Support the new laws!!!

[David Rasberry]

You can't fight piracy, you can only compete with it...

And please stop with this "free" thing. Nothing is free in the Internet, since you have to PAY in order to ACCESS the Internet. Comprende?

And decent connections don't come cheap... even in the Wild East. :yesnod:

Food for thought...

True, but network access and content access are two different things.

As an example of free content distribution that can make you money, you can get a portion of the advertising revenue if you sign up for google ads for your website. Same thing with YouTube if you draw a large enough audience for your video.

 

[Anthony Gratl]

- Huge blockbusters, the kind that work in theaters, not home-video were responsible for most of this. It has become almost impossible to produce an small indy thriller or oddball romcom, for example, and their number has dwindled greatly.

Really? That's funny, I thought that the film festivals were full of them. How is it impossible? Also, you're proposing that many more jobs will be created through blockbusters? Last time I checked, hollywood was making fewer films, not more, and that half the industry was unemployed. Oh, and profits are up, not down. And who's stealing the small indy thriller? These laws are about control.

- Again with this greedy corporations business. If they make money, or more importantly know they COULD make money from a quirky little film, they have money to invest in young writers and young directors and so on. If they have no money, where will the money for salaries come from? Besides, many prodcos are small outfits with 10 or less employees full time.

The money comes from public funding in this country that you live in. And uh, yeah, large corporations are greedy. What part of that don't you get?

I would not call Iran a democracy, but no one suggesting censoring anything but illegal file sharing via very soft penalties like France's 3-strikes system. I would also not call a lawless society a democracy.

You clearly don't know what is being suggested with the legislation. You should read it first, instead of making some grandiose thread about supporting new laws. Who said anything about a lawless society? Do you really think that Iran is lawless?

You sound very young. You should learn to think over what popular opinion and the cool crowd says, and not just accept it at face value.

- This is a real name forum.

You sound old and unoriginal, which, regardless of your actual age, is unfortunate. I've just read the last page of responses you've given to people. You're actually pretty rude, and I find your tone offensive. It's shortsighted people like you that make real progress difficult. File sharing has been around for about 15 years......did it sneak up on you?
WTF do you care about the business degrees? And who said that those people had a lock on how to run a business? Last time I checked, media congloms were failing in this country, and it's not because of piracy. Heard of the Bronfmans? Aspers, anyone?
I've been in this industry for about 15 years, and I have a university education thanks, and not in film and tv.
You clearly haven't read any legislation regarding internet regulation that's been put forward in the last few years, but here's a hint for your conforming self: it's not for the good of the people. And you have no idea about the tight connections between multinational corporations and lawmakers either, otherwise you wouldn't spout off about supporting laws that you obviously haven't even read. Either that, or you don't really care about the real notions of what a democracy is, or should be, or COULD be.

Also, I've been on this forum for a hell of a lot longer than you, you turnip. You've been here for what, 2 months?
And if you do about 5 seconds of research, you can easily find my name.

 

[Rob Ruffo]

I'm against Piracy as much as the next guy but the current approach isn't moral or working.

You want to teach someone a lesson, send them a $50 ticket. Send them one every month.

You don't fight invasive piracy at the user level with $100k fines. You fight it by hitting everyone who breaks the law with a small fine.

Think about it. Would you risk parking on the street without putting money in the meter? I've been hit twice this month. (Only once my fault though). I'm going to be EXTRA careful going forward. My fear of piracy enforcement? Somewhere around 0.

This I agree with completely - this is what France is doing, and soon other countries. The penalties are gentle - but they are there. However, such small penalties can only be effective if people can be caught/convicted in large numbers. The 100K is more like an inverse lottery ticket, where you stand to lose a lot if you are unlucky. If your chances are 1 in 100, then 100K = 1K in people's minds. How many people would quit smoking if the worst risk was something like itchy elbows?
However, few people chose to eat rancid vegetables because while they will not give you cancer, they will make you feel sick right away, for sure.

 

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

a portion

Yes, that's one way to do it now, but the question is what portion? Is their process transparent? And where goes the bulk of the revenues - in the pocket of the author (where it belongs) or in Google's pocket?

I don't know.. :mellow:

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

This I agree with completely - this is what France is doing, and soon other countries. The penalties are gentle - but they are there. However, such small penalties can only be effective if people can be caught/convicted in large numbers. The 100K is more like an inverse lottery ticket, where you stand to lose a lot if you are unlucky. If your chances are 1 in 100, then 100K = 1K in people's minds. How many people would quit smoking if the worst risk was something like itchy elbows?
However, few people chose to eat rancid vegetables because while they will not give you cancer, they will make you feel sick right away, for sure.

So if speeders were hard to catch we should fine them $13,000,000? Even if the enforcement isn't there the punishment has to fit the crime. And since the industry is deadset on huge spectacles which are the equivalent of the financial death penalty they are wasting their time. Nobody cares if one person loses $13m. They need to just start sending small bills that are too small for people to bother contesting. Sure it'll cost them more than the lawyers but it'll send the right kind of message.

 

[Rob Ruffo]

Really? That's funny, I thought that the film festivals were full of them. How is it impossible? Also, you're proposing that many more jobs will be created through blockbusters? Last time I checked, hollywood was making fewer films, not more, and that half the industry was unemployed. Oh, and profits are up, not down. And who's stealing the small indy thriller? These laws are about control.




The money comes from public funding in this country that you live in. And uh, yeah, large corporations are greedy. What part of that don't you get?


You clearly don't know what is being suggested with the legislation. You should read it first, instead of making some grandiose thread about supporting new laws. Who said anything about a lawless society? Do you really think that Iran is lawless?




You sound old and unoriginal, which, regardless of your actual age, is unfortunate. I've just read the last page of responses you've given to people. You're actually pretty rude, and I find your tone offensive. It's shortsighted people like you that make real progress difficult. File sharing has been around for about 15 years......did it sneak up on you?
WTF do you care about the business degrees? And who said that those people had a lock on how to run a business? Last time I checked, media congloms were failing in this country, and it's not because of piracy. Heard of the Bronfmans? Aspers, anyone?
I've been in this industry for about 15 years, and I have a university education thanks, and not in film and tv.
You clearly haven't read any legislation regarding internet regulation that's been put forward in the last few years, but here's a hint for your conforming self: it's not for the good of the people. And you have no idea about the tight connections between multinational corporations and lawmakers either, otherwise you wouldn't spout off about supporting laws that you obviously haven't even read. Either that, or you don't really care about the real notions of what a democracy is, or should be, or COULD be.

Also, I've been on this forum for a hell of a lot longer than you, you turnip. You've been here for what, 2 months?
And if you do about 5 seconds of research, you can easily find my name.

I am rude, and completely unafraid of taking on an unpopular point of view. I have dear friends and family, and don't really care what you think of me. I am 35.

I do know about lobyists and the like, and their huge effect on government. Mostly this is a bad thing, but the interests of large and small corps (by small I mean Mom and Pop like mine) can sometimes be one and the same. Also, I don't see how large corps going bankrupt and laying off many workers is a positive thing "for the people" or what it is they will "freely share" if the film business goes bankrupt. Obviously I don't have the resources to lobby Washington, but I would want better ways of protecting my small business, which is often under contract from larger corps (like networks) who enable us to make a living. If they go under, this is not good.

I did say and restate here that the specifics of the ACTRA law will still be hugely changed, and that this is not really about those specifics. No one outside those talks knows all the specifics. Not you, not me, so they cannot be debated at this time. If I knew all the specifics maybe I would find many highly objectionable. I don't know.

This is about the need to stop calling piracy "sharing", and rightly afford criminal consequences to what it rightfully should be called: stealing. This is also about the ability by governments to control the flow of information, which, to a VERY limited degree I agree with - ONLY when it involves stopping serious crimes. Kiddie porn and how-to manuals for nuclear bombs should not be "shared" either.

Lastly, if artists do not want to sign with labels, why do they? Probably because the labels give them something - videos, promo, radio play, etc. that they coudl not get on their own. If they want to release their own work paid for by themselves on the Internet for free, no one is stopping them. What these artists want is to have all teh investment, but then for the investors to not get any return because the result of all this investment should be given away for free. This does not make sense to anyone with even rudementary understanding of how business works. These artists, some are great musicians, but whatever it takes to know how to be a good businessman, a degree or something else, they have zero proven ability - most quite to the contrary. Why shoudl we follow their business model? They themselves would suffer under it. It's like a doctor asking a patient what medicine he or she should prescribe to that patient. Yes it's their body, but they're not qualified.

Shortsighted? How is protecting the future of a business shortsighted? This again makes no sense. I don't mindless jump on the bandwagon of the latest flakey theories, like "the business of free" that that steam vent from Wired proposed, but that's because it is a completely ridiculous proposition that is disproven by his own examples, all of which are either ad driven or bait and switch cons (his "free" airlines).

 

[Rob Ruffo]

So if speeders were hard to catch we should fine them $13,000,000? Even if the enforcement isn't there the punishment has to fit the crime. And since the industry is deadset on huge spectacles which are the equivalent of the financial death penalty they are wasting their time. Nobody cares if one person loses $13m. They need to just start sending small bills that are too small for people to bother contesting. Sure it'll cost them more than the lawyers but it'll send the right kind of message.

I see your point. I think you are right.

 

[Hrvoje Simic]

New measures are being taken by governments to protect the value of ideas and our very, very hard work.

I will use few excerpts from you.

...completely lacking in any insight into the big picture...

There is more than one side to the story...

...mindlessly repeating trendy cliches (which are really myths), and short on facts my friend...

 

[Rob Ruffo]

True, but network access and content access are two different things.

As an example of free content distribution that can make you money, you can get a portion of the advertising revenue if you sign up for google ads for your website. Same thing with YouTube if you draw a large enough audience for your video.

Youtube and goodle make teh record companies look like kindly benfactors. It is pretty much impossible to make a living off youtube videos. This is why I stand behind the proposition that Youtube is a leech corporation: they invest $0 in production, and reap too many rewards.

 

[Rob Ruffo]

Piracy does not force content creators (or owners of said content) away for free.

Simply because Avatar is availible on the Pirate Bay, does not mean that James Cameron must give his film away for free. In fact he continues to make money from it.

Piracy gives people without the money the choice to see and hear something.

I think if the starving poor in Afcrica pirate films, I have no problem. i would even donate them computers for this. Its' not poor people, it's rich people in rich countries with broadband access.

 

[Rob Ruffo]

I consider piracy to be theft of content for resale. I.E. rip-offs of Avatar available on DVD for 5 bucks at the local flea market. These people I have no sympathy with. They are crooks and deserve to be caught and punished.
Free content sharing is a more complex and different issue altogether. Where do you draw the line? What is fair use and what isn't? Are content makers and distributors really losing money in this case? Not necessarily. Most people who share content for free would not buy it anyway and many people who sample free content go on to buy what they like, in some cases were it not for the free sample they may not have known about it at all.
How an indie manages this potent viral marketing medium that is the Internet can possibly have tremendous impact on income over the life of a program. Fact is it may be the only effective market for most small productions in the future. There are less than 200 films a year that make it into wide theatrical release in the US. Yet Sundance alone gets as many as 9000 feature entries in a year. Most of these never make their production costs and we never hear about or see them. That unfortunately is the reality of this industry if you dream of making narrative films.
"Free" content sharing could make a lot of independent films more money than they would ever see otherwise.

Piracy has decimated the DVD rental market. Its' true, some people collect files and never watch them, but some people say, why bother buying it when I can get it for free. It is not reasonable to assume that this is not the case. I think viral marketing is an awesome tool, which DOES empower the little guy, but I don;t see how unauthorized piracy coudl ever help a producer. Where is the paycheck? Googel ads can add up to maybe $2000. Wow.

 

[Stephen Matthews]

I think you should check out Radiohead and their last album release, that's the way things should move (not perfect but a start).

I don't think this solution will be solved by legislation or out coding the pirates. Pirates and peer to peer sharing will never be shut down or controlled and if they are it will come at a great cost to our freedom of information and the internet as we know it.

We need to figure out new models of business and making money from content, and as others said make it so easy that you would never think to download illegally.

No matter how much you rant and yell, no matter how many laws are passed, if we keep with the same distribution system your stuff will be stolen copied or whatever and there isn't much you can do about it other than change.

The fact is those who download do not spend the money on movies, and dvd's, not at the rate they download (most of the time because they do not have the money). Most of them will go and see that big blockbuster and then download it. Tv I'm paying for all the time (and a lot) some shows are online, but because I'm in Canada I can't view them (in their horrible online quality). Now I have shows that I'm addicted to (not proud of), and if I miss can be ruined by adds and the general population. So I want them to download immediately when my dvr is full, or makes a mistake and doesn't record, but I can't.

I'm sorry but Rob you need to wake up and take a look around you, they tried to take down napster, then limewire kazaa, audio galaxy and others poped up. Then they shut most of those down for hosting files so a new method was developed peer to peer bit torrent. And now it's websites that host files that link to other people who have and share them, take down one website, another pops up. Isp's try to fine and shut down providers, users get isp blockers. It's a never ending battle that only results in paying customers getting hurt and no one else. Content has been copied and redistributed since the first stories were told, you just have to figure out how to live with it, and work with it.

Honestly if you can show me exactly how piracy has ruined your life destroyed a project, hurt you and your family, or just plain hurt your content, I would love to know. For now all I can tell is you are a dinosaur who doesn't see how things work or how they are going to need to work in the future. I could be wrong but that does not make you right, like I said this is a difficult issue and most of the time it's best to not worry about it and just keep on working and if you are a good person good things will happen to you. And if you are a rude old coot then.......

ps. small fines aren't a bad idea, but you just run into the same issues with figuring a work around the isp's knowing what you are downloading, peer blockers and such.

 

[Anthony Gratl]

......this is not really about those specifics. No one outside those talks knows all the specifics. Not you, not me, so they cannot be debated at this time. If I knew all the specifics maybe I would find many highly objectionable. I don't know.

Precisely the reason why you shouldn't start a thread called "Support the new laws" Rob......CAUSE YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY ARE!


I'd like to address the other points later. As to you not caring what others think, at least we share that value.
Also, you still didn't respond to the notion of ownership of material that is created using public funds......'cause you and I both now that the taxpayer in this country pays for most of the production of almost any can-con created tv and film, big or small company aside.

 

[Emanuel A.]

I am rude, and completely unafraid of taking on an unpopular point of view. I have dear friends and family, and don't really care what you think of me. I am 35.

Aside the different points in discussion addressed over here, this made me laugh.

BTW guys, chillout your score

Peace,
E.

 

[Emanuel A.]

You can't fight piracy, you can only compete with it...

And please stop with this "free" thing. Nothing is free in the Internet, since you have to PAY in order to ACCESS the Internet. Comprende?

And decent connections don't come cheap... even in the Wild East. :yesnod:

Food for thought...

Well seen. So, they should pay the production bills when the piracy rules out. Any takers?

 

[David Rasberry]

Youtube and goodle make teh record companies look like kindly benfactors. It is pretty much impossible to make a living off youtube videos. This is why I stand behind the proposition that Youtube is a leech corporation: they invest $0 in production, and reap too many rewards.

I wouldn't post expensive productions there anyway. Just trailers or shorts as a way to get attention. 99.9999999% of what is on YT is worth exactly what it costs to watch, nothing. Wasted storage space and bandwidth.

Personally I would like to see something like Redray revitalize what used to be the 16mm film circuits in the 60's and 70's. This was a vibrant rental distribution market for indies: colleges, museums, coffee house and art cinemas. It potentially provides a high quality low cost, secure and not easily transcodable distribution format for small venues and a completely different market for indies.

Piracy has been an unavoidable part of the film markets since VHS tapes became commonplace. Regardless of what is done with the delivery media or the law, it isn't going away and there are no easy answers. It hasn't stopped filmmakers and their investors from making money if their product is compelling enough to attract decent distribution and significant audience in proportion to its costs.

However once a production is released in the public space in any form, if there is any serious interest at all it will be pirated (or shared) at some point.
The question is how do we strike a reasonable balance where you can protect your product from the most damaging kinds of rip offs yet not alienate or isolate yourself from your potential paying audience at the same time?

 

[David Rasberry]

Piracy has decimated the DVD rental market. Its' true, some people collect files and never watch them, but some people say, why bother buying it when I can get it for free. It is not reasonable to assume that this is not the case. I think viral marketing is an awesome tool, which DOES empower the little guy, but I don;t see how unauthorized piracy coudl ever help a producer. Where is the paycheck? Googel ads can add up to maybe $2000. Wow.

It is not just file sharing that has made brick and mortar DVD rental stores a dying business model. Legitimate Internet and mail distribution based companies like Netflix have eaten them alive too. The problem with the local DVD store is that no matter how big and how many titles you can keep in stock it is a very small fraction of what is available. The Netflix subscription model has a lot going for it, both as a hard copy DVD delivery and as a streaming online delivery system.

Optical media as a delivery system is going the way of vinyl records in a digital file driven universe, that is the simple reality. New TV's have network streaming built in and support USB and card based digital media directly. Home movie collections are migrating to media servers instead of gathering dust taking up valuable shelf space. File based electronic distribution is the model going forward for everything from the home theater to the multiplex.

 

[Rob Ruffo]

I think you should check out Radiohead and their last album release, that's the way things should move (not perfect but a start).

I don't think this solution will be solved by legislation or out coding the pirates. Pirates and peer to peer sharing will never be shut down or controlled and if they are it will come at a great cost to our freedom of information and the internet as we know it.

We need to figure out new models of business and making money from content, and as others said make it so easy that you would never think to download illegally.

No matter how much you rant and yell, no matter how many laws are passed, if we keep with the same distribution system your stuff will be stolen copied or whatever and there isn't much you can do about it other than change.

The fact is those who download do not spend the money on movies, and dvd's, not at the rate they download (most of the time because they do not have the money). Most of them will go and see that big blockbuster and then download it. Tv I'm paying for all the time (and a lot) some shows are online, but because I'm in Canada I can't view them (in their horrible online quality). Now I have shows that I'm addicted to (not proud of), and if I miss can be ruined by adds and the general population. So I want them to download immediately when my dvr is full, or makes a mistake and doesn't record, but I can't.

I'm sorry but Rob you need to wake up and take a look around you, they tried to take down napster, then limewire kazaa, audio galaxy and others poped up. Then they shut most of those down for hosting files so a new method was developed peer to peer bit torrent. And now it's websites that host files that link to other people who have and share them, take down one website, another pops up. Isp's try to fine and shut down providers, users get isp blockers. It's a never ending battle that only results in paying customers getting hurt and no one else. Content has been copied and redistributed since the first stories were told, you just have to figure out how to live with it, and work with it.

Honestly if you can show me exactly how piracy has ruined your life destroyed a project, hurt you and your family, or just plain hurt your content, I would love to know. For now all I can tell is you are a dinosaur who doesn't see how things work or how they are going to need to work in the future. I could be wrong but that does not make you right, like I said this is a difficult issue and most of the time it's best to not worry about it and just keep on working and if you are a good person good things will happen to you. And if you are a rude old coot then.......

ps. small fines aren't a bad idea, but you just run into the same issues with figuring a work around the isp's knowing what you are downloading, peer blockers and such.

I used to write quirky thrillers, and sell them, so did a lot people. Now selling is much harder. The suits do mention piracy, and the resultant loss of a DVD market for the odd and the quirky (only blockbusters are cashing in now)- so yes, I have lost income because of piracy. So have many of my friends, so have many people on this forum.

Lost incoem means lost jobs - and even if you work in say, commercials, if lots of crews have spare tiem because teh small features have gone away it means they will all be competing for your jobs too, which will only drive salaries down.

Radiohead would not be Radiohead if a label did not first create their brand and get them airplay and make them famous. What they did is take this promo investment, and then not give the label a return on it. My neighbor is an awesome musician in his spare time, and on his site he hald sold 200 album downloads over 1 year. You need promo or no one will watch or hear you.

At 35, I'm not an old coot yet, but being young (ish...) doesn't mean I have to regurgitate everything the cool kids are saying on the Internet (not that you are, I'm not referring to you here.) and take it as gospel. In my age group that makes me a non-conformist.

Napster did go out of business, basically - it is no longer an illegal site. Yes it was replaced - but as it becomes more and more difficult to keep a site going,. it will making creating these sites more and more unpleasant, and finding good ones harder and harder for consumers. You can't just say "let them profit from Piracy, it's fine." You can't because then you have stepped into the antiroom of anarchy.

Anti-piracy technology is also in its infancy. There are lots of well-funded firms out there. They do make inroads, and there are some success stories such as the Valve antipiracy mechanism for games. The ones that work no one talks about, because the cool kids only want to talk about the disasters and say that information should be free, and teh press has been quite sheep-like about this as well.

I can see why no one ever brings up the other point of view. They get called things like Dinosaur and so on. (Honestly, I shoot with Red, fully explored the potential of the 5D (gave up because the aliasing I find ugly, but I did try hard to get a nice image out of it) I live in donwtown Montreal - not exactly a conservative Red state - that doesn't indicate a dinosaur mentality) In the 1950s, people who fought to prevent Greenwich Village from being demolished for a freeway were called communists and anti-progress (which I suppose is the same as dinosaur, maybe worse.) That's why so few people fought the "progress" that was highways destroying entire neighborhoods of homes and businesses in so many other cities.

I really don't care what people think, but most people do.


Just because I don't agree that making a few thousand for a hit feature on Youtube is not a good business model does not make me a dinosaur. This is not really progress, any more than the highway was. Change and progress are not the same thing. Soem change is for the better, not all of it no matter what the creeps at Pirate Bay have to self-righteously say from their 1.9 million condo (look it up).

 

[Rob Ruffo]

It is not just file sharing that has made brick and mortar DVD rental stores a dying business model. Legitimate Internet and mail distribution based companies like Netflix have eaten them alive too. The problem with the local DVD store is that no matter how big and how many titles you can keep in stock it is a very small fraction of what is available. The Netflix subscription model has a lot going for it, both as a hard copy DVD delivery and as a streaming online delivery system.

Optical media as a delivery system is going the way of vinyl records in a digital file driven universe, that is the simple reality. New TV's have network streaming built in and support USB and card based digital media directly. Home movie collections are migrating to media servers instead of gathering dust taking up valuable shelf space. File based electronic distribution is the model going forward for everything from the home theater to the multiplex.

The problem with this is that then the collector no longer has a reason to collect. The collection is out there on the Internet. How many DVDs have we all bought thinking "I might watch that someday" - at any rate, I'd like the option to watch that anytime. Yes we were pissing money away, but helped teh industry bottom line, especially that of small, odd films.

At any rate, yes, teh video store is repleable by downloaded content, but thinsg must be reasonably protected from wanton theft for that to work.

I think staying hoem all the time is not healthy, and there is a big problem with an absent public realm in North America. The DVD store was one more meeting place for face to face contact. But I digress.

 

[Rob Ruffo]

I wouldn't post expensive productions there anyway. Just trailers or shorts as a way to get attention. 99.9999999% of what is on YT is worth exactly what it costs to watch, nothing. Wasted storage space and bandwidth.

Personally I would like to see something like Redray revitalize what used to be the 16mm film circuits in the 60's and 70's. This was a vibrant rental distribution market for indies: colleges, museums, coffee house and art cinemas. It potentially provides a high quality low cost, secure and not easily transcodable distribution format for small venues and a completely different market for indies.

Piracy has been an unavoidable part of the film markets since VHS tapes became commonplace. Regardless of what is done with the delivery media or the law, it isn't going away and there are no easy answers. It hasn't stopped filmmakers and their investors from making money if their product is compelling enough to attract decent distribution and significant audience in proportion to its costs.

However once a production is released in the public space in any form, if there is any serious interest at all it will be pirated (or shared) at some point.
The question is how do we strike a reasonable balance where you can protect your product from the most damaging kinds of rip offs yet not alienate or isolate yourself from your potential paying audience at the same time?

Well said, agreed - and awesoem idea for Redray. Only only point of disagreement: VHS piracy was nominal. you needed direct access to an original (or face-to face with a pirate seller who made himself vulnerable by physically showing up) and the quality of copies was terrible, unlike digital copies which are very good to 100% perfect.