In Starving Artist, students pretend to be musicians whose work is downloaded free from the Internet. Then there's Surfing for Trouble, a crossword puzzle.

Both games are aimed at kids and the even-younger generations. You know - the ones the RIAA/MPAA bogey men terrorize. And guess where they came from? You got it - the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) headed up by the aged Jack Valenti.

Valenti is the movie-makers' main weapon in their Jihad against the Dreadful File Sharers whom, Valenti and his friend Cary Sherman over at the RIAA STILL keep telling everyone who'll listen - which equals most of the traditional media - are committing crimes in the act of file sharing.

Hey Jack and Cary-Sue: FILE SHARING IN AND OF ITSELF IS NEITHER WICKED NOR ILLEGAL. THE DIFFICULTY LIES WITH THE SOME OF THE FILES. AND IF YOU HAD YOUR ACT TOGETHER, THERE WOULDN'T BE A PROBLEM THERE EITHER !!! Verstehen Sie?

But it's hopeless. That's not the only thing 'Hollywood' (to use the collective term) doesn't get.

For example, who runs Hollywood? The suits? Not. The people who keep the wheels a-turning aren't Laughing Jack and Cary-Sue and their cronies, all of whom are dragging down enormous salaries. Nor are they the stage hands, key-grips, special effects folks, the fingle-wopper dingle-dong handlers, or any of the other people in production support roles whom Valenti keeps singling out as the real victims of file sharing (Jack - on file sharing, see above.)

Hollywood runs on the blood, sweat and tears of the accountants, the secretaries, the admin guys, the girls over in the word processing pool, the sweeper-uppers and floor polishers, and all the other skilled employees and just-plain-people who do the real day-to-day work of keeping the streets paved with Goldwyn, et al.

Then you have the sysops, the coders, the special effects progammers, the hardware box-builders, system networkers, data security ops, dbase managers, the web resource folks and all the others who keep the computers cranking out movies and money.

But the former don't count and the latter are all nerds? Fire the former if they get uppity and feed the nerds coke and crisps and forget 'em.

Wrong. Very wrong.

Because you don't have to be a suit or a PR lady or a critic to qualify as an insider.

AT&T researcher Lorrie Cranor was getting close in her Analysis of Security Vulnerabilities in the Movie Production and Distribution Process which suggests areas Hollywood should start thinking seriously about.

But the insiders she discusses aren't the Insiders with Clout.

To digress a little, who do Jack and the RIAA's Cary-Sue think they're chasing when they're after The File Sharers? To give you a hint:

"This summer, night-vision goggles became a familiar fashion accessory for security guards at movie premieres as they searched for people in the audience carrying banned video recorders. The industry's trade association began a nationwide piracy awareness campaign in movie theaters and on television. Studios are aggressively putting electronic watermarks on movie prints so they can determine who is abetting the file sharing. And some movie executives are considering whether to send out early DVD's to Academy Award voters, fearing the films will be distributed online."

This comes in Laura Holson's New York Times story, Studios Moving to Block Piracy of Films Online in which Starving Artist and Surfing for Troubleappear.

Also, "There is no issue in my life I take as seriously as this," Holson quotes Peter Chernin, president and ceo of the News Corporation, which owns 20th Century Fox, as saying. "This is going to be with us for the rest of our careers. But if we remain focused on it, maybe it won't kill us and we won't have to panic."

Not panic?

PANIC !!!!

The natives are restless
This well-used Hollywood cliche used to appear when The Hero suddenly notices all those people he's been taking for granted for all those years are unhappy - VERY unhappy - and there's trouble brewing. But he doesn't know when or where and by the time he figures it out, it's too late.

Usually, the sub-script is: if his head hadn't been so far up his anal orifice, he'd have seen it coming.

So, Hollywood (including employees Valenti and Sherman, not to speak of the Invisible Man, Mitch Bainwol), the Natives - the people you take for granted to do the work that keeps the bucks piling up - are Restless.

The guy who keeps your accounting software updated knows a glitch here and a glitch there will jam you up. But he's honest and, let's say it, a decent person and the same applies to the husband-and-wife-and-son-and-daughter team who clean up all the cigar butts and money-wrappers.

And although the PR lady was mentioned up there with the people who're normally perceived as being insider insiders, she and a lot of people like here are actually fringe natives, so to speak. They're in the so-called creative loop and they see what's going on up-close and personal. When they've had enough ...

So, Hollywood, better start looking over your shoulder. And the next time something technical goes awry or a balance sheet doesn't balance - or there's a nasty spot of grease in the middle of your shiny office desk - ask yourself why that may be?

Hopefully you'll think about it and eventually figure it out.

And there is an answer.

Talk to the people. Ask for their ideas and when they make suggestions, pay attention. Because they're the Insiders with Clout.

They're not your enemies, they're your future, and if you don't acknowledge that, and very soon indeed, you won't be up Excreta Creek: you're there already. What'll happen is: you'll drown in it.

Jon Newton

I think they've already drown.

Given that many of their key "celebrities" pass themselves off as experts on national security, the environment, animal rights, abortion, energy policy, Presidential elections, foreign policy, human rights, civil rights, and what have you (you know the list - Sheen, Streisand, Asner, Sarandon, Glover, and so forth), that these corrupt blatant-profiteers making like they're somehow morally superior to the peasants (as in "The peasants are revolting!" "They certainly are") would come up with this latest piece of garbage isn't exactly a surprise.

If these pseudo-liberals like Sheen and Streisand were true Liberals and Democrats, they would promote, rather than protect against, filesharing.

Unfortunately for the Democrats, too many Republican-Lites have infiltrated the ranks. Start with that god-awful DLC and Terry McAuliffe and the Clintons. Remove them and all the boats they came in on first. That would solve a lot of the Dems' problems right there.

Other than Dennis Kucinich, there IS no other viable choice for '04.

Joe Loserman is still sticking his Christian Zionist Republican agenda in there for the Democratic candidacy. He must be stopped. Tom Daschle is a complete, inept moron. Many other Democrats are also spineless twits.

Stop towing the Republican line, people! Or you get the Bush crime family, John Ashcroft, the "patriot" act and the RIAA and corporatist globalist fascism for ANOTHER four years!!! At LEAST!!!

The Democrats are just as bad if not worse. I'd rather see a 3rd party elected next year, but that won't happen, so it comes down to whom do you hate less?
If it makes you feel any better, Arnold is is a Democrat regardless of what party he says he is a part of.
And I do find most hollywood celeb's lean toward the liberal side.

Everyone's always screaming about the Democrats this or the Republicans that. It doesn't matter what party they belong to -- it's their religion we have to worry about, because they all worship the almighty $dollar$.

they better not stop sending out dvd scr's what am i gonna do for my movies if they do >

Brandon, I agree. I'm a liberal at heart on most issues, but the Democrats are totally in left field for me. If you read my post, you'll see who some of the culprits are. It's the Democratic Party who many people vote for, however, because they feel that voting for a 3rd party is a wasted vote. How many are willing to hold their nose and vote Democrat in the election anyway? It's just astounding.

DTP makes a good point here.

Looks like I was late...I'd submitted that article in its entirity a while ago. But the part where the students were asked what would they do if they were told their work was being downloaded and they wouldn't get anything for it...I'd say...
"Distribute it myself online, cut out the suits, and keep all the income for myself! Screw the labels!"

Natives are restless at broadbandreports.com too. Check out this story and comments about the brainwashing campaign in the schools.
http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/33544

Kinda reminds you of the Hitler Youth program

Hollywood has always been a smug law-unto-itself type organization, forsaking the promise of artistic progression over profit motive.

Couldn't agree with ya more W-B and Zachary 1 !

I don't remember being "re-educated" last year. I even wrote a Speech and presented it on the evils of the RIAA, not to mention the countless papers on how the RIAA is out to get us all and how to advoid the KOX Sucking Baxstards, and I got 100% on all of them. I controol my life, the RIAA doesn't. I am thinking of making a flash game that depict the evils of the riaa. I will be geared for 4-10 graders and will rock. haha poor riaa all their efforts will fail in the end, they won't even matter....

-mtekk

Howa bout this? (Yes it's kinda self centered but what the heack, right?
A pledge aledgence to Mtekk of the anti-RIAA movement, and for the united p2p users, for which he stands, one voice, from GOD, invincible, with liberty and justice for all!

i wish we were invisible

HEY!
Their action has inspired me with a great idea.

What about making ANTI-RIAA and ANTI-MPAA game? And then, ADVERTISING IT TO THE KIDS ? The game must be COOL, something like 'catch John Valenti before he manages to lobby for his new anti-liberty bill'.

Some proposals:
-----------------
On the screen, you would have: Congress on the upside, Valenti on the bottom, and between them -- streams of money (golden sings of $ going from his hands to Congress), and of the bills (a pieces of paper with a sign of 'article' or 'paragraph' falling down to him. On the right, you have IRS. On the left, some Press Agency (eg. IndyTimes). You are the IndyMusic FreedomFighter, who has to catch the $ coins, bring them to the IRS, and, coming back, take each bill and take it to the press agency. 10 points for catching $, 15 points for bill. Well, after each 500 points you have a short animation, in which you have a newspaper editorship working on the new paper, with a column telling "ANOTHER CORRUPT POLITICIAN CAUGHT", and IRS sends his agents to Valenti, and he is taken away in handcuffs.

Another one:
you have a building of Congress, and Valentis (plenty of them) walking towards it. You, as a journalist, must stop them on the road and snap a photo. Or, as a IndyFighter, just STOP him. 20 points. and he gives up his plan. at each 500 points, you have a short animation of a newspaper with "LIBERTY HAS WON" column heading.

Or something similiar. RIAA exploiting the artists. Or so.

Then publicize it. Advertise. Against RIAA.

What do ye think??

Cheerz,
Critto

Hey Critto! In my spare time, apart from college and such, I have a little program on my computer that lets you make simple little games. I'll see what I can do.

Seriously though, this sounds like some attempt at brainwashing or something.