claims that piracy is really hurting the industry's revenue?
And the worst part - the MPAA has got our law enforcement doing their work! Why are we spending our police $$ busting down doors of suspected moving pirates? The MPAA has all sorts of legals tools through civil actions. If this is hurting them so badly, their members should foot the bill to take appropriate action. Our police forces should be focused on real crimes - rape, murder, domestic violence.
Lastly, 60 Minutes, you have disappointed a long time viewer. This story was really nothing more than a editorial for the MPAA. Shame on you. - Reply to this comment
- It's not fair to use the torrenting community as a scape-goat for film flops. Maybe the real reason for poor box office sales is that the movie industry lacks creativity and intelligence. I don't know anyone who has torrented a movie that they actually had any desire to see in theaters. I torrent, but that doesn't mean I download movies or music. Torrenting is frequently (and quite legally) used for things besides movie downloads. I'm frustrated by how carelessly this report neglects to point out (in their oh-so-professional manner) that torrents are also used for open-source software and free music downloads. Without torrenting, it would be so much more difficult and time-consuming to transfer these large data packets. What's even worse is that I know this much but only have a basic understanding of the concept. THIS ARTICLE GIVES ONLY ENOUGH INFORMATION TO PRESENT A BIASED ARGUMENT TO AN IGNORANT PUBLIC.
Another fact that gets glossed over, is that torrenting involves ABSOLUTELY NO MONEY TRANSFERS. To lead a viewer to associate the torrenting community with drug-pedaling mobsters is some pretty nasty reporting...something that I'd more readily expect from FOX News.
Please don't feed my hatred of the tv and film industries. I don't want to ditch cable because of crappy programming (as you ditch torrenting because of alittle pirating).
For more thorough/technical bittorrent facts try:
http://btfaq.com/serve/cache/1.html - Reply to this comment
- Fighting the illegal copying and distribution of movies is like trying to cure a disease by fighting only the symptoms, not the cause. The cause, in my opinion, is that the cost of seeing a movie in the theater is out of control. What the movie industry and the law enforcement officials need to understand is that when consumers feel that the cost of a product is too high, they will explore ways to obtain it more cheaply, and to try to make them feel guilty for doing so is generally useless.
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- Please preface any further drivel, lies and distortions vomited forth by the clueless and greedy twits in the "movie" and "music" "industries" with this important piece of math: "95 % or more of the people who "illegally" downloaded a particular movie, tv show or song, WILL NOT HAVE EVER PAID FOR IT TO BEGIN WITH, EVEN IF THEY COULD NOT HAVE DOWNLOADED IT FOR FREE." Please repeat this to yourselves at least 500 times. "95 % or more of the people who "illegally" downloaded a particular movie, tv show or song, WILL NOT HAVE EVER PAID FOR IT TO BEGIN WITH, EVEN IF THEY COULD NOT HAVE DOWNLOADED IT FOR FREE." Get the idea? Now repeat the obvious, even to the incredibly stupid, conclusion that you should immediately draw from this piece of information: "THIS 95% OF DOWNLOADED CONTENT DOES NOT, AND CAN NOT REPRESENT LOST SALES, BECAUSE THESE PEOPLE WOULD NEVER HAVE EVER BOUGHT THEM, EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE." Repeat this to yourself 500 more times. Now you are in a better position to evaluate any further statements by the media representatives for bogus figures.
And about that remaining 5% you ask? Most of them are fans, probably your best customers. They may have downloaded that season of "Lost in Space" via bittorrent because the greedy media moguls want $45.00 ( $45 bucks? Oh, puhleeze!) for it on Amazon, but that same "copyright thief" probably saw the "Iron Man Movie" twice at the theater and bought the DVD the day it hit Target stores. And told a dozen or so other people how great it was. This is the kind of person who you want to ban from the internet and maybe drag into civil court? What are you, morons?
And as for trying to get their not very bright, greedy little nose picking fingers into some sort of control over the internet, I've some comments on THAT as well. The internet is the new printing press, the new encylopedia, dictionary, social conduit, soapbox, whistleblower, freedom fighter, instructor and teacher, and about a million other things, some of which we haven't even discovered that we desperately need yet. And that makes it a darn sight more important than some ephemeral little media company, or corporation or government or religion. In fact, the internet is probably more important to the long term future of all Humanity than any of the above groups and the vile little cretins who want to twist it to their perverted and banal ends for thirty pieces of silver. If they get their way much longer, I am quite sure that they are going to have far bigger problems on their hands than mere downloads that didn't really loose much in the way of their "profits" to begin with. - Reply to this comment
- Glad I'm not the only one who thought this story was a little self-serving.
I don't think Hollywood is losing money. As pointed out in this article, the quality of these videos is usually really bad. If people want to see a particular movie, they aren't going to settle for a crappy pirated version. People who buy a pirated version are somewhat interested in the movie, but not interested enough to pay full price for a movie ticket. If the pirated version didn't exist, what makes Hollywood think they'd go see the movie?
The Wolverine bit was a perfect example. People who wanted to see it, still saw it, even though the pirated copy was readily available. The pirated movies go to people who wouldn't otherwise see the movie at all. - Reply to this comment
- oh by the way there is other ways to download these movies from other sorces so good luck with stopping the uploads@downloads ha ha ha!!!
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- Leslie,
Bit Torrent has been around for years. Stay relevent, would you. - Reply to this comment
- I've always thought 60 Minutes did some high quality reporting, but this piece is probably the worst researched news story I have ever seen on this program. It completely sidesteps the fact that bittorrent is a useful networking technology. I worry that programs like this will ignite misguided efforts to suppress the advancement of technology to protect corporate interests. Please, at least research stories about technology with cNet before before you run stories like this again.
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