Here's another of those items which we're giving you in full because it's so right on.

My lipstick is not a camera is by Loey Lockberry and was published in the Kansas City Star on August 15.

It reads thus >>>>>>>>>>>>>>

An open letter to the Hollywood studios: Stop going through my purse

I mean it. I don't like strangers rifling through my belongings without a very good reason. Keeping terrorists off airplanes qualifies. Keeping "Freaky Friday" off the Internet does not.

I've been a film critic for only six years, but I remember a time when I could get into a preview screening without going through a security gauntlet. Sure, high-profile stuff like the "Star Wars" and "Lord of the Rings" movies were shrouded in top-secret mystery, but that was just part of the hype. It only happened a couple of times a year, and nobody thought anything of it, except that it was kind of amusing to see how paranoid you were about your franchises. But when uniformed guards showed up at "The In-Laws," it officially wasn't funny anymore.

I know you're just trying to stop the recording of your films, but that's been going on for years now, with people sneaking into theaters with camcorders and taping the movies straight off the screen, then selling copies on street corners or at conventions. Strangely, you didn't seem to notice or care about this phenomenon until high-speed Internet connections became common, and people began downloading films at home. Like the record industry before you, you've suddenly decided to freak out now that those scary computers are involved.

Fat lot of good it's doing. Despite all the new security measures, movies are still turning up on the Internet anywhere from a day to a month before their official release dates. When "The Hulk" screened here three days ahead of its opening, it had already been online for at least a couple of weeks. Yet, there your precious guards were, searching everyone's bags and keeping an eye out for suspicious behavior, apparently unaware that not only had that ship already sailed, it had hit the iceberg and sunk.

These measures clearly aren't doing much good, and I find it hard to believe that you're really losing money over this. I don't think you believe it, either, because I'm always getting e-mails from your publicity people, talking about how much you've made on some blockbuster or another. It's unseemly to claim poverty while you're bragging about your riches.

Revenues are down this year, but that still doesn't prove anything, because movie pirates were operating in the midst of last year's record-breaking box office haul, too. The real problem is that most of your movies stink right now. For every "Finding Nemo" or "X-Men 2" there are five "Dumb and Dumberers." If people aren't interested in your films, they're not going to see them, Internet or not.

However, if people do want to see your films, they'll pay to do so, even if they've already watched a download. Why? Because the online versions are tiny, fuzzy facsimiles that don't even begin to do justice to the movies in question, and everyone knows it. People view these things because it gives them bragging rights ("Dude, guess what I watched last night."). If they ever cared about seeing the movie at all, they'll still see it in the theater, and you'll still get your money. Even in this slower year, several movies are in the $100 Million Dollar Club, and a handful have sailed past $200 million. And that doesn't even count foreign box office, merchandising sales and eventual DVD revenues.

What was that about losing money, again?

The people you really need to worry about are the ones getting hold of pristine digital copies of your films and making DVDs out of them. These are inside jobs and could actually cut into your profits, because they're providing high-quality versions of your movies to people who aren't paying you to see them. But trust me, these guys are in your back yard somewhere, not in the Cinemark Merriam the Tuesday before opening day.

They're also not lurking at your small, exclusive press screenings, either. We critic types know how lucky we are to have such cool jobs, and we're not stupid enough to jeopardize them by trying to sneak a camera into the theater. It's not like you wouldn't catch us immediately, anyway, because there are rarely more than 15 or 20 people present at these things.

Basically, it's time to live in the real world. You're not going to stop your films from getting on the Internet. Most of the copying isn't costing you money. When it is, the culprits are probably people who work for you, not some guy who won passes from a radio station or a critic whose career depends on not ticking you off. So get over it.

And stop going through my purse.

MPAA answer... STOP the INTERNET!
STOP the advance of technology!

OUR answer... STOP crying and GROW UP (literaly) you dumb baby's. Evolve or DIE! How many times do you have to say it?

Shmoo, of Electric Gypsy
Support Local and Independent Music!
(e-mail me for an Electric Gypsy CD!)

Hmm, maybe it's time to stop taking all this media hype so seriously.

Reviewers are met at the door by security, who then ask them to "empty your pockets and your purse".

The reviewer looks thoughtful for a moment, and says, "you know what, your movie doesn't sound all that great, maybe I'll just go home and tell everyone what a bunch of crap all this security hype is."

Sounds like she is doing just that, maybe more will follow suit.

If the sheep stop following, who needs shepherds?

Yeah!

And stop bugging and breaking into peoples houses and hacking thier computers --just cause they won't sign to a record deal with you --because you people would just as soon like to threaten intelligent hard working individuals than to build better business structures.

You wouldn't know what to do with a new technology or a great artist if ancient gods landed from an advanced civilization and posed like humans to show you how. =P

You'd just as soon sh*t on the chances you have been given to re"vamp" your structures to make a profitable future for not only yourselves but society at large.

But who am I kidding? You don't care about society. You are a bunch of puffed up Autocrats abusing power to establish your Nazi reign in America from beyond our borders.

Don't be fooled America! The real goal here is that they want us all to be slaves check this out:

http://www.veracity.org/Legend2.html

Stop the gestapo and thier corporate terrorist networks... Change is now!

en·ter·tain·ment
Pronunciation: "en-t&r-'tAn-m&nt
Function: noun
Date: 15th century
1 : the act of entertaining
2 a archaic : MAINTENANCE, PROVISION b obsolete : EMPLOYMENT
3 : something diverting or engaging: as a : a public performance b : a usually light comic or adventure novel

So, just what are they "diverting" us from paying attention to?

I live in Mexico and I only download movies because they don't even care to bring in them here. Not even the dvd's
like Punch Drunk Love, The rules of attraction and many other independent films, here you can't find anything so the only way to find these kinds of movies is the internet.
And most of the movie theatres are selling tickets for 7 or 8 dollars, can you believe it?
Here's a question how much does it cost a ticket in the US?

adults 7.50 to 800 dollars

If you go to a early movie on a weekday I think 4. to 4.50 dollars

This is a great article that should go side by side the GEORGE Z's expose of the RIAA!

$6.00 Matinee
$8.00 after 6PM

This is about average for the theaters in Charlotte, NC.

What amazes me is the most expensive theaters are usually the oldest with small screens, torn up old seats, poor quality sound, etc.

Popcorn and a drink usually run about $10.

It doesn't seem that long ago when I would pay only $3 for a Matinee. No wonder people look to download movies. The $30+ it costs for a couple to see a flick (with snacks) could go a long way in some other field of entertainment.

Don't even get me started on sporting events and concerts.

great piece. if Hollywood had their way, we'd all still be stuck listening to vinyl (the primitive kind) and watching silent films- and they'd find a way to justify raising the ticket prices to each many times a year. technology advances especially under the tightest circumstances, so go ahead Hollywood, do your best at making enjoying the art illegal. america can't support your kind for long- eventually you'll end up killing yourselves if we don't starve you to death first.

7.75 around here for mid-day to night movies, 5.50 if you go during the day. I think this applies to weekends as well, but I'm not positive. Thats just my experience from one theater anyhow. Online friends have told me the cost of their local theaters which seems to be more so in the double digits 11-19.

And then of course if you try to get anything to eat or drink :hivers:: exorbitant overly charged. My friend was really thirsty one time, so he asked the person at the concession stand for a small glass of water, and it costed 2 dollars, for a cup that probably held less then 12 ounces. Of course, I would imagine snacks and beverages is more of an issue for the theaters then the movie industry.

AverageConsumer -- The thing is that it's taken so long for the press to pay any attention. So it's a great thing to see the print media in a major city start to take a common-sense approach to examining this story.

Until now, there has been a definite pattern of looking at what we're doing and the media says "I thought I heard something but... never mind..." and starts asking the same questions we've been asking here for months.

We may have more luck with the Republican party. remember to remove the brackets and br at the end of the address after it comes up.

Has anybody read this one:
A New Tune May Bolster the GOP

http://www.insightmag.com/news/450405.html

I agree, George, I'm glad to see it. Little by little, people will grow weary of the RIAA and MPAA bully-boy tactics.

I still want to see how the public at large reacts when all those subpoenas are served to the individuals involved.

Wasn't that supposed to start happening right about now?

I hear that, Z-man. I think we all tend to forget that we may be the only ones following all this stuff that closely.

The rest of them are starting to catch on, though. And if the RIAA gets any friskier, then the cat will really be out of the bag.

lol...my following of this has turned into rant and rave sessions with my friends and co-workers and has developed into a genuine concern amoung them about our dissappearing rights.

Some music labels have started sending reviewers pre-release CDs inside glued-shut CD players with glued-in headphones. Reviewers have been a bit annoyed, and one managed to remove the CD with a screwdriver to play it on a real sound system.

I know that there is one company researching a camcorder-jammer device for digital projectors. I have no doupt the second that technology is perfected its going to be installed. They wont say how it works, I would guess some kind of high-frequency interference that creates a low-frequency beat with the camcorders sampleing. Easy in theory, hard in practive, espicially when the audience keeps complaining of headaches

the only thing they are going to us by cutting down on the ability to record films by cam corder is a favor. all the recordings of films using cameras are very low quality you often can hear audience members doing something and generaly arent good. the ones that are good have been intercepted by a hacker woh moniters the really high bandwidth pipelines used to transer the movies, those are awesome quality near dvd if played on computor. last week i whatched oceans 11 on my friends big moniter and it was a hacked version. this is also how i say all of star wars number 2 a month before it got out

Anyone who would actually PAY the 2 dollars for a cup of water is just the kind of moron they are looking to exploit. Were they really going to die without it? That's the only way I could even conceive of such a thing. But then again I'd just leave the theater and get it somewhere else. Like buying popcorn for 20 cents a bag instead of 5 dollars at the theater. As far as the audience compaining of headaches during camcorder-jamming...well, most of what comes out of Hollywood these days gives most people a headache anyway. In fact most of it could be classified as "intelligence-jamming". X-men 2? How the hell do you get a number 2 of something like this?

Because of the cost increase and the gouging at the refreshment counter, I long ago quit going to the movies.

Not only that but when you go into a movie theater you go in for entertainment. My defination of entertainment doesn't include kids running up and down the isle distracting you from watching the movie, nor does it include trying to pry up your shoe from the coke that was spilled two nights ago. If I am going to get gouged I dang well expect more for my money and I am not getting it. Nor do I expect to pay to watch a movie and have to sit through commercials to do so. I can do that at home without spending the money for the ticket. Therefore I don' t go.

I will readily admit this is not MPAA's fault but rather the owners of the movie theater. Because of my personal preferances I choose to rent the movie and watch it at home.

But the choices I have to pick from in the latest offerings leave a lot to be desired. I tried some d/led movies, they were all of poor quality in both sound and the visuals so that ended that. Hollywood has little to fear as far as folks preferring d/ls to the real mc coy. Much the same as songs. Mp3 will never match up to a full spectrum file. When you compare the two there is a lot missing in the copy. Folks making mp3 players don't talk about bit rates for no reason.

Now-a-days everyone is after a piece of your wallet. Prices have went up for everything around us far faster than my paycheck has gone up. When it comes to picking between buying tires for my truck or renting a few videos, guess which one is going to lose out? Piracy has nothing to do with it but increasing prices to outrageous levels does. Anything I am saying sound familiar with what the music labels have done lately?

It is not p2p that is causing the decrease in sales, it is the ecomonic fact that if you increase prices and lower your output of product you are going to sell less. Maybe Hollywood forgot to mention that...

This article nailed it right on the head as far as where the good copies come from so early. It isn't camcorders. I have a good friend that has a sister in the USAF stationed in Turkey. WITHOUT fail they get to see all the new releases a week before they hit the thaters here in the U.S. These are high quality DVDs, not some camcorder garbage burned to disc. She said picture quality is every bit as good as a DVD you would purchase here in the states. This simply is not possible without there being some sort of inside connection, but here they continue to blame all of us.

I just thought to let everyone know, that some A/O is trying to send me a Subseven-Trojan. It has happened before when I went to the Congress.Org site and almost everytime I come here. Luckly for me I have a firewall and virus protector installed in my box. I also have PeerGuardian. In case someone wants to know this is the IP of the A/O that tried to send me the Subseven Trojan; IP 141.150.139.182 New York. I hope we are not being targeted by the A/O at RIAA.

If the A/O 14.150.139.182 is lurking around this site I got news for you. I will write to your net provider and let them know what the f you are doing. So stop it. Go play with you s.. someplace else.

Hill, that comes back to a Verizon DSL IP. We know that supposedly RIAA's ISP was bought out by verizon. If it came through email, you can forward that e-mail to abuse@verizon.net and request that they do something about the actions of this user.
-bulk

i.e. the 141.150.139.182 number is a verizon dsl. it's also possible they spoofed the dotted decimal address.
-bulk

Thanks man, this people are getting personal and desperate. I wish I can sue the crap out of this people.

I went to the local Viacom owned movie theatre and paid 13 bucks to see SWAT. While sitting in the theatre for about 15 minutes before the show.. those bullshit "Piracy Makes Set Designers Starve" commericials came on twice where some dude is saying "When you download movies, I lose my job "

Bottom line is, Piracy isn't killing Hollywood.. it's the shit they put on the screens. Movies like Dumb and Dumberer.. the shit that they just throw together to make an extra dollar.

I work at a gas station in kansas city i tell as many people to educate themselves on this issue and their loss of rights. Since i come in contact with a lot of people especially since its a service center too many people get to hear all about it while waiting on car repairs ...i spread the antiRIAA word the best i can....i have noticed that the kc star takes a more negative tone to what the music and movie industries are doing... It truly reflects the realness of Movie piracy.. i mean the quality you get whenyou download anything from a music video to a movie isnt all that great but if people like the MPAA keep it up they will only inspire and encourage people to learn and want that FREE BETTER QUALITY and not end up in the end paying for it like they still do...

In Arkansas, Where i am currenly living in... Theaters is around 6.00$ during the day and I think 9.50 at night.. maybe 8.50 I can't remember, I havent been in movies since 1992 or 1993, Can't remember.. it was the day they released The Mask, staring Jim Carey...

The reason Why I stopped going to the movie theaters is because at first I thought they would have closed captions for the deaf ( I am deaf ) but they turned out they dont... I spend at least 25 dollars for two person... popcorn and two drinks for 25 dollars...

As soon as I found out they dont offer closed captions I walked out in the movie and asked for the refund.. They wont give the money back so I just sat there and dont even know wth is going on in the movies...

Nowdays I just buy them on DVDs... or just order it thru PPV for 3.95 all day on DirecTV

CD burning , DVD copying , File sharring. Are these people (RIAA and Friends) really that ignorant that they think there current methods are going to solve all of their problems, or should I say FEARS. Do they honestly believe that the technology we have now is at its pinnacle and by attempting to squash it now will make everything just go away. Wake up ! The more pressure you enforce the more someone somewhere looks for means of relief. Todays younger generation will develop technology that will far surpass what we have now. Then what will you do. Freedom Always finds away!

I hope the the Big 5 and their bulldog are reading these posts also. I'm giving you a single finger salute!

LOL..I went to see Pirates of the Carribean..and they had that anti-piracy ad (at which I made a disgusting sound of distress at the end) before the movie. The funny thing is that at the end of the movie, one of the characters says "Sometimes piracy is the right thing to do." Laughed my ass off a that!
The real piracy is them selling popcorn for 4 or 5 bucks and a coke for the same...a coke and a small sac of corn for 10 bucks? I THINK ALL THE CONCESSION PEOPLE SHOULD HAVE A PATCH AND A PARROT ON THEIR SHOULDERS!
-bulk

bulkeraser : LOL! Iv'e seen the same ad. Everyone in the theatre jeered at it. It was a kodak moment LOL!

I stop buy a place like CVS before I hit a theater and buy snacks, if I want snacks to eat during the movie. The price I pay for tickets is more than enough. I refuse to pay the extorted fees for snacks.

We are pirates? here's a NYT report on piracy where 90% of DVD sold are illegal copies. Been to Shanghai and these illegal shops are everywhere operating openly. At $1 each, had a DVD buffet during a recent trip there. Band of brothers at a bargain $5.


"GUANGZHOU - Even before The Matrix Reloaded opened in China's cinemas last month, Mr Liu Ying had watched it twice.

Like many Chinese fans of the popular Matrix science-fiction franchise, Mr Liu said he had watched the movie at home, on a pirated DVD. That DVD appeared soon after the film's American release earlier this year.

The 23-year-old salesman in this southern Chinese city is one of millions of Chinese consumers whose appetite for cheap pirated films, music and software is vast and mostly uninhibited. China's galloping market economy has long ridden roughshod over international copyrights.

But industry executives and analysts say that in recent years, piracy has become even more rampant, aided by the spread of the Internet and computer technology that allows bootleggers to outrun the government's periodic crackdowns.

China has about 20 million DVD players, and by end-2006, the number will grow to 42 million, according to Mr David Scott, an analyst with the magazine Screen Digest. China also has 74 million VCD players.

The Motion Picture Association of America estimates more than 90 per cent of the DVDs sold in China last year were illegal copies.

One reason for the ubiquity of pirated films and music is price. Typically, pirated discs sell for a fraction of the price of legitimate discs, while the range of choice among the bootleg versions is much larger.

A regular customer in the pirate stores, 24-year-old accountant Fu Jun, explained that for him and many young Chinese, attending a cinema is a rarer, more expensive experience than buying pirated films and watching them at home with friends.

While a DVD player can be bought for less than US$50 (S$8 and a pirated DVD for about US$1, a trip to the cinema can cost US$4 to US$10, he said, adding that the difference means a lot to young people earning only a few hundred dollars a month.

Buyers of pirated products are almost never punished. The manufacturers and wholesalers of the products can face stringent prison sentences, although this is extremely rare. Small-time sellers can face fines of up to hundreds of dollars. But confiscation is the most common punishment.

American film companies once hoped that the shift from VCD technology to the more heavily encrypted DVD would stem piracy. But bootleggers in China and elsewhere cracked the new technology, and the spread of video technology seemed to make unauthorised copying easier than ever.

'Today's pirates have evolved from backroom operations into technology-driven criminal syndicates organised into business units,' said Ms Marta Grutka, a spokesman for the Motion Picture Association of America, which has pressed the Chinese government to act more forcefully against video piracy.

The syndicates, she said, often steal advance copies of films or sneak camcorders into advance screenings.

Officials from the Guangzhou city and Guangdong province cultural bureaus, which are in charge of preventing piracy, declined to comment on the issue.

But in recent years, China has sought to rein in piracy. Last year, Chinese authorities say, they seized 14 million pirated VCDs and 6.1 million illegal DVD discs.

But the momentum still seems strongly in favour of China's pirates. -- The New York Times "

musicwantsto, do you live in NC? If you do, I live an hour and a half - two hours north of you near Winston-Salem.

The article? Yeah, that is a trifle pathetic that they're starting to treat the theater like an airport. Maybe they were afraid some terrorists would hijack "Gigli" and crash it into a mall or something.

The only movie I've ever downloaded was "Reign of Fire" but that was only because I wanted to see it and my girlfriend at the time didn't and I wasn't about to wait for it to come out on video. As always, the quality stunk, the very beginning of the film was missing completely and the sound went out a few times. It took 3 days to download on a DSL connection. Crackheads. They didn't get my $8, but who cares. If I still had a job, they'd probably get my $15 for the movie, but, since I don't have a job, oh well.

I saw the stupid "If you buy or download bootleg copies of movies..." commercial for the umpteenth time tonight. As always I riffed it and told the idiots to stop bitching and get another job if money was so tight. I'm thinking that someone should make a counter commercial saying that if you do download or buy bootleg movies, then you help stop funding for movies like "Gigli". No, didn't see that one, thank goodness, but the very title suggests it's bad. I mean, to me, it spells "Giggly" not "Zheelee". And the fact that it includes a musician whose fans the labels wish they could shoot everytime they download her songs makes it worse. What does Affleck see in her anyway? Oh, that's right, an ass! Ok, so he's in the stupid "End Piracy" commercial, but so's James Cameron and they're both good. You'd think the idiots that be would have found some washed up has beens to be in their commercial, not two giants that command $20-$50 million a picture. Geez, they're not hurting. And they really only get the money if the movie turns a profit, which in the case of "Gigli", well, doesn't look like Affleck'll be buying J-Lo a new ring. And Jenny might as well go back to the block as punishment for this, but since the block hates the movie to, so exhile will do just fine.

There is considerable intrest in digital projection systems now. A cinema film projector is not a very convenient device. The larger ones have spools which require two people to roll them into the room and lift into place Even the shorter spools are very expensive, to produce and to transport. Digital projection, with the films stored on a hard drive (not DVD, because these are very high bandwidth. Files would probabl be aroung 20G) would be much cheaper. The studios like the idea too because they can then encrypt the films, thus stoping leaks (they wish . If someone does find a way to copy those things could get a lot easier for all us pirates.

Thank you all,

A lot of good points.

I would like to point out that I am in total agreement with CriticalError's post.

I pass an uneasy laugh about how stupid the actions of the RIAA are. But I am very concerned with the direction the House of Representatives and Senators have taken to deal with P2P. I become increasingly agitated when none of the kids, (colledge students), I talk to do not know that they are risking lawsuits by their behavior, and more disturbed that some I've talked to don't care.

I gotta hand it to the multinational entertainment-media complex: They've got gold-plated nerve, with their condescending "piracy is putting caterers and set dressers out of work" Big Lie campaign while many in their "target audience" (dream on, buddy) constantly have the threat of layoffs and outsourcing hanging over their heads, TOGETHER WITH (in some instances) trying to raise a family or meet mortgage payments on a very limited income, shrunk by continuing wage reductions. To such people, the MPAA's propaganda lectures smack of an outright "how-dare-you" insult.

Personally I don't feel as ripped off when I buy a DVD or a video. They seem to range between 10 and 20 bucks...usually they're less expensive than music CD's (go figure).

A movie is a lot longer, and has MOVING PICTURES as well as sound. By all logic they should cost about 40 bucks each.

lol@RingdemBells. Careful the MPAA will hear you and guess what the price for a ticket may be next week...

Of course when the sales fall off at the theater; "It those download pirates costing us jobs" will be playing at full volume in the theater. How can such industries be screaming at the top of thier lungs for relief from p2p on one hand and then publish or give out info to the newspapers that they gross so many millions in ticket sales for 1 WEEK! Something stinks here and it ain't the typing...

According to an artical I found linked from slashdot, the movie industry is now upset about text massageing because it defeats a trick they use. The idea is to make a profit on a really awful film such as the Hulk in its opening weekend, before word of mouth tells people how bad it is. With text messageing, people tell their friends how bad the film is before its even over

Geez, it must really suck to be that afraid of customers.

This whole damn house of cards is ready to blow away with the first stiff breeze.

I have avoided quite a few films lately due to word of mouth from opening weekend.

If they'd stop producing dogshit movies, they wouldn't have to be that paranoid.