One year they lobby government to strengthen enforcement. They say: piracy means they are not getting what the law says is their due. (it sounds almost reasonable!)
The next year they lobby government to expand copyright. That is: they are deciding for themselves what is their due.
Far from the general public interest, and, indeed, plainly very far from the free market.
I disagree with this, though. I think it should be legally required for everyone to pay for the movie, regardless of whether or not they see it. That way, nobody can steal his hard work!!
In Denmark we pay "license" to the state, to keep the public television and radio channels going. Mind you, this isn't part of the tax and it's completely optional whether you want to pay it or not.
Except, if you have a television, an internet connection, a cellphone, a radio or any device capable of receiving a television signal via an antenna or internet connection - you have to pay. After all, you have the ability to watch/hear the content. Whether you do or not, that doesn't matter. If we paid this through our taxes, it wouldn't be an issue (compared to what else we pay for). This being a pseudo-tax masked as an optional thing, that's ridicilous though.
Oh and on top of that we pay an extra tax (which goes to the artists) on casette tapes, CD-R's, DVD-R's, VHS tapes, etc. After all, we might record songs & movies on those mediums. And before you ask, no, despite us paying that tax, it's still not legal for us to do so.
Isn't that to compensate artists for the right to copy something for private use. At least that's how I believe it works in Sweden. Unfortunately we also have laws that forbids us to circumvent any form of DRM or copy protection and since nothing is sold without DRM today we are paying for something we can't legally do. And this is something that even extends to external harddrives, MP3-players and I believe smartphones as well (not sure on that though).
They don't, actually. They just know that if they play the victim, they can shift the eventual compromise further in their favor than if they took a rational position.
Suppose a given policy discussion is a numeric 1-10 scale, and you and I are at 4 and 7 respectively, compromise (as it is seen by voters who expect compromise to be a mid-way point) is 5 or 6. But if I pretend to stake my position as a 10, compromise is suddenly a 7 -- exactly what I wanted in the first place. So long as no-one (e.g. the press) is calling me out for staking out an absurd position, there's no reason not to run this tactic.
In office for 36 years, the first thing he does when he goes private is to lobby for a law nobody wants on behalf of his new employer. What happened to Obama's promise to stop this?
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/pr...
A Google of Adam Lipsius returned his IMDB page, his Facebook page, a few videos about 16-LOVE, and no Wikipedia article. I followed his IMDB page and discovered he has participated on the producer + director level of several films. He is said to be 'known for' The People vs. Larry Flynt and Men in Black, but was involved only in the sound of those films.
16-LOVE produces similar results: virtually nothing on Wikipedia or IMDB. Its IMDB article says it is similar to films such as "Zookeeper", and is rated at around 5 stars. Completely distinct from the IMDB results, RT claims it is 100% fresh with 39 reviews. It was directed by and produced by Mr. Lipsius.
Conspicuously absent in my searches were any torrent offerings.
---
Here's what I think:
I think 16-LOVE was not a popular film, and just plain didn't do well. I don't think piracy had anything to do with it.
My opinion is that generally you will find the noisiest, most entitled, belligerent users amongst the ranks of the free. They didn't pay for it, and so there is literally no skin in the game to persuade them to like it.
I contend that if, indeed, hundreds of thousands of people had illegally downloaded this film, there would be much, much more evidence of its existence available through Google - the same exact route I would have found torrents, by the way.
I think it was just an unknown film, with no publicity, and maybe - hell, probably - it would have done far better if it had been offered through a more direct, easily-accessible avenue.
example: http://usenetdownloads.net/usenet.nl/v4/files.php?q=SGFja2Vy...
I'm still waiting for the VCR to destroy movies, as his predecessor, Jack Valenti, predicted: "I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone."
How many women did the Boston strangler actually get? (I'll save you a trip to Wikipedia: 13, over 3 years.) What percentage of "women home alone" is that - even women home alone in the Boston area? Now compare the level of raw paranoia that the strangler generated - surely, paranoia well in excess of any real risk. Perhaps this is a more apt analogy than Valenti realized.
And no one ever seriously promoted a massive reorganization of society, establishment of a surveillance state, or revocation of basic liberties in communication over the matter of the Boston strangler.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/01/19/exclusive-hollywo...
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/investigate...
Clueless
I read this as "if we sell movies this way I'll have to work for a living."
He has zero interest in promoting anything other than theatrical distribution.
At the end they talk about digital-to-the-theater distribution and indie filmmakers hooking up with indie theaters.
A marketplace portal that facilitated that connection on a global basis could do well for itself.
A lot of schlepping, but a very viable market.
Theaters should be turnkey. Find the space, set up the Movie Market Place (MMP) hardware, make an account on MMP.com, license movies from the MMP.
Should be no different from app markets.
You can't complain about misinformation on the other side and then trot out something like that.
It's as if his head isn't attached to his mouth, which I think goes for a lot of current politicians. Bringing them all down a staff of notches is entirely in order, lest they forget they represent the "people".
Shelved surely means they'll pick it up later and push it through discreetly?
Chances are greater that they would hide this in another significant bill so it can get passed.
