Posted on 05/19/2005 10:33:23 AM PDT by Houmatt
LONDON (Reuters) - The final chapter of the Star Wars saga has gone over to the Internet's dark side.
"Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" has been leaked onto a major file-sharing network just hours after opening in theaters, at a time when Hollywood is increasingly concerned about online piracy.
At least two copies of the film, which was first shown in theaters in the early hours of Thursday, have been posted to the BitTorrent file-sharing network -- a new and increasingly popular technology that allows users to download large video files much more quickly than in the past.
The Motion Picture Association of America has been aggressive in going after Web sites that provide "tracker" links that enable BitTorrent downloads of copyrighted material, including six lawsuits this week against sites with links to TV shows.
According to Web site Waxy.org (http:/www.waxy.org), one print was leaked on Wednesday before the film was even released in theaters. The movie was time-stamped, suggesting it may have come from within the industry rather than from someone who videotaped an advance screening.
One popular tracker Web site showed more than 16,000 people currently downloading the film via BitTorrent.
Hollywood is trying to avoid the fate of the music industry, which claims it has lost hundreds of millions of dollars worth of sales to illicit file-sharing networks.
Movie files are about 50 times larger than music files, which makes them much more cumbersome to download, but new technologies like BitTorrent and increased high-speed Internet penetration are closing the gap.
Lucasfilm Ltd and the MPAA were not immediately available for comment.
Another way would be to place a digital watermark on each print of the film that would be unseen to the naked eye but could be picked up on film so each print could be tracked to its source. That way, whatever print is used to make the illegal bootleg can be located and those responsible jailed.
This is most likely an inside job. Theaters with DLP projectors have the movie in digital format already. Somebody probably slipped a projector operator a few bucks to tap into the file server.
Of course they will still treat every theater goer to an inspection not unlike those travelling by plane these days.
The leaks have always been on the inside. Only low rent bums try to sell a video they shot off the screen.
They've more than made up for this loss off the product that they have refused to lapse into its consitutionally proscribed public domain. They keep paying to get the laws changed to prolong the inevitable.
Hollywood and the MPAA were not upset that Fahrenheit 911 was available for "illegal" download. They certainly didn't point a finger of blame when Castro aired an "unapproved" telecast of the film on state run television.
What they need to do now is make available to the consumer popular music that is out of print, never been released on CD or is otherwise unavailable through conventional means. When they do that, I can guarantee a lot of the losses they are reporting will go away.
The losses are because "rock is dead" (at least as a radio format).
Shoved off the stage by corporate nerds who know nothing of "good or bad" just what they own outright publishing on and can "market" to the masses.
This is hardly the first time the suits have turned down acts that could break. The Beatles were on 5 labels in America before they "broke".
Some folks just don't CARE about music. It is just product.
Usually these things come from copies distributed by the producers, and not from theaters.
Pardon? To the best of my recollection, they were on three (Tollie, Swan, Vee-Jay).
By the way, have you heard what passes for popular music lately? Whatever happened to melodies? Creativity?
Decca and MGM
After they broke, United Artists and Capital put out albums (UA got the A Hard Days Night soundtrack)
Watching a bootleg lets the potential audience see the story but hardly with the quality that they would get in a theater, let alone the "remastered DVD".
This may bite into the revenue from casual viewers (who don't even want to pay a dollar to see it down the line) and maybe repeat viewers but many of the same geeks that download this are waiting camped out in line in costume.
They are still around but the industry doesn't respect them.
Norah Jones was the first singer to hit the top of the charts in a long time who didn't have all sorts of "ohhheeeeaaaaaoooooooEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" emblishments over the song.
When Ashlee Simpson started getting airplay, I thought that was the end of civilization as we know it.
what did they release prior to 1964?
Did Tollie release prior to 1964?
The Beatles auditioned at Decca and put out a single with Tony Sheridan. Don't know if it came out in 1962 or not, I don't have my record guides at hand.
Swan had the hit songs from the Beatles but after Dick Clark severed his ties with the label over the payola scandal (which never did punish him), they didn't have much influence on the music industry.
BItTorrent sounds cool -- if only I could figure out how the hell to use it.
I've never been able to figure it out either and I wonder just how vulnerable it would be to RIAA snooping around for your IP address.
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