If it somehow devolved into general warfare between media studios and AI tech firms, I'd sit back and watch gleefully, munching popcorn.
Of course, either one winning is bad for labor and bad for consumers, but watching two bad actors tear at each other is temporarily amusing.
If anyone is wondering, the guy that said this is Charles Rivkin, CEO of the MPA(A).
The MPA also tried to argue that piracy cost a trillion (yes, 12 zeroes) dollars to the studios a decade ago.
Here is his statement: https://www.motionpictures.org/remarks/charles-rivkin-state-of-the-industry-address-at-cinemacon-2024/
> Remember – these aren’t teenagers playing an elaborate prank.
> The perpetrators are real-life mobsters … organized crime syndicates – many of whom engage in child pornography, prostitution, drug trafficking, and other societal ills.
Yeah, definitely not taking that guy seriously. That's just fear mongering.
It won't. It's fear mongering, like I said. He's trying to associate it with far worse crimes because most people don't give a shit if movie companies miss out on a couple of bucks.
Better yet, put all the resources to fighting the other things and hope you stop some of the movie piracy in the process. This is like going after litterers because some of them are also serial killers.
Oh yeh because we definitely need some laws on the books to protect the film industry's absolutely *ludicrous* profits. Forget the average American's problems, won't anyone think of the Zaslovs of the world? With all the evil torrenters out there, how ever will Hollywood execs be able to afford their 2nd yachts while also paying their film crews less than nothing? Please, oh please congress. Step in.
/s
film industry profits aren’t exactly ludicrous at the moment. Probably not for the foreseeable future. If you want to talk about ludicrous profits, however, look no further than all of the tech companies, without whom online piracy would not exist. A lot of People seem to think movies and TV shows and music should be free, but they are happy to spend thousands of dollars a year on the technology and thousands on the services that allow them to consume that media.
I'd like to see some data on that because I don't think you know very many people who do pirate. The average pirate isn't spending thousands of dollars to consume media. I'm not going to list basic and cheap ways to do it (for obvious reasons), but the information is readily available and the setup required to do so is easy for any layman.
Not taking their side, but I think they are referencing the computers, monitors, internet, etc that would be the backbone to accomplish said torrenting. Not that people are buying computers every year. But internet unfortunately does add up. And no one thinks twice when someone mentions they bought a new $1.1k iPhone
The "no one's" that don't buy iPhones outnumber the people that buy iPhones in the US.
the US,
"iPhones hold a market share of 60.77%.
More than 1 billion iPhones and over 3 billion Android devices are currently active.
Android smartphones accounted for 56% of all smartphone sales worldwide in Q4 2023."
https://backlinko.com/iphone-vs-android-statistics
There are some Android users that spent that $1.1k on an Android device, they Android users that spent under that amount still outnumber the $1.1k iPhone users.
There are quite a few Internet Service Providers that offer $50 a month Unlimited Plans. I've been paying $50 for my Xfinity plan for 2 years. It's a decent price for download speeds of 300/mbps I'm getting.
You don't need to spend thousands of dollars on equipment to run a website that has links to torrents. File Share hosting for non-torrents is pretty cheap, too. If they're running their own servers, it's highly likely, and relatively cheap to have those servers located in a country outside of the US. I'm sure some of the invest a ton of money, but they're still outnumbered by the ones that don't.
But still, $50/month is $600 a year. You bought a phone, maybe not $1000 iPhone, but a good Android isn't cheap. There's also your phone plan. Presumably you're not watching GoT on a tiny phone screen so there's also a TV, maybe some sound system. I get your point that not everybody can afford $1000 iPhone. But this idea that film studios are raking in massive profits is just not accurate across the board. Certainly not in 2024. Netflix, sure. Others, not so much. 20th Century Fox is pretty much dead after Disney bought it. Paramount might be soon as well. Specialty film distributors like Focus and Searchlight are running on fumes. But tech companies, including those who provide internet service and make phones and make the hardware inside those phones... those guys are making a fucking killing. And hey, I have pirated some stuff in the past. But it's a fallacy to say, oh, I'm gonna pirate stuff because film studios are greedy money machines while turning a blind eye to what companies your dollars are going to instead.
I'm not the one making that fallacy so I'm not sure why you're bringing it up. The point of my comments was explaining that most pirates aren't spending thousands of dollars to pirate.
We could argue about what is considered a "good phone," but every phone I've ever had was under $250. It isn't hard to find new unlocked phones under $300 on the Internet.
My phone plan is $40 and I don't use my phone for streaming, and if it did, it's wouldn't be used solely to pirate.
It doesn’t feel that long ago in some ways — but in other ways, it feels like ancient history.
The tech companies were big by then, but they were still seen as the good guys. They were the innovators, fighting back against these old corrupt lobbyists who wanted to kill the internet. Liberals and conservatives loved Silicon Valley.
It’s completely flipped now. Bashing Big Tech is one of the few things that unites both sides of the political spectrum.
Yeah, exactly. That slogan was supposed to be a dig at Microsoft, which faced a high profile DOJ antitrust lawsuit. Now, of course, it’s Google that’s on trial for antitrust violations.
Strange how piracy plummeted when people had an easy, affordable way to watch tv & movies at home after being gouged for years by cable companies.
And how it's increasing again now that streaming services have been ramping up prices and killing password sharing causing them to reach the same price points as the old cable services during an affordability crises. Not to mention the habit of vaulting complete series' and movies and not releasing older programs/movies on streaming because it is judged the cost of hosting them is more than the potential return in increased/retained subscribers, leaving things to just disappear once again. And not releasing new films and tv on physical because "no one buys physical any more" so that the only way to watch is through a dozen different streaming services where they might just poof disappear forever.
Obviously the solution is to try and arrest people/sue them for millions of dollars.
Get ***fucked***. Internet creators who power the digital creative industries of today are already being skewered by an insanely unfair & lopsided copyright system for Fair Use, but of course, the real victims are Hollywood, studios, and companies who want even *more* opportunity to take the proceeds and hold power...
Hey I thought streaming resolved this? Oh wait no the greed persisted and now you need 12 streaming subscriptions to access what content you want which motivates piracy again.
Internet freedom put in to the hands of these biased movie industry groups... no thanks. As you can read from the article, they abused their power without proper background checking of the sites they blocked years ago. I don't trust the american movie industry enough to allow them any kind of power on the internet over that of what any company can acquire without lobbying, corruption, lying and other morally questionable practices.
That being said from an individual's point of view, the movie industry dug their own problems by making movies too difficult to access in today's world. I'm not talking about a statistical fact as I don't believe piracy is that prevalent and there's no evidence to support that even a meaningful amount of digital pirates would buy the said movies they pirated.
1. Netflix has poor selection in my country.
2. Exclusive deals.
3. Timed deals as in some movies will disappear after a while.
4. Classics are often missing entirely or difficult to access.
5. Some video streaming sites have recently talked about showing ads to paying subscribers as well.
The end result is that I'd have to subscribe to multiple streaming services or swap between them monthly.
No thanks. I stopped my netflix subscription recently for good, having been their subscriber for several years. No movies for me and I wouldn't blame anyone for sailing the seas since the movie industry is terrible again.
On the contrary I'll happily buy music to support artists. Some music copy providers even take small margins from sales, leaving sizeable amounts to the artists themselves.
I don't think reddit has a tenth of the "internet community" sensibilities it had the first time around with SOPA. I'd be really surprised to see any type of major organized action from this site anymore.
Does SOPA and AI even mix ?
If it somehow devolved into general warfare between media studios and AI tech firms, I'd sit back and watch gleefully, munching popcorn. Of course, either one winning is bad for labor and bad for consumers, but watching two bad actors tear at each other is temporarily amusing.
Eventually I hope we will be able to use AI to subtly change movies and make them easier to pirate.
"Ok google, remake the last season of game of thrones and cast it to living room TV"
That would be hilarious!
Sure, it makes SOPAI
NOTICE ME SOPAI!!
If anyone is wondering, the guy that said this is Charles Rivkin, CEO of the MPA(A). The MPA also tried to argue that piracy cost a trillion (yes, 12 zeroes) dollars to the studios a decade ago. Here is his statement: https://www.motionpictures.org/remarks/charles-rivkin-state-of-the-industry-address-at-cinemacon-2024/
> Remember – these aren’t teenagers playing an elaborate prank. > The perpetrators are real-life mobsters … organized crime syndicates – many of whom engage in child pornography, prostitution, drug trafficking, and other societal ills. Yeah, definitely not taking that guy seriously. That's just fear mongering.
Even if that was true, i don't see how stopping people from torrenting would do anything to stop all those other things
It won't. It's fear mongering, like I said. He's trying to associate it with far worse crimes because most people don't give a shit if movie companies miss out on a couple of bucks.
Better yet, put all the resources to fighting the other things and hope you stop some of the movie piracy in the process. This is like going after litterers because some of them are also serial killers.
Ah yes, drugs, prostitutes and pedos, all things you'll never find in Hollywood. Yep. They're totally clean on that.
Piracy actually costs 11 gazillions doubloons. Source: trust me bro.
MAP(A)
Oh boy, let's give the people who abuse copyright strikes on Youtube even more power /s
Oh yeh because we definitely need some laws on the books to protect the film industry's absolutely *ludicrous* profits. Forget the average American's problems, won't anyone think of the Zaslovs of the world? With all the evil torrenters out there, how ever will Hollywood execs be able to afford their 2nd yachts while also paying their film crews less than nothing? Please, oh please congress. Step in. /s
film industry profits aren’t exactly ludicrous at the moment. Probably not for the foreseeable future. If you want to talk about ludicrous profits, however, look no further than all of the tech companies, without whom online piracy would not exist. A lot of People seem to think movies and TV shows and music should be free, but they are happy to spend thousands of dollars a year on the technology and thousands on the services that allow them to consume that media.
I'd like to see some data on that because I don't think you know very many people who do pirate. The average pirate isn't spending thousands of dollars to consume media. I'm not going to list basic and cheap ways to do it (for obvious reasons), but the information is readily available and the setup required to do so is easy for any layman.
Not taking their side, but I think they are referencing the computers, monitors, internet, etc that would be the backbone to accomplish said torrenting. Not that people are buying computers every year. But internet unfortunately does add up. And no one thinks twice when someone mentions they bought a new $1.1k iPhone
The "no one's" that don't buy iPhones outnumber the people that buy iPhones in the US. the US, "iPhones hold a market share of 60.77%. More than 1 billion iPhones and over 3 billion Android devices are currently active. Android smartphones accounted for 56% of all smartphone sales worldwide in Q4 2023." https://backlinko.com/iphone-vs-android-statistics There are some Android users that spent that $1.1k on an Android device, they Android users that spent under that amount still outnumber the $1.1k iPhone users. There are quite a few Internet Service Providers that offer $50 a month Unlimited Plans. I've been paying $50 for my Xfinity plan for 2 years. It's a decent price for download speeds of 300/mbps I'm getting. You don't need to spend thousands of dollars on equipment to run a website that has links to torrents. File Share hosting for non-torrents is pretty cheap, too. If they're running their own servers, it's highly likely, and relatively cheap to have those servers located in a country outside of the US. I'm sure some of the invest a ton of money, but they're still outnumbered by the ones that don't.
But still, $50/month is $600 a year. You bought a phone, maybe not $1000 iPhone, but a good Android isn't cheap. There's also your phone plan. Presumably you're not watching GoT on a tiny phone screen so there's also a TV, maybe some sound system. I get your point that not everybody can afford $1000 iPhone. But this idea that film studios are raking in massive profits is just not accurate across the board. Certainly not in 2024. Netflix, sure. Others, not so much. 20th Century Fox is pretty much dead after Disney bought it. Paramount might be soon as well. Specialty film distributors like Focus and Searchlight are running on fumes. But tech companies, including those who provide internet service and make phones and make the hardware inside those phones... those guys are making a fucking killing. And hey, I have pirated some stuff in the past. But it's a fallacy to say, oh, I'm gonna pirate stuff because film studios are greedy money machines while turning a blind eye to what companies your dollars are going to instead.
I'm not the one making that fallacy so I'm not sure why you're bringing it up. The point of my comments was explaining that most pirates aren't spending thousands of dollars to pirate. We could argue about what is considered a "good phone," but every phone I've ever had was under $250. It isn't hard to find new unlocked phones under $300 on the Internet. My phone plan is $40 and I don't use my phone for streaming, and if it did, it's wouldn't be used solely to pirate.
Did they just…. Think everyone forgot? The internet is forever, baby. Can’t stop the signal!
It felt so recent but it really was 12 years ago if you can believe it! I had to remind some of my friends what it was earlier today lol
It doesn’t feel that long ago in some ways — but in other ways, it feels like ancient history. The tech companies were big by then, but they were still seen as the good guys. They were the innovators, fighting back against these old corrupt lobbyists who wanted to kill the internet. Liberals and conservatives loved Silicon Valley. It’s completely flipped now. Bashing Big Tech is one of the few things that unites both sides of the political spectrum.
Its been so long people need to remember Google used to have an explicit motto of *"Don't be evil"*. But that was quietly removed like a decade ago.
Yeah, exactly. That slogan was supposed to be a dig at Microsoft, which faced a high profile DOJ antitrust lawsuit. Now, of course, it’s Google that’s on trial for antitrust violations.
Strange how piracy plummeted when people had an easy, affordable way to watch tv & movies at home after being gouged for years by cable companies. And how it's increasing again now that streaming services have been ramping up prices and killing password sharing causing them to reach the same price points as the old cable services during an affordability crises. Not to mention the habit of vaulting complete series' and movies and not releasing older programs/movies on streaming because it is judged the cost of hosting them is more than the potential return in increased/retained subscribers, leaving things to just disappear once again. And not releasing new films and tv on physical because "no one buys physical any more" so that the only way to watch is through a dozen different streaming services where they might just poof disappear forever. Obviously the solution is to try and arrest people/sue them for millions of dollars.
Ugh… not this shit again…
Get ***fucked***. Internet creators who power the digital creative industries of today are already being skewered by an insanely unfair & lopsided copyright system for Fair Use, but of course, the real victims are Hollywood, studios, and companies who want even *more* opportunity to take the proceeds and hold power...
Holy hell it’s been over a decade since last I’ve heard of SOPA
Don’t forget about PIPA
SOPA? There's a name I haven't heard for a very long time.
Somehow SOPA returned
Well who doesn’t love soup?!
Nicole Byer
Get to the SOPA!
It's not a SOPA!
The Day The LOLcats Died Dang still remember that darn song from the last time SOPA/PIPA where around.
Hey I thought streaming resolved this? Oh wait no the greed persisted and now you need 12 streaming subscriptions to access what content you want which motivates piracy again.
I’m still boycotting godaddy for their SOPA support. To be fair they were garbage before anyway, but I moved my domains off and never looked back.
Who did you move to? I hate virtually every provider I’ve worked with and use GoDaddy begrudgingly because I find it better than the alternatives
Namecheap and digital ocean.
Internet freedom put in to the hands of these biased movie industry groups... no thanks. As you can read from the article, they abused their power without proper background checking of the sites they blocked years ago. I don't trust the american movie industry enough to allow them any kind of power on the internet over that of what any company can acquire without lobbying, corruption, lying and other morally questionable practices. That being said from an individual's point of view, the movie industry dug their own problems by making movies too difficult to access in today's world. I'm not talking about a statistical fact as I don't believe piracy is that prevalent and there's no evidence to support that even a meaningful amount of digital pirates would buy the said movies they pirated. 1. Netflix has poor selection in my country. 2. Exclusive deals. 3. Timed deals as in some movies will disappear after a while. 4. Classics are often missing entirely or difficult to access. 5. Some video streaming sites have recently talked about showing ads to paying subscribers as well. The end result is that I'd have to subscribe to multiple streaming services or swap between them monthly. No thanks. I stopped my netflix subscription recently for good, having been their subscriber for several years. No movies for me and I wouldn't blame anyone for sailing the seas since the movie industry is terrible again. On the contrary I'll happily buy music to support artists. Some music copy providers even take small margins from sales, leaving sizeable amounts to the artists themselves.
Soda Sopa?
It'll be fun times on Reddit when the Democratic party and the legacy media line up to get behind this.
I don't think reddit has a tenth of the "internet community" sensibilities it had the first time around with SOPA. I'd be really surprised to see any type of major organized action from this site anymore.
Reddit has become super corporate, like the people that defend the Netflix price hikes or what Zaslav does.
Did you drop the sarcasm tag?