Wanted: The Truck Driver Who Lost His Job Due To File Sharing
from the we're-waiting... dept
Capitol File Magazine has a bit of a puff piece on the MPAA's Chris Dodd one year into his job at the lobbying organization (a job he took just months after promising he'd never work as a lobbyist). The piece isn't really that enlightening, other than an admission from Dodd that he didn't know anything about the movie business before he took the job. He probably should admit that he still knows nothing about the internet either, which is a pretty bad place to be if part of your job is trying to guide the movie industry into the future. In fact, the writeup notes that Dodd's one skill is his ability to push legislation through -- and then doesn't mention how he completely flopped on that front with SOPA/PIPA.However, what the article does do is highlight Dodd's new talking points about how he's really protecting blue collar jobs, not Hollywood studio execs and movie stars:
“The first year has been a little chaotic,” says Dodd. “There’s been a steep learning curve. I bought into the notion that this was a redcarpet, Oscar-night kind of business. Over 2.2 million Americans are employed by the industry. Most of them are in blue-collar jobs, involving the people who drive the trucks and set up the lights. I didn’t know that when I started.”Yup. It's all about the truck drivers. Of course, the 2.2 million number is wrong. The Congressional Research Service says that number is less than 400,000. And, when we dug into the actual numbers, it shows that jobs in actual movie making are on the increase. The only real decrease seen in movie jobs has been in the number of people employed by theaters. But that's got nothing to do with piracy at all, since theater revenue has been going up and up and up (with a slight dip just last year). The job losses there have been about consolidation in theaters and the rise of giant multiplexes that employ very few humans.
It’s not just the names on the marquee, but the rank-and-file workers who are impacted by intellectual property infringements, says Dodd. “People think nothing of stealing from Charlie Sheen,” he explains, “but they might care if they realized they were stealing from someone who drives a truck.”
That said, since Dodd mentions that poor, poor truck driver twice, I'm curious of a couple things. Which truck drivers get a cut of movie royalties? I'd like to know. Second, can anyone find me the truck driver who lost his job because of file sharing? I'd like to find that guy.
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Filed Under: blue collar workers, chris dodd, movies, sopa
Companies: mpaa
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it's all about Hollywood accounting and how you use (or abuse) it
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Tele-Dodd?
Most people; being somewhat rational and empathic; cannot do well in telemarketing, but other sociopathic bastards absolutely excel at slyly manipulating people into doing things they know they'd be better off not doing...
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Which trucker?
Karl Trucker: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2115319/
He hasn't been able to write anything new since 1938 due to piracy (and VCR's, talkies, air conditioners in the home, TV, etc).
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For my other needs, such as cleaning up messy drives, I have an army of Smurfs and Gnomes, the Cinderella clean-up music plays everytime they do their job.
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Exactly
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I hear the OOOA Generator is also very popular with Tea Partyers.
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Nice try, Mr. Dodds.
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It's actually worse...
http://www.buffalonews.com/city/article31793.ece
"Investigators sent the laptop to the Western New York Regional Computer Forensic Lab for testing to see if the computer was running at the time of the crash.
State police say Wallace was streaming adult pornographic movies while operating his truck."
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Re: It's actually worse...
That is quite an opinion they formed from the autopsy. I hope that when I die and an autopsy is performed, they at least refer to my crotch as a good sized SUV.
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Dodd's Response...
Dodd: "When I said that piracy was stealing from the truck drivers I meant was the truck drivers actually OWN everything so they tell us what to do. So you can blame them for everything. It was their idea. (Jimmy Hoffa isn't dead. He's still calling all the shots.) Just like the military. We were just following orders."
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I mean, whatever faulty logic they use in their movies will definitely work in reality, right?
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Not necessarily a whole truck driver
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unless you count the people who can't get a good job because they had to drop out of school to pay for a settlement when the RIAA and MPAA sued them.
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Although the Entertainment industry does employ a sizeable number of lobbyists, which might be the data you're looking at.
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And I think Apple lies more than most, just not about that.
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Deal! Since those are the numbers that numbers that we've always used for the tech industry, we don't have to change a thing. The tech industry is far less deceptive, and far larger, than the movie industry.
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You do realize that every time someone talks about employment in the tech industry that this is exactly what they do.
Or do you seriously think that the tech industry needs to inflate its numbers the way Hollywood does?
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Chris Dodd =
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle
We have already covered liar..
Nigel
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I've not drove in a few years and I still get mail from many companies that I never even knew they had my info lol.. If they're in such short supply from "piracy" why are companies like jbh and others still growing.
Dodd is a fucking retard and his only interest is lining his pockets with green.
The only issue I've seen with trucking is logs and ridiculous fines for a job that demands much more. My avg day was 18-20 hours a good 30-45 days at a time. The worst thing for me was worrying about getting caught driving over my hours and not losing my job due to piracy rofl..
I mean seriously! psychological terrorism should be dealt with just as harsh as a suicide bomber getting busted. You can't just start making up moronic claims in the hopes you will scare people into doing your bidding.
In closing: I wish that dirt bag would have a heart attack so I can watch them make fun of his death on South Park.
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I'm going to hell for laughing at this.
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The rest of your description of the trucking business is pretty accurate. When you are dealing with so much high volume, low profit activity, there is great pressure for drivers to go faster, to work too long, to fake logs, take drugs, and stay awake way too long, putting the public at risk to try to make these cheap sale places bottom lines work out.
Something has to give - the public is unwilling to pay what products should cost, they are unwilling to pay the price for american workers to make the products, and the result is a massive trade deficit and really tired long haul truck drivers bringing containers of stuff to companies to drop ship to online store's customers.
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So why did he sigh up??!?!
so what he is saying is he got into the position he claimed he would not do because he wanted the opulence and high life but then found out it was about truck drivers?
And he want's me to get on his bandwagon because he suddenly realized there are real people working in that industry other then Movie stars and producers? Not to mention he lies about how they are losing jobs that they really are not losing.
Consider me in the "still unimpressed with Dodd" camp and the "this guy is part of the problem with our society" camp.
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Looking at this all wrong
Dodd: "No, no. You completely misunderstood me. I didn't mean semi-truck drivers, I meant guys who work for us that drive trucks to work. You know, like Chevys and Fords"
Turns to his assistant
Dodd: "We have someone like that, right? No? Well, go buy someone a truck, have them drive it to work so I can fire them."
Turns back to the reporter
Dodd: "See! Honest, blue-collar, truck-driving citizens are being impacted by PIRACY!!!!!!"
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Re: Looking at this all wrong
Larry the Cable guy type for temporary PR position. Must own a truck and have shirt with blue colar. No experience necessary.
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Everybody has an oven in their house it didn't mean the end of restaurants and the reason is simple, people don't like to produce things most just like to pay someone to do it for them, that is the same reason gardeners have a job, that is the same reason fashion people have a job.
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His name is Steve
Unfortunately, she did all of this on a company laptop that belonged to the trucking company Steve was working for at the time. They got an ISP letter about the pirated song, and Steve got fired. Fortunately, he now hauls race cars making almost 19 times as much PER MILE as his previous job and now has 2 computers of his own, including one for his daughter.
So yes, piracy has cost a truck driver his job. Is this what the MPAA intended? Obviously not. But eh, you weren't very specific Mike. What did I win?
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"People don't realise that when they steal from Hollywood they steal from us honest corn farmers. When Hollywood refused to pay me with their increased revenue saying that they were ravaged by piracy I ended up with a surplus of corn that no one could use because it would have been used to make popcorn for theaters. There were no possible alternatives: cornflakes, cornmeal, or people who wanted to pop their own corn; my life was well and truly fucked by piracy."
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Response to: Anonymous Coward on Mar 23rd, 2012 @ 8:00pm
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Truck drivers problems
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Let's say that your record label sends new discs each week to stores via UPS, which is actually a pretty common way to do things. If they send a certain number less boxes to a give area, maybe a route is changed or a driver loses their job. They wouldn't know that it is become of the music industry losing jobs, just that there aren't as many deliveries in the area.
Let's say that a DVD plant in the past turned out 500 boxes of DVDs a week. If sales drop and they only ship 250 boxes a week, maybe they only ship now once every two weeks, so one less pickup. That single pickup may not cost a driver specifically his job, but other things are at play. Less deliveries to the plant of paper, printing, Amaray boxes, etc. So now your delivery of DVDs not only causes one less shipment out, but maybe 2 or 3 less shipments in.
With enough less shipping in the area, perhaps the driver is re-assigned, perhaps a new driver isn't hired (because business is declining in the area), etc.
It's not as if UPS works solely for the DVD business, you know?
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And why is this caused by piracy, rather than iTunes?
Also, your examples don't hold up, because you're assuming that money that would have gone to CD's and DVD's is not going anywhere else. This is false assumption.
The Tower Records where I used to work is now a Best Buy. Do you think any less boxes are shipped because of it?
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Basic math, since the increases in online sales are nowhere near what has been lost elsewhere (remember, music sales are odd about 60% in a decade), I am assuming that Itunes isn't filling the gap, nor is the money "going elsewhere" that is useful to content production. If you don't buy a DVD and pirate it instead, and buy a case of beer... you haven't helped the movie industry, have you?
"The Tower Records where I used to work is now a Best Buy. Do you think any less boxes are shipped because of it?"
I think there are less boxes of CDs and DVDs shipped. Any other increase to this Best Buy in boxes for, say, TVs would likely be offset by a decline to other retailers in the area.
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Seriously, if someone decides not to spend $500 on CDs but buys a plasma TV, which one takes up more box space?
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I am assuming that Itunes isn't filling the gap
If you're pushing "hit singles," it's no surprise that consumers would rather pay a la carte for a single song, rather than pony up $18 for a full-length CD just to get a single track. It's why labels deliberately tried to kill singles.
But that's completely immaterial. Even if people spent billions of dollars more on iTunes than they ever did on CD's, that truck driver would still lose his job, under your theory, because you don't need truck drivers to distribute MP3's.
nor is the money "going elsewhere" that is useful to content production.
First, I never said it needed to be "going elsewhere" that is useful for content production. Just that it was "going elsewhere" that also hired truckers.
Second, you're wrong. That money is being spent elsewhere in the music industry. That's why the overall music industry has been growing, more than offsetting the losses of the recording industry. (And those portions of the music industry, unlike the recording industry nowadays, do need truck drivers - to haul equipment, ship merch, etc.)
I think there are less boxes of CDs and DVDs shipped.
Who cares if they're CD's or DVD's? As long as something is in a box that needs to be shipped, the truck driver will keep his job.
Any other increase to this Best Buy in boxes for, say, TVs would likely be offset by a decline to other retailers in the area.
That makes absolutely no sense at all. When Tower was around, the amount of cargo shipped to Best Buy was zero (since it wasn't even there). Now they're shipping more cargo to Best Buy than they did to Tower. How does that equate to a truck driver losing his job?
I know a common criticism is that "big box" retailers often take away business from smaller competitors, because the smaller retailers can be undersold on the price. That doesn't mean that fewer TV's would be shipped, just that they would be shipped to Best Buy instead of Jeff and Akbar's TV Hut. In fact, since the prices are cheaper, more buy TV's, resulting in more TV's being shipped to that area.
Incidentally, if you think Best Buy isn't good for the economy, then it's the record labels that shoulder part of the burden for that - since they deliberately stopped dealing with record stores, in order to focus on just such "big box" retailers as Best Buy.
And absolutely none of that has a single thing to do with piracy.
So, I'm afraid you haven't given even a theoretical reason why a single truck driver would lose his job to piracy. Much less shown that it's actually happening... which it isn't.
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Air Conditioners Jobs
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