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Comment from John_Austin
Time January 31, 2008 at 12:26 am

Can I clarify something – you say you are getting some of your movies from “meta-web-pipes”.

Are you saying that you are downloading copies of these movies from the internet? I know you are quite the cinephile so I must be misunderstanding your comment – I don’t think you would steal the movie content if a commerical revenue generating version was available….would you?

Comment from etrigan
Time January 31, 2008 at 12:44 am

Yes, I would. I have a lot of justifications that don’t mean anything to Johnny Law, but I wouldn’t be buying the Blu-Ray version of TAoJJbtCRF next week if I hadn’t seen the bootleg screener first.

Comment from John_Austin
Time January 31, 2008 at 1:30 am

While I did not always agree with your opinions and thoughts on movies (or life in general) I figured you were a stand up guy who supported the movie industry.

The idea that you ‘pull down’ the latest movies online so that you can sit with a certain smugness and review these movies in time for Oscar season is laughable. I’m sure everyone involved in making the movie (from the lowest 2nd unit runner to the director) are thrilled that your first impression of their work is some crappy download version.

You are not the cinephile I once thought you were.
There is and never can be any justification for theft. If you are a true movie fan you go see the movies you want to see on the big screen. If you simply do not have the time then you wait for the movie to come out on DVD and rent it / buy it accordingly.

The screeners are sent out to people who are in the industry – people who have earned the right and trust of the movie makers and their partners to receive screeners. Sadly some of them (with ethics like yours) think its cool to duplicate these screener copies online for other parasites to download.

I guess the “leetness” of being able to act smugly around the water cooler in the office and brag about having watched all the latest movies while sounding like an expert outweighs being a real movie lover.

Yes Yes, I know – you wouldnt have bought the X,Y,Z Blu-ray DVD advanced klingon boxed set with free bumper sticker but for the fact you stole a screener first. Great – the next time I’m at Virgin Megastore I’ll steal a DVD and if security catches me at the door I’ll tell them that had I not once shoplifted a copy of The Shining I never would have gone out and bought the Kubrick DVD collection. I can see them thanking me and sending me on my way (not)

You see, I love movies and I love the internet as much as the next man (or woman) but I also think its sad how the internet has enabled thieves to become brave and hide behind an ip address.

I somehow doubt that if you had to go to Best Buy and shoplift the screeners from an “industry only” section of the store that you would go through with it. The fear of public humiliation, losing your job at the office and immediate arrest would be too much for your heart to take.

I know its practically impossible to see all the movies in all the categories when we all have day jobs, bills to pay and lives to lead but who said you have to see them all in time for Oscar season! You can always wait until post Oscar announcement and play catch up for the rest of the year. Hell – I’m still catching up on some flicks from the 1950’s I never got around to watching.

Have fun out there – and take it slowly – enjoy these movies at a slow pace – there’s no rush to the finish line!

Over and out.

Comment from etrigan
Time January 31, 2008 at 2:34 pm

I’m trying to decide whether to treat this as flamebait — that you’ve already passed judgment and turned away — or if you are open to debate for your libel on my character. Arguing on the internet… but I’m an optimist and want to believe that you were offering your legitimate intelligent opinion.

The Argument – Part 1

I legally acquired 88 films on disc format last calendar year. I estimate 8 of them were “gimmes” in various gift bags and such. 10-12 of them were purchased from “discount” DVD websites like DVDPacific.com or DeepDiscount.com — new, not used. The rest (approximately 70) were all purchased at Best Buy, usually on the Tuesday they were released. I ordered PPV 2-3 times to review films that I wasn’t sure were worth full DVD price (for example, Man on Fire), recording the shows with my DVR. I rented 2 movies — both of which were “grey market” rentals from a local rental store that specializes in movies that haven’t seen a US release (like Day Watch…at that time). I estimate that I downloaded about 10 movies last year, usually because there was no distribution channel (the Death Note live action movies or Severance) or because I wasn’t sure I wanted to give $20 for a poor product ( Out of Time ). The films that were good enough and had an official release I purchased ( Death Note anime, Severance) and the ones that didn’t got deleted. I don’t keep movies that I don’t want to see again, but I buy anything I’ve seen that I thought was worth seeing as soon as it is legally available.

sidnote: I sometimes even buy a good movie more than once. I downloaded Luc Besson’s B13 when it first hit the internet, bought a Russian mail-order gray-market DVD, bought the first US release that was only the movie, and then the second US release which included some extras. Every chance I had to see it, I took.

As I have mentioned, I saw more than 70 movies in the theater. Approximately 45 of those were in a festival or special event. The rest were purchased one at a time, almost never at a matinée price, and I always go with at least my wife — two tickets. I try to go to the theater at least once a week, usually for a first-run movie.

That’s all to make the point that I support the film industry to an extreme. You can’t accuse me of not supporting them. Considering a Gallup poll from 2005 about 2004 the average American saw 4.7 movies a year, and only 4.4 in my age group. Rounding that up and just comparing to my attendance of normal first-run movies, I am 500% more supportive of the movie theater industry than the average person. I can’t find stats on movie disc sales, but I would guess I’m in the top 5 percentile of DVD purchasers.

The Argument – Part 2

As for arguments that I’ve taken money out of the pockets of someone…well, they don’t hold water. If I I had decided to play Scrabble instead of downloading and watching the movie, there would be no change in the money situation.

I agree that this activity fits in a bin of “bad” behavior, but I think the judicial powers still haven’t fully understood and adjusted the laws to fit the event (and I would include your condemnation of me in that context.) I love Emmanuel Goldstein’s deposition for “MPAA v. 2600” in regards to the software that “cracked” the copying process of DVDs:

[starting on page 192]
11 Q. Is it your belief that copying a file
12 isn’t the same thing as taking it?
13 MR. GARBUS: Object.
14 A. While not legal, it is different from
15 stealing, because when you steal something it is no
16 longer in the place you took it from. So yes, I do
17 believe there is a difference.
18 Q. Are there other differences?
19 A. That’s the only difference I can think
20 of.
21 Q. Tell me the difference between stealing
22 a book by taking it or stealing a book by running a
23 full copy of it off and taking the copy.
… [page 193]
14 A. I believe if you are copying something
15 and the original is still there, it’s not as —
16 it’s not the same thing as taking the original so
17 that nobody else can access it. I am not saying it
18 is right. It is very definitely wrong., but it’s
19 not the same thing. It is apples and oranges.

I speed. Every time I drive. I drive from my house in Central Austin to my employer in Round Rock and I am almost always at least 5 mph over the speed limit. Sometimes as much as 10 mph. I do this knowing that it is illegal and when, in the past, I have been pulled over by a police officer and given a ticket, I take it and pay it recognizing that the penalty I am paying is the price for breaking the law. Breaking copyright (at the level I do: one movie at-a-time, not for profit) should fit into the same relative criminality.

The Argument – Part 3

Based on the information I’ve provided so far it should be clear that, given an acceptable means to pay for a movie, I will. When VHS tapes cost $100 a piece, very few were sold and little money was made by the creators of the content upstream of the purchase. When VHS tapes dropped below $20, they sold in droves and the entertainment industry benefited end-to-end. When internet access and audio compression converged to create a viable means of passing music without physical media, piracy went through the roof and CD sales plummeted. When Apple offered a way to purchase compressed audio for a very reasonable price, they quickly sold a million songs and the music industry found a new revenue stream — a measurable portion of my paycheck has gone to this successful endeavor.

I recently read an article where a music industry executive brought in a “younger demo” focus group to discuss purchasing music. At the end of the session he offered them free CDs from a pile on a table. For the first time in his career no one took a CD on their way out. We live in an age where owning a physical manifestation of a work is a commitment. It means more than it did a decade ago. It is a promise to provide space for that object, and that object inherits the cachet of it’s owner. “Not only do I own you, I want to provide from the finite space in my world a place for you, and in so doing display to anyone who cohabits my space — however briefly — that I think you are special enough to warrant this space.” (There’s probably an appropriate About a Boy reference here…the book, not the movie.) My CD collection (also just over 600 count) defines me musically. I have sold every CD that I value less than the bits on my iPod, repurchasing the songs/albums through iTunes. My DVD collection defines me. I can defend the purchase of every DVD I own as part of my cinematic makeup (and will exposit ad nauseum any time I am prompted.)

At MacWorld 2008 Apple shows that they finally get it. In the near future I bet you will see movies go immediately from the theater to iTunes for rental. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is overlap between the iTunes release and the theatrical close. When that happens, we won’t be having this conversation, but today the industry still doesn’t get it. Seeing a movie in the formats they have prescribed is limiting. A 2 hour movie at the theater is actually at least a 3 hour commitment of my time. Buying/renting a movie disc requires that I have to physically go to where the discs are, spending time getting there and back — not to mention the possibility that what I am looking for will be out of stock…a common occurrence for my tastes in movies. PPV and On Demand is limited to only certain movies. When the industry embraces the technology of distribution and the cost efficiency of storage, they will reap iTunes-like rewards…and Apple will probably be the main distributor.

Conclusion

I’m not happy that I download movies. I would much rather see them in a darkened theater, or at least on my sizable HD TV with 7.1 surround sound system. I would, also, like to move from work to home in an instant. Despite the limited futility of driving an extra 5 mph for a 20 mile drive (saving me only 1:40 of drive time), I will continue to speed. Despite the industry’s limitations I will find a way to see the movies I want so badly to see, sometimes without giving them 50% more of my time then the intended length of the content because I need that hour. And as for catching them later? It would never happen. I will always have movies I want to see and will forget the ones I listed to see later…unless the strike drags out too long.

Comment from becky
Time February 1, 2008 at 8:58 am

I generally try to stay out of the fray on this type of thing, but as someone who benefits from the activity, I feel I should comment as well. To further clarify (my) John’s points above, I do think it’s fair to reiterate the fact that we generally only obtain internet copies of things we can’t find anywhere else. For example, when we saw a trailer for Ong Bak at a Drafthouse event, we first looked to buy or rent a copy and only downloaded after that. Once it was officially released, we saw it in the theaters AND bought the DVD. In this case and many others like it, everyone involved in the film from the director to the grip earned his fair share from our viewing at or near the earliest possible time (from a US release perspective). I’ll admit that this year’s Oscar movies are getting into more of a gray area. We caught Atonement in the theatre, and are planning on going to see a few more this weekend. We’re trying to catch the others before Oscar night NOT so that we can be smug about it (have you ever noticed, by the way, how completely smug someone sounds when they’re accusing someone else? – myself included, now) but because we do love film that much, and every year it literally pains us that there are movies we haven’t seen yet. Until recently, there was no option for people to see the film during the months between theatrical release and DVD release. There are apparently now some options (like Netflix). So, on a positive note, you have convinced us that we could be more diligent about trying to buy digital copies.

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Time February 19, 2008 at 10:31 am

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