Do you fuck the industry you want to be in?

[Weak2ndAct]

narcilept

So the movies caused you to get last place in the spelling bee and fall asleep suddenly?

[SiliasRuby]

narcilept

So the movies caused you to get last place in the spelling bee and fall asleep suddenly?

....mmmm...probably

[Pubrick]

I used to steal mad movies from stores without servailance or alarms, it was cool, a rush, addictive. I stole about 12 dvds and became a narcilept. but i went to this "stealing is for suckers" program and it truly changed me.

I'm a new man

dumbass, that story sucked.

[reelistics07]

damnt i knew narcilept was the wrong word? whats the right word? its a..... cleptomaniac! you see, cilept and clepto, it messed me up but actually most of the movies i stole were one timers and they sucked ass, one hour photo, cabin fever, fucking, the autobiogrpahy of malcom x with morg freeman (that is bad) pubrick, yeah shitty story. hater. i'm sorry i guess im not one to entertain. just... telling stories.

[Stefen]

I get whatever I can for free. Fuck paying for something if I can get it for free. I'm not gonna go pay 17 bucks for a cd when I can download it for free. If the cd was 8 bucks I would buy it but I don't feel bad one bit downloading music, most of the albums suck anyways and only have one of two good songs, and if the album is good its not popular enough to the point where if i did actually buy it the artist would make some money cause its selling so well. What I will do though is go check out that artists show when they come to town. Im sure they want that alot more than me buying their album. If anything all downloading music will do is force musicians to make better albums so people will actually buy them as oppose to downloading the two or three songs that dont suck on said album. Movie are a different story, i usually get them for free some way or another, either sneaking into the theater or getting a dvd for free like a promo. What the fuck do I care if the studio doesn't make any money off that movie? The filmmaker and all the people i actually want to support already have their money. I don't give a shit if i saw it for free and the movie didn't break 70 mil opening weekend so Will Smith doesn't get his back end gotta make this much opening weekend money, money. Plus, I don't wanna pay 10 bucks to sit in a theater with fucking assholes who talk through the whole movie and snort and make out and act stupid, if someone wants to make noise and answer a cell phone they can give me 10 bucks and they can watch one of the many promo dvd's i have in my home, at least that way the money is going to a worthy cause, me. I usually don't go to the movies, i wait for the dvd where I can watch it in the comfort of my own home and not have to worry about 5-0 busting through the door with billy clubs runing my movie going experience cause some hilllybilly made a comment talking about homosexualism when two guys kiss and then get blown up and then get aids and then credits roll and then me and the redneck next to me are out 10 bucks and im pissed at him for being an ignorant redneck and not appreciating action-arthouse and I stab him.  I don't wanna go to jail and I don't wanna be broke. Everyone lives, everyone wins.

[MacGuffin]

Hollywood's Latest Weapon - DVD Sniffing Dogs

WASHINGTON — Hollywood's newest stars are perfectly happy to go straight to DVD.

And Hollywood is perfectly happy to go to the dogs.

On Tuesday, the Motion Picture Assn. of America showed off Lucky and Flo, a pair of playful, 2-year-old black Labrador retrievers with noses trained to zero in on DVDs, including the pirated kind.

During a briefing at the MPAA's headquarters, Lucky and Flo took turns sniffing out DVDs hidden in a box.

"They tend to be cheaper than most employees and they don't demand raises all the time," said John Malcolm, the MPAA's director of worldwide anti-piracy operations.

Still, the first ever DVD-sniffing dogs didn't come that cheap. The MPAA spent about $9,000 on each to train them over eight months. But the group said that was a small price compared with losses from pirated DVDs, estimated by the industry at $11.1 billion in 2005.

MPAA Chief Executive Dan Glickman gave the go-ahead for the project. As Agriculture secretary in the 1990s, he had seen the success of the department's "Beagle Brigade" in identifying prohibited foods at U.S. borders.

It turns out that DVDs also have a unique smell — not just the ones that were stinkers at the box office — probably from the resins and polycarbonates used to produce the discs.

"There is a scent that comes off the DVD that the dog is absolutely dead-set on finding," said Neil Powell, a Northern Ireland sniffer dog expert who trained Lucky and Flo. If there's a scent — whether it's from DVDs, drugs or explosives — a dog can be trained to sniff it out.

Lucky and Flo can't distinguish between legitimate and bootleg DVDs, but customs officials can identify smugglers by checking the declarations for the packages that the dogs point out, Malcolm said.

The dogs aren't actually sniffing out DVDs in a real-world setting, just showing it's possible. The MPAA, which hopes to loan them to customs officials or private shipping firms, is taking its dog show on the road, to Los Angeles, Mexico, Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai and Britain.

The world tour even has a Hollywood touch: commemorative "Lucky & Flo K-9 Pirate Smackdown" T-shirts.

[RegularKarate]

yes, because that's definitely the major weakness... people are smuggling movies already burnt onto a DVD into the country.

[MacGuffin]

Be Loyal, Kind and Don't Steal Movies

A Boy Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, etc., etc. He is also respectful of copyrights.

Boy Scouts in the Los Angeles area will now be able to earn a merit patch for learning about the evils of downloading pirated movies and music.

The patch shows a film reel, a music CD and the international copyright symbol, a "C" enclosed in a circle.

The movie industry has developed the curriculum.

"Working with the Boy Scouts of Los Angeles, we have a real opportunity to educate a new generation about how movies are made, why they are valuable, and hopefully change attitudes about intellectual property theft," Dan Glickman, chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America, said in a statement Friday.

Scouts will be instructed in the basics of copyright law and learn how to identify five types of copyrighted works and three ways copyrighted materials may be stolen.

Scouts also must choose one activity from a list that includes visiting a movie studio to see how many people can be harmed by film piracy. They also can create public service announcements urging others not to steal movies or music.

[Derek237]

In the last 3 years, I've downloaded only one movie. An Inconvenient Truth. I figured Al Gore invented the internet so it's his fault anyway.

[MacGuffin]

Bounty offered to kill 2 sniffer dogs

Lucky and Flo, the two Labradors who helped sniff out nearly 1 million illegal discs last week within days of joining Malaysia's anti-piracy effort, have been moved to a safe house, a news report said Thursday.

The New Straits Times reported that a source had tipped off officials about a bounty offered for killing the sniffer dogs, who are on loan for a month from the Motion Picture Association of America. The amount was not disclosed.

"The dogs are a genuine threat to the pirated disc syndicates, thus the instruction to eliminate them," Firdaus Zakaria, the enforcement director of the Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs, was quoted as saying.

He did not elaborate on the information received by the ministry.

Firdaus and senior ministry officials could not be immediately reached for further details on the report. A spokesman contacted by The Associated Press declined to comment.

Lucky and Flo, who were pressed into service on March 13, gained fame after they sniffed out a massive shipment of pirated movie DVDs in office complex in southern Johor state on March 19.

The canines detected the discs hidden behind locked doors, which officials broke open with crowbars to reveal a cache of nearly 1 million discs worth $2.8 million. Five Malaysians and a Vietnamese man also were arrested in the operation.

It is the first time dogs have been used by authorities anywhere in the world to detect contraband discs, according to Mike Ellis, regional director for the MPAA.

The MPAA says its members — including top Hollywood studios Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox and Universal — lost $1.2 billion to Asia-Pacific movie pirates in 2006.

Lucky and Flo are trained to detect polycarbonates — chemicals used in the disc manufacturing process. They cannot tell the difference between real and pirated discs, but can detect discs hidden in shipments or concealed places.

Malaysia is among the world's top illegal movie producers and exporters, Washington and the MPAA have said. It is one of 36 countries on a U.S. watch list of serious copyright violators.

Officials say 5 million discs were seized in more than 2,000 raids in the Southeast Asian nation last year, and 780 people were arrested.

China remains at the top of the MPAA's movie piracy list.

[MacGuffin]

Out of the Theater, Into the Courtroom
Brief Taping Brings Charges
Source: Washington Post

Jhannet Sejas and her boyfriend were celebrating her 19th birthday by taking in a matinee showing of the hit movie "Transformers" at the theater at Ballston Common mall.

Sejas was enjoying the movie so much that she decided to film a short clip of the sci-fi adventure's climax to get her little brother hyped to go see it.

Minutes later, two Arlington County police officers were pointing their flashlights at the young couple in the darkened theater and ordering them out. They confiscated the digital camera as evidence and charged Sejas, a Marymount University sophomore and Annandale resident, with a crime: illegally recording a motion picture.

"I was terrified," said Sejas, her voice breaking. "I was crying. I've never been in trouble before." She said the assistant manager of the theater saw her holding up the Canon Power Shot and reported it to the general manager, who called police.

Sejas said she had no intention of selling the 20-second film clip. She just wanted to show it to her 13-year-old brother, who had said he wanted to see the movie. She was shocked when the officers showed up.

Sejas faces up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $2,500 when she goes to trial this month in the July 17 incident. Arlington police spokesman John Lisle said it was the decision of Regal Cinemas Ballston Common 12 to prosecute the case, a first for Arlington police.

"They were the victim in this case, and they felt strongly enough about it," he said. The general manager of Regal Cinemas declined to comment yesterday.

Movie pirating cost the industry $18.2 billion worldwide in 2005, the last year for which figures were available, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. Moviegoers are increasingly carrying cellphones, digital cameras and other devices capable of recording.

"Ninety percent of recently released films that are pirated are done by camcording in movie theaters," said Kori Bernards, a spokeswoman for the Motion Picture Association of America. "It's happening all over. And there's been a rash of camcording in the Washington area of late."

Besides facing a misdemeanor charge, Sejas was also banned for life from the movie theater she has frequented. Sejas, a Bolivian immigrant who works two part-time jobs to help finance her education, works at the Victoria's Secret store near the movie theater.

Her boyfriend, Ivar Villazon, said the camera belongs to his sister; the couple borrowed it, Sejas said, to "make memories" on her birthday.

Kendrick Macdowell, general counsel for the Washington-based National Association of Theatre Owners, said that illegal pirating of films costs the industry billions of dollars and that the industry was stepping up efforts to stamp it out.

Because of that, he said, there has to be a "zero-tolerance policy at the theater level."

"We cannot educate theater managers to be judges and juries in what is acceptable," he said. "Theater managers cannot distinguish between good and bad stealing."

Macdowell said the trade association, which represents 28,000 screens nationwide, realizes there is a difference between "egregious acts of stealing our movies and more innocent ones." But he said that distinction needed to be made in court rather than by theater managers.

Not everyone agrees.

"The movie industry needs to recognize that their audience isn't the enemy," said Cindy Cohn, general counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based nonprofit group that specializes in digital rights issues. "They need to stop treating their fans like criminals. . . . What they're doing is extremely unreasonable, coming down on this poor girl who was actually trying to promote their movie."

Copying a motion picture from a theater performance is a felony under the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005, punishable by up to three years in a federal prison. Several states, including Virginia, also have anti-piracy laws.

Jason Schultz, senior staff lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said he is aware of only one case prosecuted under the federal statute. In September 2005, a Missouri theater employee pleaded guilty to two counts of using a camcorder to copy two movies.

He said he has never heard of a case like Sejas's.

"I've heard of people's devices being confiscated, or them being kicked out of the theater," Schultz said. "This is the first criminal arrest for someone filming for personal use that I know of."

Sandy Hughes, Sejas's attorney, said she hopes she can resolve the case before it goes to trial Aug. 21 in Arlington General District Court.

Villazon said he and his girlfriend had taken a bunch of birthday pictures of each other in the mall, posing with a "guy and girl in a cow suit" at the Chick-fil-A restaurant in the food court.

They got to the movie a few minutes after it started. And even though they paid $15 for two matinee tickets, they missed the end.

[pete]

Movie pirating cost the industry $18.2 billion worldwide in 2005

how did they figure that out?

[Kal]

Its bullshit... same as the music industry... they project what they would like to make, minus what they ended up making, and thats the number left.

Its like me wanting to make a million dollars this year, then making 100k and blaming somebody else for not making the other 900k.

[Stefen]

I only go to the movies if it's a date with a hot chick or a friend REALLY wants to go. I've been to one movie in the last 3 years, and that was because a friend REALLY wanted to go.

Everything is downloaded.

$15 to see a half hour of commercials and an hour and a half movie? HAHA.

[Kal]

I dont mind going and paying, even though its ridiculously expensive now. In Miami, movies are $9.50. Then add a couple drinks and something to eat (maybe $15 more) and you have to pay for parking (another $5).

The problem is not paying, but that you need to get to the theatre early to get good seats, sit through 30 minutes of commercials before you get to the 15 minutes of previews, and then watch a movie with 200 retarded people who scream, laugh at unfunny jokes, use their fucking cell phones, etc.

And that is also the reason why I keep going... downloaded movies usually are CAMCORDERS for the first few months, and you have to watch it with all the noises and shit from the theatre. It takes a few months until a good quality movie is available for download. Sometimes I just prefer to wait for the DVD to come out...