5 ms·

This should be put in context. This is no unassuming teenager who downloaded a film via a file sharing network and was caught "distributing" it, due to the natu

by kken 13y ago

This should be put in context. This is no unassuming teenager who downloaded a film via a file sharing network and was caught "distributing" it, due to the nature of file sharing. He uploaded an unreleased movie that has not been released otherwise, thereby causing significant damage to the original producers. Furthermore he got fined extra to due uploading the film in bad quality, thereby damaging reputation.

Maakuth 13y ago
> He uploaded an unreleased movie that has not been released otherwise, thereby causing significant damage to the original producers. Furthermore he got fined extra to due uploading the film in bad quality, thereby damaging reputation. What the... I find this highly amusing, as copyright holders have previously argued that high quality copies are also damaging.
- thaumasiotes 13y ago
  You remind me of two things: 1. I have read (and don't take this as trustworthy; my memory could be failing or my forgotten source could have just been making it up) that after a PR campaign to get mexican prostitutes and their patrons to use condoms, condom use was no more prevalent, but prostitute earnings were up. The campaign had gotten men to ask for their preferred mode, and the prostitutes acted as if they preferred the other mode and charged more for the "accommodation". 2. In the first Myth Adventure book, Skeeve is taught the concept of the "magician's choice". As illustrated in the book, it's used like so: Skeeve has, say, a horse and a lizard. The only magic he can do is an illusion to make the lizard look like a horse. So, to prove to some important individual that he's a mighty magician, he brings his horse and his horse-that-is-secretly-a-lizard. He asks, "would you be so kind as to choose one of these horses?" The dupe points to the real one. "Very good. By your word shall that creature be spared." And he dispels the illusion on the lizard, taking credit for the fearsome ability to curse horses (and, presumably, other things) into lizards. Since that was the only thing he could do, the "magician's choice" consisted of asking his dupe to choose an animal, so that they felt in control, but without specifying any consequences of the choice. Had the guy indicated the fake horse, Skeeve would have cursed "the creature you have doomed with a word". Sadly, I think copyright holders as a class will be able to get away with talking out of both sides of their mouth as long as they don't make both complaints (low quality is especially damaging because it damages the film's reputation, and high quality is especially damaging because it depresses demand for the official product) in the same case. Personally, of those two theories, I think the argument for high quality being more damaging is much stronger.
  - marcosdumay 13y ago
    That they (and anyboy else) can get away with that is one more simptom of a deeply flawed legal system. The honest integrants of this system should be ashamed, but they live in a parallel universe, where such things are considered good.
  - lisper 13y ago
    Speaking as a filmmaker myself, you are overlooking an important point: timing matters. A lot. Releasing a low-quality bootleg after a film has already been officially released through normal channels is very different from releasing a low-quality bootleg as the film's de-facto premiere. You only get one chance to make a first impression, and in this case the pirate took that opportunity away from the filmmaker.
    - DanBC 13y ago
      I was about to disagree with you and say that anyone downloading pre-release low quality products know that they're getting low quality product and know that the film will be better. But then I remembered the people with beta OS access who file reviews for software that doesn't work with that beta product yet, even though the software producers are not allowed to incorporate those fixes yet.
      - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
        I don't think the Beta OS users software review situation carries over to the other context. If it's a low quality then you're relying on the story. If the story of the movie is good then there's no harm - people will be more keen to see it. If the story is OK but the visuals are clearly harmed by the quality of the copy - then people will be more keen to see it in a better definition/encoding/format. Some movies you just know you want to see at the cinema even if you've bought the DVD just because you know you'll appreciate the scale more. I've never watched a movie with a good story and said "I wouldn't watch that if the visuals were better". YM[as a movie distributor]MV.
        13y ago
- pauljburke 13y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morton's_fork http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morton's_fork
- rbehrends 13y ago
  What the... I find this highly amusing, as copyright holders have previously argued that high quality copies are also damaging. It's a moral rights [1] issue. While moral rights are essentially unheard of in the US (outside of the Visual Artists Rights Act), they play an important role in continental Europe with its much different theory of copyright. You may recall, for example, that Michael Ende sued to have the movie version of the Neverending Story pulled (while he lost, the judgement saw its share of criticism) and that the French courts sided with the estate of John Huston in not allowing the colorized version of Asphalt Jungle to be shown in France. Both were about the right of the author to the integrity of their work. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights
- anigbrowl 13y ago
  Both can be true. If I give away or sell cheaply a high-quality copy of your movie, people have less incentive to purchase an official copy. If I give away a low-quality copy, people know that the official DVD (or whatever) offers a higher quality. If I give away a low-quality copy of your unreleased movie, and that is the only copy extant, then people may decide the film itself is of low quality (ie bad lighting, sound, camerawork - things which are degraded by generational loss) and lower the reputation of the film before release. Context matters a lot. Ignoring it leads to a lot of fallacious arguments.
supersystem 13y ago
> He uploaded an unreleased movie that has not been released otherwise The movie was already released as SweBits only (with some exceptions) allowed scene releases. He was sentenced for the "uploading" to SweBits and not for releasing it onto the scene. It's fairly clear in the verdict.
bobobjorn 13y ago
It should also be put in the context that this movie had a revunue of about 1.4M USD in the cinema. And about 750K USD in dvd sales The numbers in general in the judgement are just made up and full of bad math. swedish: http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.540098/hittepasiffror-bakom-rekordskadestand http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.540098/hittepasiffror-bakom-rekor...
acuozzo 13y ago
> Furthermore he got fined extra to due uploading the film in bad quality, thereby damaging reputation. Contrary Anecdote: The VCD Z Screener of The Matrix is terrible quality and was widely distributed prior to the release of the film, but didn't hurt the reputation of the film at all.

by kken 13y ago

Maakuth 13y ago

> He uploaded an unreleased movie that has not been released otherwise, thereby causing significant damage to the original producers. Furthermore he got fined extra to due uploading the film in bad quality, thereby damaging reputation. What the... I find this highly amusing, as copyright holders have previously argued that high quality copies are also damaging.

thaumasiotes 13y ago
You remind me of two things: 1. I have read (and don't take this as trustworthy; my memory could be failing or my forgotten source could have just been making it up) that after a PR campaign to get mexican prostitutes and their patrons to use condoms, condom use was no more prevalent, but prostitute earnings were up. The campaign had gotten men to ask for their preferred mode, and the prostitutes acted as if they preferred the other mode and charged more for the "accommodation". 2. In the first Myth Adventure book, Skeeve is taught the concept of the "magician's choice". As illustrated in the book, it's used like so: Skeeve has, say, a horse and a lizard. The only magic he can do is an illusion to make the lizard look like a horse. So, to prove to some important individual that he's a mighty magician, he brings his horse and his horse-that-is-secretly-a-lizard. He asks, "would you be so kind as to choose one of these horses?" The dupe points to the real one. "Very good. By your word shall that creature be spared." And he dispels the illusion on the lizard, taking credit for the fearsome ability to curse horses (and, presumably, other things) into lizards. Since that was the only thing he could do, the "magician's choice" consisted of asking his dupe to choose an animal, so that they felt in control, but without specifying any consequences of the choice. Had the guy indicated the fake horse, Skeeve would have cursed "the creature you have doomed with a word". Sadly, I think copyright holders as a class will be able to get away with talking out of both sides of their mouth as long as they don't make both complaints (low quality is especially damaging because it damages the film's reputation, and high quality is especially damaging because it depresses demand for the official product) in the same case. Personally, of those two theories, I think the argument for high quality being more damaging is much stronger.
- marcosdumay 13y ago
  That they (and anyboy else) can get away with that is one more simptom of a deeply flawed legal system. The honest integrants of this system should be ashamed, but they live in a parallel universe, where such things are considered good.
- lisper 13y ago
  Speaking as a filmmaker myself, you are overlooking an important point: timing matters. A lot. Releasing a low-quality bootleg after a film has already been officially released through normal channels is very different from releasing a low-quality bootleg as the film's de-facto premiere. You only get one chance to make a first impression, and in this case the pirate took that opportunity away from the filmmaker.
  - DanBC 13y ago
    I was about to disagree with you and say that anyone downloading pre-release low quality products know that they're getting low quality product and know that the film will be better. But then I remembered the people with beta OS access who file reviews for software that doesn't work with that beta product yet, even though the software producers are not allowed to incorporate those fixes yet.
    - pbhjpbhj 13y ago
      I don't think the Beta OS users software review situation carries over to the other context. If it's a low quality then you're relying on the story. If the story of the movie is good then there's no harm - people will be more keen to see it. If the story is OK but the visuals are clearly harmed by the quality of the copy - then people will be more keen to see it in a better definition/encoding/format. Some movies you just know you want to see at the cinema even if you've bought the DVD just because you know you'll appreciate the scale more. I've never watched a movie with a good story and said "I wouldn't watch that if the visuals were better". YM[as a movie distributor]MV.
      - 13y ago
pauljburke 13y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morton's_fork http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morton's_fork
rbehrends 13y ago
What the... I find this highly amusing, as copyright holders have previously argued that high quality copies are also damaging. It's a moral rights [1] issue. While moral rights are essentially unheard of in the US (outside of the Visual Artists Rights Act), they play an important role in continental Europe with its much different theory of copyright. You may recall, for example, that Michael Ende sued to have the movie version of the Neverending Story pulled (while he lost, the judgement saw its share of criticism) and that the French courts sided with the estate of John Huston in not allowing the colorized version of Asphalt Jungle to be shown in France. Both were about the right of the author to the integrity of their work. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_rights
anigbrowl 13y ago
Both can be true. If I give away or sell cheaply a high-quality copy of your movie, people have less incentive to purchase an official copy. If I give away a low-quality copy, people know that the official DVD (or whatever) offers a higher quality. If I give away a low-quality copy of your unreleased movie, and that is the only copy extant, then people may decide the film itself is of low quality (ie bad lighting, sound, camerawork - things which are degraded by generational loss) and lower the reputation of the film before release. Context matters a lot. Ignoring it leads to a lot of fallacious arguments.

supersystem 13y ago

> He uploaded an unreleased movie that has not been released otherwise The movie was already released as SweBits only (with some exceptions) allowed scene releases. He was sentenced for the "uploading" to SweBits and not for releasing it onto the scene. It's fairly clear in the verdict.

bobobjorn 13y ago

It should also be put in the context that this movie had a revunue of about 1.4M USD in the cinema. And about 750K USD in dvd sales The numbers in general in the judgement are just made up and full of bad math. swedish: http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.540098/hittepasiffror-bakom-rekordskadestand http://www.idg.se/2.1085/1.540098/hittepasiffror-bakom-rekor...

acuozzo 13y ago

> Furthermore he got fined extra to due uploading the film in bad quality, thereby damaging reputation. Contrary Anecdote: The VCD Z Screener of The Matrix is terrible quality and was widely distributed prior to the release of the film, but didn't hurt the reputation of the film at all.