Do you fuck the industry you want to be in?

[Gamblour.]

This made me reread this thread: http://www.xixax.com/viewtopic.php?t=1052

[Ernie]

I only buy CD's of new bands that I like which there are very very few of....most of the stuff I listen to is downloaded cause most of the artists I listen to are either already rich for life or dead, so I feel ok about it for better or for worse.

I will never ever ever download movies and it makes me sick to my stomach to think we might be watching movies alone solely on computers in the future if piracy of movies continues with such popularity. I'm not against it just because I want to go into the industry, (that is part of it of course) I just love cinema way too much to do it. It's not how the films were meant to be seen and even if I didn't care about those intentions, it's not a way that I enjoy watching them...they're mostly poor quality and they can't generate the feelings they generate when seen the way they were intended to be either in the theatre or on DVD or VHS. It's like jacking off to the blocked out porn channel when you could be getting a hooker that you know for sure is disease-free. You know the DVD is going to be quality, you know it won't disappoint. It's the same thing with the theatre. Both experiences are worth the price they have been marked with.

Music was meant to be listened to...either live or on headphones or on a stereo...those are the intentions of most artists and I support those intentions even though I don't buy 90% of the music I listen to. Filmmaker's intend for their work to be seen in theatres or on dvd/video...not on a fucking computer monitor. And as for people that burn the dvd's....hurt cinema all you want, have a fucking ball.

[socketlevel]

fuck jack valenti

[MacGuffin]

Oscar Screener Copy of Movie Found Online  

A copy of the romantic comedy "Something's Gotta Give" that was sent to an Oscar voter has surfaced on the Internet, prompting a probe by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Academy officials said Monday that they learned last week about the unauthorized online copy of the movie starring Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, which ranked fifth in last weekend's box office tally.  

The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday that visible and hidden markings on the videocassette copy on the Internet identify it as the one sent to Carmine Caridi, a film and television actor who appeared in the "The Godfather: Part II" and television's "NYPD Blue."

The academy required its 5,803 eligible Oscar voters to sign forms promising to protect their screener tapes before they were received. About 80 percent of voters signed and returned the forms.

An excerpt of the form reads: "I agree not to allow the screeners to circulate outside of my residence or office. I agree not to allow them to be reproduced in any fashion, and not to sell them or to give them away at any time. ... I agree that a violation of this agreement will constitute grounds for my expulsion from the Academy and may also result in civil and criminal penalties."

The Times said Caridi, 69, couldn't be reached for comment. His telephone number is not listed.

Bruce Davis, the academy's executive director, declined to identify the Oscar member being investigated. Davis said a phone call was made to the member who said he would call back to explain the matter more fully, but the member never did. The academy has sent a letter seeking an explanation for how the screener copy wound up on the Internet, but has not received an answer.

Sony Pictures Entertainment, whose Columbia Pictures produced and distributed the movie, notified the academy last week about the online screener copy.

"We did everything we could to ensure the secure handling of all of our screeners sent to members of the academy," Sony spokesman Steve Elzer told the Times. "We are very concerned about this situation, and have turned over all relevant information to the academy."

Sony officials said they'll decide whether to pursue legal action once the academy's investigation is completed.

[SoNowThen]

Hey, on a related note, has anybody seen the new Piracy ads, with that stuntman guy? Not that I like these ads in any way, but at least it's light years better than orange-beard setbuilder...

[MacGuffin]

Oscar Voters Movie Copies on Internet  

LOS ANGELES - Two additional movies sent to Oscar voters have surfaced on the Internet, with a screener copy of "House of Sand and Fog" briefly up for sale on an auction site and "Cold Mountain" available for downloading, studios said.

Miramax said Wednesday it was looking into how an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences screener copy of its Civil War epic "Cold Mountain" was posted on the Internet.

The actual videocassette copy of the grim drama "House of Sand and Fog" was up for sale on eBay before DreamWorks SKG contacted the site and asked that it be removed.

The Los Angeles Times reported that security features on the tape indicated that it belonged to Ivan Kruglak, an academy member and president of a wireless data communications company.

Kruglak told the newspaper he didn't know how a copy of his tape was posted for sale online, saying, "I firmly believe someone at the duplicating house made themselves a copy before the studio sent it to me."

Earlier in the week, the academy said copies of "Something's Gotta Give" and "The Last Samurai" had been posted online.

The Internet postings come after an anti-piracy campaign by the film industry, which has estimated that unauthorized movie copying costs it $3.5 billion a year. The 5,803 Academy members eligible to vote this year were required to sign forms promising to protect their screener tapes.

[Pubrick]

haha, at least now they can blame it on a couple of old geezers and not useful ppl.

[Chest Rockwell]

Ticket Prices Surge Past $10 Level

In New York, ticket prices broke the $10 barrier for the first time, with admission prices upped to $10.25 for adults and $6.75 for children at the Loews Cineplex and United Artists theaters in Manhattan, according to the New York Daily News. Nationally, ticket prices rose about 4 percent in 2003, the Wall Street Journal, observed, noting that despite the rise, gross revenue for the year declined about 1 percent, translating to a drop of 4.23 percent in actual ticket sales. The newspaper suggested that a significant cause of the drop may be attributed to piracy.

[MacGuffin]

FBI Makes Arrest in Oscar Screener Piracy  

LOS ANGELES - FBI agents said Thursday they have traced the bootlegging and illegal Internet distribution of films such as "The Last Samurai" to an Academy Award member, and arrested a second man in connection with the case.

Carmine Caridi admitted in an affidavit released Thursday that he sent every so-called "screener" videotape he's received for the past three years to an acquaintance in the Chicago area, Russell W. Sprague.

Sprague, 51, was arrested at his home in Homewood, Ill., on Thursday after a search of his home turned up hundreds of films, many of which had been converted to DVD format and had the Academy's encryption code erased, along with an array of duplicating equipment, authorities said.

Sprague is charged with criminal copyright infringement and is to appear in a federal court in Chicago on Friday, officials said.

Caridi, 69, said he sent VHS copies of about 60 movies he received each year to Sprague via Federal Express. Once Sprague made a copy, he'd send them back to Caridi, the FBI said.

Caridi, who also has appeared in movies such as "The Godfather: Part II" and "The Godfather: Part III," said he received no money for the films.

The Motion Picture Association of America, which represents studios, last year banned the distribution of screener DVDs and videotapes over concerns about bootlegging, but partly lifted the ban after complaints from filmmakers, producers and independent production companies.

The studios changed the policy in October to allow the shipment of encoded videocassettes to Academy Award voters only. A federal judge in December, however, granted a temporary injunction lifting the screener ban in a lawsuit brought by independent production companies, which argued the policy put them at a disadvantage for awards. The studios then sent screener tapes to thousands of other awards voters.

The academy required its 5,803 eligible Oscar voters to sign forms promising to protect their screener tapes. About 80 percent of voters signed and returned the forms, which include a stipulation that a violation is grounds for expulsion from the academy.

[snaporaz]

i hate putting in a reply to a thread that's been going along for a while, but yes, i do download movies. only when i'm really bored. in fact, the only two movies i've downloaded successfuly were *ahem* johnny english [the proverbial nothing-to-do kind of day], and [don't kill me] punch-drunk love. i've seen punch-drunk at the cinema twice and bought it on dvd the first day it came out, but i just wanted it on my computer to see if i could burn it and give to a friend of mine who actually likes it, and he's like a kind of thuggish guy who's completely not a movie person, so that was a nice surprise to hear him come to me and ask if i've seen that movie. i kind of freaked out at that.

but anyways, i download music alot. honestly, i don't see myself buying music anymore. i do d/l alot of television shows, mainly curb your enthusiasm.

so yeah, i would only really download a movie if i really feel it's not worth the money, or if it's hard to find and i can't see it any other way.

[MacGuffin]

Film Industry Suing Computer Users

Taking a cue from recording companies, Hollywood movie studios are preparing to file copyright infringement lawsuits against computer users they say are illegally distributing movies online, a source familiar with the studios' plans said Wednesday.

The lawsuits will target movie fans who share digitized versions of films over peer-to-peer networks, with the first wave of litigation planned for as early as Thursday, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Like the recording industry, which began suing individual music file-sharers last year, the movie studios plan an ongoing litigation campaign, the source said.

The Motion Picture Association of America, which represents the major film studios, declined to comment Wednesday. But the organization issued a release saying MPAA president and chief executive Dan Glickman would be making "a major announcement regarding illegal file sharing of motion pictures on peer-to-peer networks" early Thursday.

Studio executives, legislators, filmmakers and union leaders, among others, were scheduled to participate in the news conference, according to the MPAA statement.

The movie studios were still finalizing how many lawsuits would make up their initial filing, but it would probably be around 200 or so, the source said.

Videotaped copies of films in theaters often are digitized or burned off DVDs and then distributed on file-sharing networks accessed with software programs like eDonkey, Kazaa and Grokster.

In the past, the MPAA has said its members were reluctant to take legal action against individual file-sharers. But Glickman, who took over the MPAA in September, has made fighting movie piracy top priority.

The MPAA claims the U.S. movie industry loses more than $3 billion annually in potential global revenue because of physical piracy, or bogus copies of videos and DVDs of its films.

The MPAA doesn't give an estimate for how much online piracy costs the industry annually, but claims the health of the industry is at stake as the copying and distribution of movies online continues to grow unabated.

Along with the recording industry, movie studios have tried to shut down companies behind file-sharing software through litigation with little success.

The movie industry has also tried to battle piracy by running ads in movie theaters and elsewhere designed to dissuade people from file-sharing films by stressing the risks of identity theft and liability.

While the lawsuit campaign may thwart some computer users from downloading movies online, it's not likely to make much of a dent on file-sharing, said Fred von Lohmann, a senior intellectual property attorney who represented software distributor StreamCast in a copyright infringement case against film and recording companies earlier this year.

"This won't do any good," von Lohmann said. "The recording industry lawsuits don't appear to have reduced file-sharing to any meaningful degree."

[meatball]

Re: do you fuck the industry you want to be in?



No, but the industry I want to be in fucks me.  :P

[Pubrick]

that's deep, man.

[SiliasRuby]

Re: do you fuck the industry you want to be in?



No, but the industry I want to be in fucks me.  :P

The question is, does it feel good?...Ok, I gotta stop with the stupid comebacks.

[reelistics07]

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