Re: Steve Mann, 3/15/2007 2:42:05 AM

Okay, but really, how much of a problem is this in the US? How many of the DVDs you see in Blockbuster do you think are pirates? It is Hollywood's sob story that they are being ripped off left and right, and they have to have more and more protection; their own Patriot Act I guess. The US doesn’t tolerate pirate DVDs. This is the country that passed the DMCA for God's sake--Hollywood's wish list. There is no way that any significant amount of the DVDs being sold or rented in the US are pirates.

REVISITED: Spot/DSE 3/14/2007 8:16:44 PM

In this post Spot/DSE has links to news stories regarding piracy in Canada.
In link three it says: “According to [Ellis Jacob, chief executive of the Cineplex Entertainment theatre chain], one man caught with a camcorder in a theatre was jailed eight years and fined $250,000.
‘We need some tougher laws to deal with this situation,’ Jacob said.”
This refers to people copying movies with a video camera in a theatre! This is going to result in crappo that maybe even Mexicans wouldn't watch! They need tougher laws when the guy got 8 years in jail?? Idiocy like this happens in the US not in Canada. I just don’t believe it.

Well not until you read link 4: This relates how Canadians are perfectly willing to pay up to a $75 dollar tax on an iPod to in order to “compensate artists and labels for the losses they suffer when people ‘illegally’ copy or transfer music.”

It makes me want to burn my passport.

>>>>Well, I don’t know anything about Vietnam, but I don’t see how they can have better quality pirate stuff than Mexico.<<<<

dsf, that response suggests that you're not rational about this issue. Vietnam is a market for Chinese pressings and those are quality products. It's difficult to understand how you equate A with B, when you say you know nothing about A. I presume you refuse to believe that there are well organised people replicating copyright work, and instead all pirates are poor peasants working in dusty back lanes burning DVDs on crappy computers. That is a political belief, not one based on knowledge.

Not sure why people think piracy has borders? It happens all over the world... some places more than others, which of course relates directly to the condition of the local economy.... but none the less... it has no borders.

Tote, the song that started this whole rigamarole is "Gold Lion" by Yeah Yea Yeahs. Still no word from Uni (big surprise). If you're interested, I can give you the link to the official version of the vid with the RF music as soon as I get clearance to do so (the previous unofficial version feat. said song has, of course, been deleted).

It seems to me that the artist obviously makes money on live performance and on nicely-packaged containers of his art (CDs), but it's less obvious to me that he should get money every time the song is performed or heard, especially as time passes and his work, too, gets woven into the popular culture. Perhaps it should be enough to know that he has added a nice sparkly and leave it at that.

Truly spoken like someone who's never earned a living as an artist or had to recoup an investment on an artistic project. I don't know if you're in the US, but here we're opposed to Communist thinking, which is what you're doing, whether you realize it or not. The concept of "you've made enough money and that's all you're going to be allowed to make" is Communist. I sure don't want the government (i.e. Copyright law) telling me that I'm not allowed to make more than a certain amount of money. How much is enough? Who gets to set that amount?

We bought some tickets for the Rascal Flatts concert recently as a birthday gift to our 16-year-old daughter. They played here in Portland to a packed arena (20,000) and the tickets were $90-$300 each. Two days later, different packed arena, then on to the next, etc. I have no idea how much these guys make selling CDs, but I'd wager it's NOTHING compared to the live concert net. So they make their money performing, the same way people made their musical living back in the days of Shakespeare.

The ticket prices are so high BECAUSE they don't make much from CD's. And it sucks that it's come to that. I'd rather that piracy hadn't killed CD's and that concert prices didn't have to make up for it.

Also, it's all well and good to say that if you want to make money as a musician it has to be through live performances, but that's incredibly unfair. What about someone who just can't go on a big tour for health or family reasons? And saying "well, then you shouldn't have gotten into music" is not an acceptable answer. This cavalier attitude of excusing and forgiving people who've broken the law (pirates) and telling hard-working artists "too bad for you, you have to change your whole life" is astonishing to me. Yes, I know it's not a perfect world, but it gets less and less perfect the more people excuse it.

Fred

CClub wrote: "This is being done by a large agency, and I work alongside this agency and will know when the production is completed. I'd love to be able to "whistleblow" on both the videographer and the agency that blew me off for this loser. Anything I can do about it... anyone I can call, email, etc. to tell them where to look for this illegal video work? "

I haven't read through the whole thread, so forgive me if this has been answered before, but ASCAP would be the people to call about music rights infringements. They are tenacious about these kinds of things... it's even hard to get "Festival Rights" (for films that will probably never get distribution) from.

If I can add: I have a little bit of experience working in and around a Major Studios clearance departments. The unofficial policy for clips, dialogue, music, etc. on projects that are internal, or not going to be seen by a large, paying, audience is "don't ask." Student films, low-budget indy features without stars, in-house industrials, etc. or anything that isn't direct advertising to the public -- you're pretty safe. If/When a studio finds about usage, they generally issue a cease & decist order (which I can't seem to spell).

If you go ahead and ask a Studio for clearance -- then you're screwed. 9-times-out-of-10 they'll either say no, or charge you more money than it's worth.

A few years back a distant cousin of mine was making is Student short film about a guy that gets a song stuck in his head. We talked about rights and clearances, and I suggested he talk directly to the artists who wrote the song. Sure enough, when he was working on it, ASCAP asked for a ton of money just for Festival Rights, the record producer said flat out, "no." He finally got to talk to the artist who wrote and preformed the song... said, "hey, I'm a student. I love your work, that's why I chose it, and this is just a short film for festivals and for me to try to get more work."

He got Festival Rights for free.

Ok - wow - so reading the entire thread i see a few things left out of all of this.

For the "old timers" on the board much of this is stuff I have said in other threads on the same topics but most people don't do searches before they post on these issues (Which is part of the reason i think many of us have suggested certian "hot" topics be pinned) so at times there will be redundancy on my part. So here goes -

"Hollywood" is a concept, it is more of a "system" than reality. It does exist but only as it relates to "majors". The total number of feature films that are made each year far outweighs those that "Hollywood" turns out. So on the one hand when an indy calls the MPAA and says "Hey our film is being bootlegged" you get a response of "We don't really go after indy bootleggers" so they are left to their own devices. On the other hand you get many stories about how "Hollywood" has lost so much money. By the "law" one rule is in effect but much of these threads have to do with one side saying "But what about the small guy?" and the other going "The law is the law" and ignoring the other 99% of the film making world who are not part of "Hollywood" . (Sort of like the Oil companies saying they have to charge a high price for their product or else they will loose money but turning in billions of dollars of profit.)

So a producer friend of mine goes over to visit another friend who is a film maker and who lives in Thailand. He takes my friend into all these video stores and every one of them is stocked with bootlegged DVDs, not hidden behind the counter or being sold on the corner, but stocked on the shelves, in plain sight. My friend asks the obvious question "How does this happen? Why don't the authorities crack down on this?" and the response makes sense - but never talked about in these debates - "Look, there is so much real crime - drugs, murder, child porn, etc - that a bootlegged DVD is not a real high priority". Places like Thailand have *always* seen a high bootleg market but yet films are still being made.

Canada and the US have always had an import/export deal but that seems to be overlooked as well. And some of the distributors have little ways around this as well such as Lions Gate which has a "sister" company in Canada and thusly when they buy a film for home video it is also put out in Canada. Another example is the studio I worked with had only one film which had Canadian rights were sold however a look on Amazon.com would turn up every one of our films as "Available in the US and Canada". Several contacts with Amazon about correcting this resulted in nothing being done, matter of fact Amazon flat out refused to comply...and the MPAA could care less because it was not a major studio doing the complaining. Thusly, to this day, titles that were never sold to Canada can be sold to Canada via Amzaon.com. Now to some the question is "Well if the product in a real copy you still got the money so what does it matter?" and this is exaclty my point - the product does not have to be some bootlegged product to cut into a profit. Because the product was "Available in Canada" most distributors there refused to take the product. thus resulting in any "national" release not being done there, thusly resulting in lost money for the studio and producers.

Now back to the bootlegged product issue for a second - all the talk about Mexico brings up a good point that was not mentioned and that is when a studio sells a product it's priced upon several things - theatrical rights, TV rights, home video rights and so on. This is also based on the size of the "market" So the sale price to Mexico would be a lot less than it would for the United States for example. Now for a major a bootlegged DVD being sold in Mexico for 3 bucks is not as huge of a loss as it would be for an indy film. But here, again, is the part of the dicussion that always gets overlooked. "Hollywood" has a big loss measured in millions/billions but to an indy a lost sale of 5 - 10 K would be devistating. And when the MPAA is loyal to the "majors" they too measure who they go after in the millions and not thousands.

Bringing a camera into a theatre is silly but is always comes up. Much like downloading music there are many people who want the product in the best possible form complete with the package and any extras. People now spend far more time on the package than the product because they can. In the past a bootlegger had to have big bucks to turn out a pro looking package but now anyone with a computer and Photoshop can do a pro looking package. Combine that with a photo quality printer and it doesn't take much to place a product on a store shelf that looks very legit. But make no mistakes - "real" product does make its way to the market as well - be that stores, street corners or the internet. Where does it come from? In many cases it comes from the studios themselves. Part of any sale to any country is turning over elements. Once those elements are delivered they can go anywhere - if it is a video master it would go to the duplication house. If it is a film to be dubbed a sub master would go to the dubbing house, along the way it would re-mixed. Of course there are also people who work in film labs who will glady telecine a print as well.

Now someone mentioned going to a concert and how high the ticket prices were. I have mentioned this in the past as well. Everyone wants money and part of that ticket price goes to pay for the "help" as it were. David Lee Roth used to have this whole schtick about people asking him how Van Halen liked all the millions they got and he would say somehting like "Well you know we don't really make lots of money on the albums or even live gigs. You know we have to pay for the whole production and by the time we pay for the stage, the lights, the sound, the roadies and giving the managers and lawyers their share we have a few hundred bucks left over for us. We make our money off the merch - so when you come see us make sure you buy a T-Shirt!" And of course this is back when tickets were like 10 bucks and a t-shirt was 8 bucks. But the same goes now - I went in to a show to do an interview with an artist and the artist was like "Whatever you need to shoot, it is fine" The label was fine as well - but the night of the show it was like "Oh no the venue says you can't shoot" and it was because it was a union crew that night and the union had a "no video" policy in effect. I was told by the venue that if I got caught shooting the show the venue would have to pay each union crew hand $2,500.00 more because each one of them would be part of a video shoot. ?!?!!?!!?!!! By the way tickets for that show were $150.00 each for paying customers....I can only imagine what it would have been had it been a video shoot.

Of course this thread started as another "What if I want to use music for..." thread and like everything else one size does not fit all. The "right" way that is often described is not always the only way. Going to the artist can work, going to the label can work, doing your own version can work...and the list goes on. But the bottom line is that money talks - as with the MPAA not caring if an indy is being bootlegged the RIAA isn't going to go after someone for downloading some indy bands music and many indy bands and their labels have allowed use in indy films, publishers and managers be damned. An indy band does not have much luck in some huge lawsuit if their music were to show up is some Lions Gate film but if it were a Madonna song - well, need I say more?

And it goes full circle - Just today I went to an artists website and they are on a somewhat major label but they are still a "new" artist . On their official site they have a media section with a link to offical videos and a link to "You Tube" with the discalimer "(unofficial)". The link brings you to the typical You Tube stuff - people lip syncing their songs, cell phone video shot at concerts, taped from TV live and interviews. So here you have an artist not going after "bootleg" material but helping to promote it. The Who has been "bootlegging" their own tour this year and selling it. Metallica sells taping section seats to their shows. Now if only there was an "easy" way to allow artists the same freedom to deal with sync rights for indy films and weddings where they could just put their own price on useage. And yes I know there is a way but again most do not want to sit there and deal with it all themselves plus once an artist gets on a major it is unlikely their contract would turn over mechanicals to the artist, unless it was a self produced albaum that got picked up for distribution - which does happen.

All of this at times reminds me of the actress Candice Bergen. I read her autobiograpy and one of the things she said in it I have always loved. She talks about how early on she would always be pissing off her agent/manager because she would bump into someone and get talking and they would say "hey do you want to be im my film?" and she would go "yes". Candice says that her whole mindset was that she was an actress and she loved to work so if someone wanted her to work why not.

Since this thread has been hijacked a bit, I thought ya'll might like this trick.

When I was shopping my little film, "Jacks Or Better" to distributors I'd mentioned that we had been bootlegged... and suddenly, people were more interested. It helped out "cult clout." I didn't say that the bootlegger was my landlord who had made a copy VHS-to-VHS to show a couple of friends... but the distributors didn't seem to care. Someone had taken the trouble to copy this movie, it must be better than your average indy film without distribution.

So... at some point in the game, an indy producer might WANT to be bootlegged.

Well filmy, that's a lot of interesting stuff. I thing the big-- wait, you actually read Candice Bergen's autobiography?!

>>>wait, you actually read Candice Bergen's autobiography?!<<<

Yes - it is actually an awesome book.

Fwtep:

"...Truly spoken like someone who's never earned a living as an artist or had to recoup an investment on an artistic project. I don't know if you're in the US, but here we're opposed to Communist thinking..."

Well, I live in the "People's Republik of Oregon" so maybe some of that has rubbed off on me, and I see your point. But surely you see mine. You're not suggesting that the creator gets perpetual rights, are you? I have nearly $100k invested in some patents. They're good for 20 years. It would be really swell if I had exclusive rights for, say, my lifetime, plus 70 years... Oh, wait!--that's what copyright holders already get!

My point is that the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of copyright. The "lifetime+70 years" deal was a sweetheart deal Congress gave to Disney a few years back, as I recall. Way too generous, in my view, with no simple, legal, and inexpensive means of allowing amateur use of popular art.

And no, as I indicated in my post, I do not earn my living as an artist. Does that disqualify my reasoned logic from consideration?



"The ticket prices are so high BECAUSE they don't make much from CD's. And it sucks that it's come to that...."

You're not suggesting that if CD ripping was punished by the death penalty tomorrow that a Rascal Flatts ticket would be $10, are you? The two are unrelated. Rascal Flatts gets that much a ticket because people are willing to pay that much for a ticket.

Filmy's extended comments mention t-shirt sales. I was floored when my daughter came home with a $30 t-shirt from the concert, so I guess they did okay by us. As for the comment that it's unfair that someone might not be able to go on tour for health reasons, well that would be a shame, but that's life.

riredale, if it were up to me, patents would be for longer too.

As for the ticket prices, yes, I'm saying that if CDs were selling as much as they used to, live shows would cost less. Would they be $10? No, I'm not saying that, but they'd be much less than they are now. Weren't you one of the ones saying that bands could/should make their money in live shows? How can you then say sales and concert prices are unrelated? You're the one who said they SHOULD be. Am I missing something? (Entirely possible.)

I'm not sure I know what you mean, but it's probably my fault. My brain works even worse than usual about this time of night.

What I mean about concert pricing is that it's a classic supply/demand kind of thing. Charge $20 a seat and it sells out in minutes. Charge $1,000 and only a few seats get sold. If you plot all the possible scenarios on a chart, you will find a sweet spot where you are getting the maximum revenue for a given situation.

Since the Rascal Flatts concert in Portland a few weeks ago was sold out, it means they could/should have charged even more, up to the point where they were just barely selling all the seats. So the pricing of the concert has nothing to do with CD sales at all.

But of course no one would know about Rascal Flatts in the first place if they didn't sell CDs and get airplay.

My daughter loves them and has all of their CDs (I don't know how many they've done). Her boyfriend is a hard rock kind of guy, but said they were pretty good at the concert, though the fireworks were a bit more tame than what he was used to.

Re: Serena, 3/15/2007 6:42:06 AM: “Vietnam is a market for Chinese pressings and those are quality products [compared to Mexican junk.] “

Okay; never been to Vietnam and I don’t know anything about what they sell there. But I did some Google searches based on various combinations of DVD PIRATE QUALITY MEXICO LOSSES CHINA.

I never found any site that gave a breakdown of losses related to HQ copies vs. garbage copies, but lots of comments like this:

“Tuesday, 13th March 2007, 16:20 [This was a UK news account; the majority of hits came from the UK.] Police believe the 22 year-old man had the fakes shipped over from China…[Eddy Leviten, head of communications at the Federation Against Copyright Theft] ,said: ‘…The quality of the DVD would have been generally OK…’

11 May 2006: “Greenwich Council trading standards officers have seized £50,000 worth of counterfeit DVDs – including ‘Brokeback Mountain’, which appeared to be of high quality but had a sentence across the bottom of the screen saying it was ‘for the purposes of awards consideration only’ …we often warn the public that the copies they are buying may be of a very poor quality…”

06-01-2006: “Counterfeiting Prez Signs Anti-Counterfeiting Bill: By Clyde DeWitt
“Pirates, dupers, rip-off artists, counterfeiters…often sell a dramatically inferior product…besmirching the good name of the manufacturer that has worked so hard to earn a quality reputation”

18th February 2006
”Operation Predator preys on Counterfeit DVD Sellers…The DVDs represent poor value for money as they are often very poor quality…”

“Generally OK” or “appeared to be of high quality” was the highest praise I could find for pirate DVDs. You could probably characterize the Mexican junk like that. And if there are pirate DVDs equal to the real thing, then where are they? They’re not in flea markets or tailgate sales. They’re not in Wal-Mart or Blockbuster. They’re not in Mexican video rental stores, even mom-and-pop ones.

Dunno about you, but after seeing the quality of genuine DVDs as seen on a high def computer monitor, no way would I waste my time watching pirate stuff. Who wants to buy a junk copy when you can rent a real DVD for a couple bucks, or buy one in Wal-Mart for $5.50? Most of the people who buy these junk DVDs wouldn’t spend the money to buy a genuine one. Yes, they’re some losses to the entertainment industry but I think Hollywood’s loss claims are fantasy. It could even be argued that the interest in recorded entertainment so engendered by these pirate sales actually benefits the industry; or the indies that post here. (Well, OTOH, no: That's too politically incorrect for this forum.)

Hey Sonic,

I've been out of town, so sorry for the delayed response. Hey, if you get a chance email me (go to my profile) I would love to chat and see if anything has happend with Uni.

In the meantime I saw this article today and thought it would interest some of the members of the forum. Just more leveling of the playing field. : ) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17662282/site/newsweek/

Here's a link to the site mentioned in the article. Lots of creative goodies here, but specific to this post, go to AUDIO.... Ottmar Liebert....not too shabby.
edit http://creativecommons.org/

At the risk of sounding hyperbolic, that Creative Commons thing is a glimpse into the future, so thanks again, Tote. And thanks to Ottmar Liebert for his vision, artistry and generosity.

...Still no word from Uni.

This link will answer all copyright questions:

http://www.dontdownloadthissong.com/DDTSecard.html

Thanks for the laugh. I too have experiences like that - the barter system. Let's talk tax law now.

a sycophant - wow - had to look that one up.