Bootleg Star Wars AotC Debuts on Internet 575
Arctic Fox writes "Matt Drudge is reporting that bootleg copies of the new Star Wars movie have been appearing on the internet one week before the movie's big screeen debut. The article says that they have used a tripod mounted camera at a pre-screening to tape it. Not known is if anyone is seen walking in front of the camera."
I gotta admit, I find this amusing, although I'd never bother downloading it:
I've had 12:01 tickets ready to go and there is no way I'm gonna spoil it watching
a low quality divx.
For those who haven't caught on... (Score:3, Insightful)
--
Damn the Emperor!
I downloaded LOTR, what a mistake (Score:5, Insightful)
Thats what I think, anyway.
Re:For those who haven't caught on... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:For those who haven't caught on... (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh yeah, these 'perfect' copies remind me of trying to watch softporn through static on TMC.
"Standard" piracy isn't any better, or more widespread, than it was in the 80's.
Sure there's high quality stuff out there, but there's high quality drugs out there too.. Which do you think you'll get a hold of?
I think of it like Fort Knox:
Where do you find pirated movies? The Internet.
Where do you find Gold bars? Fort Knox.
Where CAN you get pirated movies. The internet, sort of, if you know the FTP site, or manage to have a complete news server, then MAYBE..
Where CAN you get gold? Fort Knox, if you have a small army with you..
MPAA and RIAA don't want money (Score:2, Insightful)
A large percentage of the piracy situation involves just this exact sort of situation: the material is out there, and the company won't sell it, so piracy flourishes. This has nothing to do with denying profits to creators, since they have decided that they don't want the profits by not selling it.
Re:For those who haven't caught on... (Score:2, Insightful)
When you shoot everyone with the same hair colour as the bad guy, you shouldn't be surprised that people start to hate you.
Re:Not worth downloading... (Score:5, Insightful)
Those with the low-qual divx may see it frist, but nothing beats the "big screen" :)
Re:Crazy KaZaa'ers / 12:01 tickets (Score:2, Insightful)
this movie is going to suck anyway and you know it. why not spend your money on some QUALITY movies instead that deserve your money, not this hollywood crapovera.
No Harm, No Foul (Score:5, Insightful)
These are obsessed people, my friends. Nobody is doing this to avoid paying $8 at the box office. The people who download this will probably be first in line, dressed up as their favorite StarWars character. And they'll probably see it 6 times, even if it sucks.
Noone is loosing money here.
Re:For those who haven't caught on... (Score:1, Insightful)
I wouldn't be surprised if it was an "inside" job. Like, one of the theater employees sets up a discrete camera and records it so he can impress his friends.
Prove it ... Where is it ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Has anyone?
In looking around I have seen files with the name, but they are always bogus. Big time bogus. Different movie, not large enough, etc.
Has anyone for a single second considered that this could be a disinformation campaign created by the MPAA?
Re:I downloaded LOTR, what a mistake (Score:2, Insightful)
> interacting with other objects
Not just sherk by the looks of it, LOL!
Sam
Re:Crazy KaZaa'ers / 12:01 tickets (Score:2, Insightful)
I have friends with lots of movies obtained this way. If one of them downloads a new movie, it will be shared among all the others.
The thing that strikes me odd in the previous post is the people that rename movies to fool others into downloading them. It's not like a few years ago in BBS were we had the upload/download ratio, and sometimes we just pumped something in with a goodlooking file name to be able to download something. These are p2p networks. They will get nothing more from the network, and will probably pay for the bandwith to upload the movie.
Re:For those who haven't caught on... (Score:2, Insightful)
And you think this is really going to cut into Lucas' bottom line, how? If anything, this should stand as a perfect example of why such things don't matter because I'm sure Star Wars is going to make beaucoup bucks this weekend despite the availability of bootlegs.
What is the point? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Coding Films? (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe they haven't done it, because it would just discourage people from doing it in the future. This type of low-quality piracy probably causes less loss of ticket revenue than it makes up for in free marketing and hype.
Re:No Harm, No Foul (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm. Sounds reasonable, until you consider the guy sitting right behind me. He's currently downloading four films to his home machine over his cable modem (using VNC to drive it from work) and has just started looking for AOTC (based on me telling him that it's out there). He basically downloads everything, just because it's free, and it's there. He's getting megabits per second that he's not paying for, he's got a 120GB hard drive, and CD's are dirt cheap. Downloading a film involves half a dozen keypresses, two mouse clicks, and bingo, it's waiting for him when he gets home.
Would he have spent money at theatres to see all of those films? Probably not, but he's damn sure not going to now. The main point is that he's not a hard core Star Wars fan (he's too young), so it's not just the obsessives who are doing this. Remember, original Star Wars fans are all 30+ now, there's a whole new generation coming up who are seeing films not so much as something you go and watch as something you download to see if it sucks.
I can quite honestly see why the movie industry is worried. However, I think that the solution is to make fewer and better quality films, and (personal gripe) to show them in theatres with a strict "Shut the hell up and don't bring your damn chattering hyperactive kids, you morons" policy, rather than doing what they're doing, which is dumbing down, going for quantity over quality, and shrieking for legislation to protect their profits.
Re:will have no effect on box office (Score:5, Insightful)
By the same token, I dl'd matrix and saw it afterwards in the theater 4 times. Same with LOTR (I only saw it at the theater twice though).
The point being that P2P services are hollywoods worst nightmare- because if everyone has easy access to free movies, they will only pay to see good ones at the theater. Lucas doesn't want to be forced to make a good movie, but he wants to make $200M anyway--so he will fight KaZaA etc. with everything he has.
Re:MPAA and RIAA don't want money (Score:3, Insightful)
They did not decide they "don't want the profits." It's their property. They spent $140 million creating it. They aren't under any compulsion to sell it, profits or no.
How about I come over to your house, make copies of your home movies of you getting banged by your boyfriend, and then sell them on the 'net. You COULD have made a profit from them, but choose not to. And you still have the originals, so I'm not really "stealing," am I?
Nobody here but us rational economic actors.
Just a symbol of what they're terrified of... (Score:1, Insightful)
Believe it or not, in the not too distant future, we will have broadband capable of transmitting DVD qualtiy video quite capably. When movies and television broadcasts are released completely in digital format, the thieves will have a field day. This is what the media people want you to believe.
Just what AA wanted (Score:2, Insightful)
Will this affect ticket sales? No.
Will this cost Lucas anything? No.
Will this in any way directly damage anyone? No.
Will the RIAA/MPAA use this as a scare tactic to ramrod any legislation they happen to want? You bet your bum.
Right or wrong, harmful or not, giving your enemy ammunition is a pretty stupid idea.
gm
Re:For those who haven't caught on... (Score:3, Insightful)
Double standard much?
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Damn the Emperor!
Fan boy alert - much sadness here... (Score:4, Insightful)
Hilarious! You believe that, and you call me an idiot! Rich!
Lucas makes it up as he goes along! He "inserts" things to appease his daughters and his bank balance, that's why every film after the first has been aimed at a younger and younger audience, and that's why his re-released versions took out the parts that made Han seem like a guy who sometimes did bad things.
After the nice lady at your Anger Management Therapy slips you the pink pills, get her to read my comment to you.
I said nothing that was an "attempt to legitimize crap presentation" I merely told how I enjoyed watching my crappy looking VCD copy, and explained how it, in TPM's case, looked appropriate, in my opinion.
If you find that "offensive", too bad. It's only a film, not a religion.
And try to chill out a bit, eh?
Idiots... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not worth downloading... (Score:3, Insightful)
based on what Lucas turned out for Episode I, I'm not holding my breath for this one.
What about what he "turned out" for Episodes IV, V, and VI? Or the Indiana Jones franchise? Or Willow? So with you, it's "make one movie that I don't like and you're permanently blacklisted?" Doesn't that seem kind of silly?
Lucas has an excellent track record. I still hold high hopes for the rest of the prequel trilogy.
Re:Not worth downloading... (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately Lucas does not have a good track record as a director, nor as a writer. Said simply, he is rather poor in those roles, though he is a great producer. Of the movies you mention, the only one he directed or wrote (the scenario, not story) was Episode IV, which holds a special place in my hard but is definetely not a cinematographic achievement. It did create a new genre, and there's no doubt in my mind that Lucas is (was) a visionary. But from an artistic point of view, the second one (Empire) is by far superior.
Why Lucas insists on writing and directing the new Star Wars is beyond me. By refusing to accept his shortcomings and play on his strenghts instead, he's wearing himself thin and turning out inferior films. Too bad...at least the geek AND film buff in me are totally satisfied by LOTR (now, that's some director!). I'll still go see AOTC, but I'm not expecting much. Hopefully I'll be proven wrong.
Re:Prove it ... Where is it ... (Score:3, Insightful)
You have to guess that this is going to open on at least 3000 screens domestically. If it's opening in a week, it's not hard to assume that their distribution channels might have some of those prints in place already.
Re:will have no effect on box office (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's a post [slashdot.org] from someone who admits he won't see AOTC in the theaters, now having seen it on the internet. Obviously, it will have an effect on ticket sales. (How much is debateable, but it's clearly a non-zero amount.)
Re:I downloaded LOTR, what a mistake (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Big Screen (Score:2, Insightful)
Hardly. My 27" does quite fine thank you very much. Is it perfect or just like a theater? Of course not. But unless you build a theater to scale in your house, nothing will be like a theater. Even the 61" screens are still smaller than a movie theater.
My so-called too-small TV works as well as it does because of the room it is in. That's an important factor here, room size. Or, more precisely, how far away from the TV you are sitting. If you can't get very far away then a 40" is, in my experience, worse than something smaller.
It's all about perspective and environment. Screen size is a factor, but it's not the only factor.
-r
Re:For those who haven't caught on... (Score:3, Insightful)
If, in order to prevent piracy, they also prevent (or greately encumber in a pure artificial manner) perfectly lawful uses, that's wrong. It's called "throwing away the baby with the dirty water".
It's just simple as that.
Re:No Harm, No Foul (Score:2, Insightful)