6 ms·

Putin’s Cinema Fund Rejects Movie Piracy, Fuming Cinema Boss Demands Barbie

54 points by gslin 3y ago

TomK32 3y ago
They really should have put Ken into a yellow-blue beach out just so Russia would ban rather than pirate it.
imdsm 3y ago
The real truth, that Russia loves America, and everything since the end of WWII is just angst
- legacynl 3y ago
  [flagged]
- StingyJelly 3y ago
  "Russia loves America" is similiar level of simplification as "post-soviet countries love democracy". In reality, people here don't value democracy as much as they just want German cars, French clothes and American movies and politicians are adapting to the demand.
  - dantyti 3y ago
    I find it difficult to understand whether your second sentence refers to Russia or those 'post-soviet countries'. If it is the latter, I want to note that as a person from a Baltic country I have no doubt that my fellow citizens value self-determination and democracy a lot more than consumer goods.
    - thriftwy 3y ago
      In that case the question would be whether they valid democracy more than the opportunity to be employed in London or Germany. Of course, it's impossible to tell, since in this case they come bundled, at least until now.
      - kranke155 3y ago
        How are those two at odds?
    - StingyJelly 3y ago
      That was a reckless generalization on my part, I meant both. It was my cynical take on the atmosphere in Hungary, Slovakia and Poland as well as (anecdotally) in Russia. Clearly Baltics have made a much bigger progress.
  - dfxm12 3y ago
    Could Barbie have been made (and had the marketing muscle put behind it) anywhere else but America though? Would Givenchy have grown to the brand that it is in a France that wasn't democratic? You can say or even think you don't like America, but what does that really mean when you seek out things that have thrived because of it?
- helsinkiandrew 3y ago
  > The real truth, that Russia loves America I think its "Russians love American popular culture"
  - pjc50 3y ago
    True for a very long time. People would smuggle Levi's into the USSR. I think Americans underestimate sometimes just how much America benefits from its cultural exports which people love.
- dieiek 3y ago
  [flagged]
- renegade-otter 3y ago
  The meaning of "Russian soul" is secretly adoring and mimicking the West (for centuries), while overtly threatening to burn it to the ground. The wives and progeny of some of the most ardent haters live in Europe and give birth in the United States for American citizenship. Case in point: https://www.reddit.com/r/RussiaUkraineWar2022/comments/1116eh0/solovyovs_son_daniel_lives_in_london_and_shows/ https://www.reddit.com/r/RussiaUkraineWar2022/comments/1116e...
  - ativzzz 3y ago
    > "Russian soul" is secretly adoring and mimicking the West Pretty sure it's not secret at all. St Petersburg founded in the 1700s (and then made the capital of Tsarist Russia) was literally an attempt to westernize Russia. I think the "Russian soul" is more of an inner conflict between the desire to live a Western life while under the heavy influence of non-Western traditions and culture
    - renegade-otter 3y ago
      I am not sure what "non-Western culture" means in this context. The only culture I see is the culture of cruelty and sadism.
      - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
        It's not clear what "western culture" really means, other than as a demagogic slogan (used by either side). There are "western" cultureS, plural. Many traditions. And that's the precise strength.
      - ativzzz 3y ago
        Western in the early 18th century referred generally to the cultural reaction of (mostly Western) Europe to the enlightenment that was happening at the time. Russia did not have that movement, so Peter the Great attempted to "Westernize" by bringing some of the ideas into Russia via St. Petersburg, while still maintaining the traditional non-Western Russian Tsarism (I don't know of a better word than non-Western because Eastern doesn't really correspond to a broad culture similar to Westernism as thought of in Western Europe) This is the internal conflict of the "Russian soul"
BoxFour 3y ago
I find myself in an oddly conflicted state about this and see both sides here. I comprehend the cinema's stance; the abrupt change meant they could no longer screen premium content, and the local film industry doesn't appear remotely prepared to contend. They seem to be stuck without a viable solution, and the only effective remedy would entail swift and substantial policy alterations at the federal level. Conversely, the government's position strikes a chord with me, oddly enough. I'll set aside the perspective of "we aim to boost local films and this influx of free premier content would overwhelm us in competition," even though I concur with that viewpoint. Even more-so, when considering the country's situation post-war, rebuffing foreign stakeholders even more vehemently than they currently are seems likely to exacerbate the inevitable and substantial post-war recession. If I were a foreign conglomerate contemplating an eventual re-entry into the country, I'd be closely monitoring this situation and I imagine the government officials considering the post-war era know it. Ultimately the right choice is probably to just let the cinema industry fail, but the responsibility for this predicament lies with neither the ministry of culture nor the cinema industry so I can't help but sympathize with the challenging circumstances a bit.
- ojosilva 3y ago
  For Putin's government the key here is censorship of Western content. Many Western blockbuster movies, Barbie and Oppenheimer included, disseminate ideas that are antagonistic to Putin's fascist narrative. Barbie is, among other things, a play on feminism and on democratic values - think Ken's voting a new Constitution! It's only logical that Putin does not want "foreign agents" distorting the regime's narrative massively distributed to its 83 federal subjects ("federal states"). China has been doing this for ages now by picking a handful of foreign films / year and demanding the Statue of Liberty be removed from film. However, the Chinese market is so yummy that Western blockbuster productions will often self-censor to make sure they make the cut [1]. Putin is getting the opposite in fact, the West is high on anti-Russian sentiments for the last decade or so, and that has trickled down into content. Remember when under Boris Yeltsin that Western productions got plenty of "good Russians" after the Iron Curtain melted down? [1] https://www.voanews.com/a/censorship-of-hollywood-blockbuster-films-intensifies-in-china-/6557850.html https://www.voanews.com/a/censorship-of-hollywood-blockbuste...
Simulacra 3y ago
Wow, the audacity. The movie bosses remind me of the parents protesting in China that cheating should be allowed. I understand there is an entire industry around discouraging pirating, but that would seem completely ineffectual in a case of state-sponsored piracy, or piracy in a state that will not prosecute.
- wodenokoto 3y ago
  I Kinda sympathize with the stance that copyright should not be respected when the rights holder refuse to distribute. We even see this argument on HN with regards to old games that are no longer for sale on any platform.
  - thriftwy 3y ago
    At this point the only thing preventing open large scale piracy is the Russian government's proactive steps to keep it underwater. Obviously, if government intervention wasn't there and you would start distributing Barbie, who can sue you? The movie company? They has exited the market and don't have local presense. If they do, just move the office to LPR and make them file their complaints to "Lugansk People's Republic, Russia".
    - Simulacra 3y ago
      Good point... Just look at what Kim Dotcom has managed to do despite the MPAA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom#Megaupload_arrest_and_extradition_proceedings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom#Megaupload_arrest_a...
tibbydudeza 3y ago
The massive irony of wanting a movie like Barbie - nightly the TV propogandists rail against the decedent west and their immorality and that Russia is somehow involved in fighting a holy war in Ukraine.
- hoc 3y ago
  One could produce an even more colorful version, picturing all the Kremlin's fears, and plant that for pirating. "Oh no, son, your Omon tag reads 'Homo' if you look at it in the mirror..."
- lordfrito 3y ago
  Just another Russian cultural casualty caused by the Kremlin's war on Ukraine and The West. It's baffling at times. As Churchill said, Russia "is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma". We're used to the Will of The People being something that matters (at the very least it's taken into account) in Western culture. The more I pay attention to what's been going on these last few years, the more I'm convinced that Russia is simply a Mafia State with Putin as the Don. Might makes right, those at the top protect their interests, warring with each other when necessary, to the detriment of everything else. The people don't matter, and they've been beaten down to the point they just accept this as part of life. It's engrained in their culture now. To quote The Godfather "Killing him was just business". This can't continue forever. This may not be the end, or the beginning of the end, but we're well past the end of the beginning. Not sure how this gets resolved, but many more Ukrainians and Russians will suffer before something changes. The movie industry is the least of their problems.
  - tibbydudeza 3y ago
    Russia is just centuries of unending melancholy and tragedy - from the beginning with the Tsars, the Communists and then Yeltsin and now Putin - it has always been the Tsar (Putin) vs the Boyars (regional leaders/oligarchs) - the common folk don't really matter.
    - lordfrito 3y ago
hoc 3y ago
I like the story, because any info in it could be totally made up and I wouldn't know, and it would still sound like an interesting plot to me. Ah, movies.
mensetmanusman 3y ago
It’s interesting watching Russia struggle as it devolves into a lawless hellscape with daily drone attacks on its capital. The Russian people who are against this nonsense were unfortunately reluctant to speak up due to fear of death, but when good people remain silent we see what happens time and time again.
- mempko 3y ago
  Yes, because mass protests seem to do well to stop wars. I remember when there were mass protests in the US for the Iraq war and it was over in a month. Remember that time? /s
  - pluijzer 3y ago
    I think that protests where one of the factors that stopped the war with Vietnam.
  - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
    Mass protests work. But they take time and persistence. It's not the spectacle of the actual mass protest itself, its what they do to create connections and unity between people who previously felt isolated from each other. The most important thing coming out of a protest is not the pictures for the news media, but the "come to this next event" fliers handed out, or mailing lists put together, to continue to build momentum. Protest was most likely a huge factor in keeping Canada (and probably other potential "allies") out of the war, no matter what Chretien says in retrospect. The federal Liberals in power at the time were on the fence, but the mass protests that week (and leading up to it) were the largest in history and the government clearly saw it would cost them. (But then they turned around and provided backchannel support, and were still involved in Afghanistan, etc. so...) I suspect getting involved there was also a big factor in the implosion of the UK Labour Party since then... I marched in the protests that week in Toronto. They were the largest mass street protests -- and probably the most emotional -- I've ever been in. It got pretty heated outside the US embassy, too. Seems to me the problem in the US with the Iraq war is that Americans are on the whole brought up to be extremely pro-military, "support our troops" at all cost. Lots of ra-ra patriotism stuff that is about the only thing in US society that is not partisan. Many of the "liberals" I know there still give me shitty excuses why they initially supported what was clearly, to anybody who was thinking a terrible imperialist war. Anybody with half a brain knew it wasn't about "weapons of mass destruction", and people still using that "they lied to us" excuse are being intellectually dishonest. They supported because of nationalism. And you know what, instead of Russians using this historical example as a "What About?" moment to point fingers at the US -- which accomplishes nothing -- they should be absorbing the actual lesson about the awful things that imperialist nationalism makes people and nations do... and get a spine. I expected Americans to get a spine then and stop the war, and I expect Russians to do so now. Disappointed both times, so far.
justsomehnguy 3y ago
> A furious cinema chief has accused the fund and government of protecting Western copyright holders. He says that Russia needs pirated copies of Barbie in cinemas, sooner rather than later. The grass is green, the water is wet, a capitalist wanting back his 100 per cent is totally okay to trample on human laws, other news at 11.
trhow234898 3y ago
I think this article is missing the point. State sponsored cinemas should have a high standard. Playing something with shady copyright, would stain their reputation. Americans would not also play cheap porn in Super Imax theater... Nobody in Russia cares if some local private/municipal theater plays DVD rip of Barbie...
fevangelou 3y ago
Seriously, who writes article titles like this?
- rexreed 3y ago
  And who reads them?

54 points by gslin 3y ago

TomK32 3y ago

They really should have put Ken into a yellow-blue beach out just so Russia would ban rather than pirate it.

imdsm 3y ago

The real truth, that Russia loves America, and everything since the end of WWII is just angst

legacynl 3y ago
[flagged]
StingyJelly 3y ago
"Russia loves America" is similiar level of simplification as "post-soviet countries love democracy". In reality, people here don't value democracy as much as they just want German cars, French clothes and American movies and politicians are adapting to the demand.
- dantyti 3y ago
  I find it difficult to understand whether your second sentence refers to Russia or those 'post-soviet countries'. If it is the latter, I want to note that as a person from a Baltic country I have no doubt that my fellow citizens value self-determination and democracy a lot more than consumer goods.
  - thriftwy 3y ago
    In that case the question would be whether they valid democracy more than the opportunity to be employed in London or Germany. Of course, it's impossible to tell, since in this case they come bundled, at least until now.
    - kranke155 3y ago
      How are those two at odds?
  - StingyJelly 3y ago
    That was a reckless generalization on my part, I meant both. It was my cynical take on the atmosphere in Hungary, Slovakia and Poland as well as (anecdotally) in Russia. Clearly Baltics have made a much bigger progress.
- dfxm12 3y ago
  Could Barbie have been made (and had the marketing muscle put behind it) anywhere else but America though? Would Givenchy have grown to the brand that it is in a France that wasn't democratic? You can say or even think you don't like America, but what does that really mean when you seek out things that have thrived because of it?
helsinkiandrew 3y ago
> The real truth, that Russia loves America I think its "Russians love American popular culture"
- pjc50 3y ago
  True for a very long time. People would smuggle Levi's into the USSR. I think Americans underestimate sometimes just how much America benefits from its cultural exports which people love.
dieiek 3y ago
[flagged]
renegade-otter 3y ago
The meaning of "Russian soul" is secretly adoring and mimicking the West (for centuries), while overtly threatening to burn it to the ground. The wives and progeny of some of the most ardent haters live in Europe and give birth in the United States for American citizenship. Case in point: https://www.reddit.com/r/RussiaUkraineWar2022/comments/1116eh0/solovyovs_son_daniel_lives_in_london_and_shows/ https://www.reddit.com/r/RussiaUkraineWar2022/comments/1116e...
- ativzzz 3y ago
  > "Russian soul" is secretly adoring and mimicking the West Pretty sure it's not secret at all. St Petersburg founded in the 1700s (and then made the capital of Tsarist Russia) was literally an attempt to westernize Russia. I think the "Russian soul" is more of an inner conflict between the desire to live a Western life while under the heavy influence of non-Western traditions and culture
  - renegade-otter 3y ago
    I am not sure what "non-Western culture" means in this context. The only culture I see is the culture of cruelty and sadism.
    - cmrdporcupine 3y ago
      It's not clear what "western culture" really means, other than as a demagogic slogan (used by either side). There are "western" cultureS, plural. Many traditions. And that's the precise strength.
    - ativzzz 3y ago
      Western in the early 18th century referred generally to the cultural reaction of (mostly Western) Europe to the enlightenment that was happening at the time. Russia did not have that movement, so Peter the Great attempted to "Westernize" by bringing some of the ideas into Russia via St. Petersburg, while still maintaining the traditional non-Western Russian Tsarism (I don't know of a better word than non-Western because Eastern doesn't really correspond to a broad culture similar to Westernism as thought of in Western Europe) This is the internal conflict of the "Russian soul"

BoxFour 3y ago

I find myself in an oddly conflicted state about this and see both sides here. I comprehend the cinema's stance; the abrupt change meant they could no longer screen premium content, and the local film industry doesn't appear remotely prepared to contend. They seem to be stuck without a viable solution, and the only effective remedy would entail swift and substantial policy alterations at the federal level. Conversely, the government's position strikes a chord with me, oddly enough. I'll set aside the perspective of "we aim to boost local films and this influx of free premier content would overwhelm us in competition," even though I concur with that viewpoint. Even more-so, when considering the country's situation post-war, rebuffing foreign stakeholders even more vehemently than they currently are seems likely to exacerbate the inevitable and substantial post-war recession. If I were a foreign conglomerate contemplating an eventual re-entry into the country, I'd be closely monitoring this situation and I imagine the government officials considering the post-war era know it. Ultimately the right choice is probably to just let the cinema industry fail, but the responsibility for this predicament lies with neither the ministry of culture nor the cinema industry so I can't help but sympathize with the challenging circumstances a bit.

ojosilva 3y ago
For Putin's government the key here is censorship of Western content. Many Western blockbuster movies, Barbie and Oppenheimer included, disseminate ideas that are antagonistic to Putin's fascist narrative. Barbie is, among other things, a play on feminism and on democratic values - think Ken's voting a new Constitution! It's only logical that Putin does not want "foreign agents" distorting the regime's narrative massively distributed to its 83 federal subjects ("federal states"). China has been doing this for ages now by picking a handful of foreign films / year and demanding the Statue of Liberty be removed from film. However, the Chinese market is so yummy that Western blockbuster productions will often self-censor to make sure they make the cut [1]. Putin is getting the opposite in fact, the West is high on anti-Russian sentiments for the last decade or so, and that has trickled down into content. Remember when under Boris Yeltsin that Western productions got plenty of "good Russians" after the Iron Curtain melted down? [1] https://www.voanews.com/a/censorship-of-hollywood-blockbuster-films-intensifies-in-china-/6557850.html https://www.voanews.com/a/censorship-of-hollywood-blockbuste...

Simulacra 3y ago

Wow, the audacity. The movie bosses remind me of the parents protesting in China that cheating should be allowed. I understand there is an entire industry around discouraging pirating, but that would seem completely ineffectual in a case of state-sponsored piracy, or piracy in a state that will not prosecute.

wodenokoto 3y ago
I Kinda sympathize with the stance that copyright should not be respected when the rights holder refuse to distribute. We even see this argument on HN with regards to old games that are no longer for sale on any platform.
- thriftwy 3y ago
  At this point the only thing preventing open large scale piracy is the Russian government's proactive steps to keep it underwater. Obviously, if government intervention wasn't there and you would start distributing Barbie, who can sue you? The movie company? They has exited the market and don't have local presense. If they do, just move the office to LPR and make them file their complaints to "Lugansk People's Republic, Russia".
  - Simulacra 3y ago
    Good point... Just look at what Kim Dotcom has managed to do despite the MPAA. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom#Megaupload_arrest_and_extradition_proceedings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Dotcom#Megaupload_arrest_a...

tibbydudeza 3y ago

The massive irony of wanting a movie like Barbie - nightly the TV propogandists rail against the decedent west and their immorality and that Russia is somehow involved in fighting a holy war in Ukraine.

hoc 3y ago
One could produce an even more colorful version, picturing all the Kremlin's fears, and plant that for pirating. "Oh no, son, your Omon tag reads 'Homo' if you look at it in the mirror..."
lordfrito 3y ago
Just another Russian cultural casualty caused by the Kremlin's war on Ukraine and The West. It's baffling at times. As Churchill said, Russia "is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma". We're used to the Will of The People being something that matters (at the very least it's taken into account) in Western culture. The more I pay attention to what's been going on these last few years, the more I'm convinced that Russia is simply a Mafia State with Putin as the Don. Might makes right, those at the top protect their interests, warring with each other when necessary, to the detriment of everything else. The people don't matter, and they've been beaten down to the point they just accept this as part of life. It's engrained in their culture now. To quote The Godfather "Killing him was just business". This can't continue forever. This may not be the end, or the beginning of the end, but we're well past the end of the beginning. Not sure how this gets resolved, but many more Ukrainians and Russians will suffer before something changes. The movie industry is the least of their problems.
- tibbydudeza 3y ago
  Russia is just centuries of unending melancholy and tragedy - from the beginning with the Tsars, the Communists and then Yeltsin and now Putin - it has always been the Tsar (Putin) vs the Boyars (regional leaders/oligarchs) - the common folk don't really matter.
  - lordfrito 3y ago

hoc 3y ago

I like the story, because any info in it could be totally made up and I wouldn't know, and it would still sound like an interesting plot to me. Ah, movies.

mensetmanusman 3y ago

It’s interesting watching Russia struggle as it devolves into a lawless hellscape with daily drone attacks on its capital. The Russian people who are against this nonsense were unfortunately reluctant to speak up due to fear of death, but when good people remain silent we see what happens time and time again.

mempko 3y ago
Yes, because mass protests seem to do well to stop wars. I remember when there were mass protests in the US for the Iraq war and it was over in a month. Remember that time? /s
- pluijzer 3y ago
  I think that protests where one of the factors that stopped the war with Vietnam.
- cmrdporcupine 3y ago
  Mass protests work. But they take time and persistence. It's not the spectacle of the actual mass protest itself, its what they do to create connections and unity between people who previously felt isolated from each other. The most important thing coming out of a protest is not the pictures for the news media, but the "come to this next event" fliers handed out, or mailing lists put together, to continue to build momentum. Protest was most likely a huge factor in keeping Canada (and probably other potential "allies") out of the war, no matter what Chretien says in retrospect. The federal Liberals in power at the time were on the fence, but the mass protests that week (and leading up to it) were the largest in history and the government clearly saw it would cost them. (But then they turned around and provided backchannel support, and were still involved in Afghanistan, etc. so...) I suspect getting involved there was also a big factor in the implosion of the UK Labour Party since then... I marched in the protests that week in Toronto. They were the largest mass street protests -- and probably the most emotional -- I've ever been in. It got pretty heated outside the US embassy, too. Seems to me the problem in the US with the Iraq war is that Americans are on the whole brought up to be extremely pro-military, "support our troops" at all cost. Lots of ra-ra patriotism stuff that is about the only thing in US society that is not partisan. Many of the "liberals" I know there still give me shitty excuses why they initially supported what was clearly, to anybody who was thinking a terrible imperialist war. Anybody with half a brain knew it wasn't about "weapons of mass destruction", and people still using that "they lied to us" excuse are being intellectually dishonest. They supported because of nationalism. And you know what, instead of Russians using this historical example as a "What About?" moment to point fingers at the US -- which accomplishes nothing -- they should be absorbing the actual lesson about the awful things that imperialist nationalism makes people and nations do... and get a spine. I expected Americans to get a spine then and stop the war, and I expect Russians to do so now. Disappointed both times, so far.

justsomehnguy 3y ago

> A furious cinema chief has accused the fund and government of protecting Western copyright holders. He says that Russia needs pirated copies of Barbie in cinemas, sooner rather than later. The grass is green, the water is wet, a capitalist wanting back his 100 per cent is totally okay to trample on human laws, other news at 11.

trhow234898 3y ago

I think this article is missing the point. State sponsored cinemas should have a high standard. Playing something with shady copyright, would stain their reputation. Americans would not also play cheap porn in Super Imax theater... Nobody in Russia cares if some local private/municipal theater plays DVD rip of Barbie...

fevangelou 3y ago

Seriously, who writes article titles like this?

rexreed 3y ago
And who reads them?