"video piracy"
There hasn't been a movie made since 1959 that's worth 'pirating'.
Okay. Maybe 1961 and 'The Misfits'. But only for its historical value. (Gable and Monroe's last film)
Posted on 11/03/2009 6:00:46 AM PST by steve-b
31 years ago, in 1978, the television program 60 Minutes put on an episode about the awful threat of "video piracy" to the movie industry. Featuring the MPAA's Jack Valenti, the episode focused on how the VCR was going to destroy the movie business because anyone could copy and watch a movie in the privacy of their own home. Of course, in retrospect, that episode is hilariously wrong. You would think that, given how wrong they got it thirty years ago on this particular subject, 60 Minutes would be a bit more careful taking on the same subject again.
No such luck.
CBS's 60 Minutes has made itself out to be more of a laughingstock than usual when it comes to "investigative reporting," putting on an episode about "video piracy" that is basically 100% MPAA propaganda, without any fact checking or any attempt to challenge the (all MPAA connected) speakers, or to include anyone (anyone!) who would present a counterpoint. The episode is funny in that it contradicts itself at times (with no one noticing it) and gets important (and easily checked) facts wrong. And, of course, it basically mimics that old episode that history has shown to have been totally (laughably) false....
(Excerpt) Read more at techdirt.com ...
In other news, Bear Defecates In Woods; Benedict XVI Adheres To Catholicism.
It’s particularly odd that the penalties for “piracy” are so ridiculously high, yet a Post Office worker who actually stole thousands of NetFlix discs (actual theft) gets off relatively easy...
Garbage actors and actresses, garbage movies, garbage music...
When Hollywood was run by the Studios, actors and actesses were traded like the commody they were, and the only line that really mattered was the bottom line. When the mogels fell and TV rose, it became sadly more about pleasing the talent than the customer. With the Warner Brothers and Capra in charge, you got feel good westerns, and life-affirming movies. With “stars” you got Brokeback Mountain and that Clint Eastwood boxing moview where the real story is the female lead dying as a parapleegic.
"video piracy"
There hasn't been a movie made since 1959 that's worth 'pirating'.
Okay. Maybe 1961 and 'The Misfits'. But only for its historical value. (Gable and Monroe's last film)
“Million Dollar Baby” was a great movie.
Too bad too many people couldn’t see through the plot synopsis in their local rag and look at the movie for what it was.
MDP was a huge downer.
So’s life, sometimes.
I like “feel good” movies as much as the next guy, but they get old when that’s all you see. And, some people would have it that way.
The actual reasons for the 60 Minutes piece on video piracy are these:
1. There is currently a UN treaty on copyrights under consideration to crack down on “piracy” worldwide that will negate things like our Supreme Court’s rulings on video recording and fair use. Also, many things with a current US copyright are public domain in other countries whose laws and public rights to make derivative works would likewise be voided.
2. Disney in 1977 obtained an extension of the old maximum 54 years copyright on Mickey Mouse just as its first movies (1923) were about to pass into the public domain. The maximum for a US corporate copyright is currently 95 years and Disney is again pushing for an extention beyond 2018. They don’t want to wait till the last minute again.
In common law, the public is entitled to add intellectual knowledge to the public domain, after the author or inventor has had a period of time for making an exclusive profit from it, in order to promote further invention and derivative works. The original copyright and patent laws were passed when the pace of scientific development and disemination of works was at a much slower pace. In the modern age of industrial research and electronic distriburion, the argument should be made for shorter protection periods, not longer. The public is being deprived of the right to make and enjoy its own inventions and derivative works to its loss in the interest of protecting corporate level profits and we are all diminished and being robbed of those benefits as a result.
Don’t forget Eli Wallach, who’s great in just about any film he ever did.
I hate it when Hollywood lies in the trailers. Don’t sell me a piece of pecan danish, and deliver a bowl of prune whip.
Eli Wallach. Still alive and at last report still kickin.
Maybe this is the thing that will finally get the US couch potato to care about national sovereignty.
Copyfraud ping?
Maybe, if anybody knew what was going on.
I doubt 60 Minutes bothered to inform them.
Yep.
I don’t think he’s doing much lately, but he’s done enough for a lifetime.
60 Minutes - liberal butt kissers - suck...
Someone ought to. It would be a good primer on conservative politics to the great unwashed.
31 years ago - that’s about when it jumped the sharp and I quit watching it...
The copyright cartel has a massive propaganda campaign, and this is only part of it. They’re also creating school materials to brainwash our kids.
Thanks for the heads-up, ShadowAce.
They should have disclaimers at the end of the trailers that say, "This trailer included every humorous or interesting segment in the movie.
They say that the movies that advertise the most are the worst movies. That good movies rely more on word of mouth and favorable reviews.
Actually, about 80% of Bittorrent traffic consists of TV shows, not movies.
To a lesser extent, you might ad in "Bridge to Teribithia", which looks like a fantasy kids movie, and is actually children enduring emotional conflict, retreating from reality, and ultimately, death of a likable main character. (Which puts me in mind-set of "So Your Grandmother is Dying of Cancer" as a childrens' book.)
This thread makes Tuco angry.
The progression of the books, by the way, is identical to the progression intended for the movies. You get sucked into the first one, which has a few glancing but clearly anti-religious references, and as the trilogy progresses it becomes more and more clearly a Satanist work. In the final book, all those imprisoned by God are freed to rejoin the earth (whatever the hell that means) and God is destroyed in a final cataclysm.
Pullman once had dinner with J.R.R. Tolkien (Pullman was a student at Oxford in waning years of Tolkien's professorship there.) Reading the account from Pullman's perspective -- which Pullman seems quite proud of -- will convince you of what a conceited little prick he is: he reviles Tolkien because the professor (who probably had nothing in common with graduate students except literature at that point in his career) bothered himself to make small talk about Anglo-Saxon Literature with Pullman. He should have ignored the little egotist altogether, but no good deed goes unpunished with jerks like Pullman.
I can easily sympathise with people who are unsure about the existance of my God. I have to work hard to sympathise with arrogant, puffed-up, mean-spirited people who are so sure that my God is a cruel begger that they are willing to make fun of what I believe...and to try and slip it in under the radar to embitter my kids.
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