MPAA And Its Priorities: Asks US Gov't To Stop Soldiers From Buying Bootleg DVDs
from the maybe-if-you-made-the-movies-available... dept
Apparently, it's difficult for US soldiers in places like Iraq to get access to Hollywood movies legitimately, so it should come as little surprise that they might pick up bootleg DVDs to keep up with what they're missing back at home. Rather than actually supplying content for the military, it appears the MPAA decided to send a letter asking for details about how US Central Command is stomping out this practice, and asking if it will ban soldiers from going into stores that sell bootleg DVDs. Thankfully, USCC said "no," noting that it didn't want to harm Iraqi entrepreneurs and had no jurisdiction over shops selling bootlegs... while also suggesting that "the provision of popular entertainment like first-run movies, concerts and other events will help to curtail the demand for pirated media." In other words, stop worrying about piracy and maybe send over some movies for us to watch already.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: hollywood, mpaa, soldiers, us military
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The rule was, and again, this was six years ago, a soldier was allowed to have up to two bootleg copies of any individual title. Anything more than that would be confiscated as something similar to "intent to distribute."
Made us all wonder what kind of world we were coming back to, especially since there was this crazy rumor that Arnold Schwarzenegger had been elected Governor while we were gone.
I figured everything would have shifted to digital copies, party drives and downloads, by now.
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Re:
If you see someone arguing in favor of these groups' bad (economically inefficient) business practices, it is usually because of some glaring logical fallacy on their part. If you point this out, the will recede into their shells and just spout trollisms for the rest of the thread.
In fact, I'm surprised TAM didn't have the first post on this page like he does on every other page at TD.
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Hypocrisy squared
"Ironically, The Hurt Locker centers around a friendship between a heroic soldier and a young Iraqi boy who sells pirated DVDs at a U.S. base. "
Note that The Hurt Locker is one of the films being used in the Us Copyright group scam
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100517/0126489439.shtml
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"But that's the problem you see. You're not selling them anything. Therefore, they have no choice but to pirate".
"There's not enough profit in it for us to ship the movies".
"That still doesn't make sense. And what about what happened with anime in the 80's?"
"What are you talking about? You know my historical recollection only goes back the last five years".
"Back in the 80's, there was a huge demand for japanese anime. However, you guys weren't selling it. So they got bootlegged VHS tapes. Eventually you guys caught on, saw the demand, and started selling the anime yourselves. Do the same thing here. Our soldiers want movies, and are willing to buy them from a genuine source".
"No, we wouldn't make enough money. Better that your soldiers live in a desert, with no access to their homeland's culture, so eventually they end up forgetting what it is they're fighting for. So what if morale goes down, that's for you to sort out".
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sent from my undisclosed location
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The comments and comparisons
Nor am I going to compare them to "This Thing Of Ours" though there are similarities.
What I can tell you is that when I was in the military the entertainment products we got were years old. So I can't blame the troops for going out and finding more up to date stuff. Hell when I was on ship I received from home VHS tapes of Star Trek The Next Generation. Some times the mail guys would let people know when one of these care packages arrived.
So go to the MPAA web site and see who the members are and then send a letter to each of them. Let them know that they need to find more productive areas of infringement enforcement and to leave the troops alone.
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Why should they, its not like the troops do anything for the MPAA ... oh wait.
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Then again, perhaps the MPAA needs a dose of reality in addition to the one US Central Command gave them.
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What a missed opportunity
It would not have counteracted all the silly shit they've done but it would have helped a lot.
But of course they would fuck it up by trying to arrage some sort of contract that would result in the US government paying well over the unit price of each DVD.
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Really?
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Re: Really?
You might want to update your information on the MPAA.
A. Robert Pisano is now the (interim) Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America.
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Instead of insulting us, why not try to converse with us?
You know, talk to your customers.
Piracy doesn't need to be an issue, if the industry folks were just willing to think about it or talk to their customers about it.
Then they'd learn that:
1) locking everything up behind perpetual copyright won't solve anything, but rather, it would annoy fans.
2) the cd are overpriced for many people, and that by lowering the prices they might actually compete with free.
3) piracy isn't the industry's biggest threat, it's their own actions against piracy that's causing their industry the most harm, as they are alienating a lot of people who could've been their biggest fans. Causing schoolkids to go bankrupt may make some (weird) sense in the extremely short term, but in the long term that doesn't make any business sense. Those who are bankrupt have no money to spend on media, and their friends are much less likely to support an artist whose label caused their friends to go bankrupt.
4) suing fans actually causes the opposite from what they were trying to achieve.
5) that customers get annoyed when they are being accused of being thieves when they legally bought a dvd. (the totally bogus and very misleading "You wouldn't steal a car" promo) which aren't on the pirated copies.
6) if they were to focus on adding value for customers instead of trying to gain/keep control, they'd actually be able to keep more money.
7) DRM schemes don't work, and only cost money. Money that they'd then be able to use for more useful projects such as promotion.
8) video clips act as a promotional tool, and are not a given cash cow.
9) people only have so much money to spend on media, and in a recession period, they tend to spend less on media and more on stuff like food. You know, the really useful stuff.
But listening isn't the best quality of the record and motion picture industry.
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Still waiting.....
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Re: Still waiting.....
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from apocalypse now:
We train young men to drop fire on people, but their commanders won't allow them to write "fuck" on their airplanes because it's obscene!
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Re: Re: (chris)
I am sorry to inform you sir, you have used this line from a copyrighted work.
We insist you take this down ASAP or pay us $2,000 for every person on the world wide
interwebs that could have read this or saw it in a series of tubes somewhere.
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Free enterprise wins again
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A classic case!
Did you ever consider that the US military in the field has other things to worry about?
Just food for thought.
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How long...
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Pirate for life
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Whenever a company has a viable business model and IP to back it up, the only response is to force the company into submission by any means possible.
Look at Toyota as an example. It's quite possible that they had a superior "green energy" platform and system in place. Then Government Motors (GM), Chrysler, and Ford needed more time, even though they got $24B, so they told DoT to go thru their problems with a fine tooth comb.
It's interesting when we see alternative industries look to simplistic government enforcement solutions like that the MPAA and RIAA uses instead of licensing technology.
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Appropriate Response
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My experience in Iraq
The small post exchange that was on the main base in Iraq (Camp Victory / Baghdad) would run out of movies within a day of shipment coming in, what would be left would be the "60's classics!" bundles and "Friends Season 47" for $120.
The shops sold DVD's that usually contained 2 movies on 1 DVD for a dollar, and then customs didn't care as long as you didn't bring more than 2 copies of the same DVD back into the country, which is who the MPAA will be hitting up next to enforce their ideals. Look for a story about customs being tasked (Hrm: ACTA perhaps?)
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Easy way...
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You fucksticks can go to hell. I was a revenue-generating customer who believed sincerely in paying for movies. No more. Fuck all of you.
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Greed
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When I was deployed in the late 80s
Thanks Hollywood, for not helping our troops.
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I have an idea...
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USCC - MPAA
On less serious note,
USCC is well aware that MPAA is a bunch of p*$$y Clowns.
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if you read the entire document what it actually says is more along the lines of no, we arent going to do anything MORE than we are already doing and no, we are not going to disallow troops to visit local stores simply because they may be selling bootlegs (for the previously specified reasons).
bootlegs are confiscated upon return from overseas and packages are already inspected for contraband (which bootlegs are) and said contraband is confiscated when found).
oh, and the memo points out that any disciplinary action taken against servicemen for possessing bootleg copies of something is up to their commanding officer.
-so basically no one is going to get busted for this type of stuff anyway.
The military is not saying they endorse bootlegs, what they are saying is that they already have something in place to deal with it so the MPAA can go suckit.
a slight but important difference.
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Actually
So why are they being accused of buying bootleg anything? My friend in the marines said it best "The US Armed Forces is the biggest pirate I have ever seen".
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Actually, I think the situation in the armed forces is a great case to illustrate the idiocy of the "lost sale" theory.
Unless the military has changed the pay-scale a great deal since the 1980's, my experience leads me to believe that the immense store, and use of "pirated" media your friend describes has caused zero lost sales.
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Military Contract & Taxation
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1. Minimizing loss of human life
2. Keeping troops safe & happy in crappy circumstances
3. Winning a war
4. DVD piracy
Um, one of these things is not like the others.
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To Clarify
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fact checking
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Navy Customs
One thing about the Iraqi shop we had in Basrah, called Dell Boy's, they had new shipments come in every week. They very regularly had movies that hadn't even been released in theaters in the US. Man I miss those guys...
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MPAA greed
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HR buying pirated movies from me at work
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